My True Love

by Cheryl Holt

  "I'll just bet you do!"

  When she began to move, he initially thought she was advancing on him, but at the last moment she veered to the door. The key was in the lock, and before he could stop her, she turned it, then rushed to the window of the second-story room and tossed it out into the bushes below.

  "There, now," she said as she rounded on him, a smile of triumph on her face. "I'd say we have plenty of time to talk it out."

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  “Are you mad?'' He stomped after her, elbowing her aside so that he could lean into the window seat and peer out toward the dark ground. Foolishly he extended his hand as though hoping he might be able to will the key to magically float back up. As he knelt there, accepting that his opportunity for a graceful exit was gone, that he was dangerously trapped with her for the remainder of the night, he took several seconds to recall that this was exactly why he didn't engage in fights with women.

  There was no telling what outrageous emotional act a hysterical female might commit. And this one ... oh, this one ...

  He was beginning to grasp why a man might come to beat a woman. Right this instant he was so angry that he'd relish the chance to give her what-for! If she'd been a male, he wouldn't have hesitated, but he remained completely still, for if he moved a muscle, he'd very likely take her over his knee and give her the thorough paddling she deserved. Oh, my, but he was sorely tempted!

  Once he felt he could control himself, he turned toward her. She was standing several feet away, next to a small table, casually nibbling at food on a tray as though nothing untoward had just occurred.

  How dare she look so calm and composed after committing such an improvident exploit. His temper started roiling on a slow boil.

  His eyes glittered menacingly as he admonished her.' 'You're going to regret doing that."

  "I doubt it," she said saucily.

  He took one step toward her, then another. Since the occasion when they'd first met, she'd seemed docile and complacent, a woman who was happy, easily pleased, and effortlessly manipulated. When had she turned into this confrontational, confident, truculent virago? He didn't know who this woman was, but he needed to exercise some authority over her. She required a reminder of who was in charge.

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  Through gritted teeth, intending to cow her into submission, he said, "I am your husband."

  "No, you aren't," she said nastily. "We may have spoken the vows, but until you lie down with me, we remain two separate people."

  “I am your husband!'' he repeated as though he hadn't heard her. Moving forward like a predator, he brought them toe to toe, but to his dismay, she stood her ground, unmoved and unintimidated. "If I say that we will talk in the morning, that's when we will speak! And if I say we'll postpone our marital joining, then it's going to happen later!"

  "If you don't bed me tonight," she threatened, "I'll pack my belongings and go home in the morning."

  The possibility of her attempting to leave, of his having to prevent her, gave him pause. If she proceeded, how would he respond? Would he have the temerity to keep her and her maid bound and gagged for the duration? "You will not go anywhere unless I say that you may."

  "I'd like to see you try to stop me."

  "I can, and I will."

  "Well, aren't I just terrified?" she asked smartly, having the audacity to bat her eyelashes.

  How he'd like to wring her pretty neck! "You should be!"

  "What will you do if I refuse to come to heel when you order me about? Beat me? Lock me in my room? Make me go without supper?"

  "I'll ... I'll ... I'll ..." He sputtered for a chastisement that would sound plausible. Embarrassingly enough, he couldn't conceive of a single one. Evil treatment of women simply wasn't in his nature. Besides, he liked her too much to consider the possibility of doing something nefarious. Any remark he might make was an empty threat. He knew it; she did too.

  "That's what I thought," she said, shaking her head in disgust. "I've been ordered about by more brutal men than you, so if you hope to exercise some husbandly dominion over me, you'd better figure out what it will be in a hurry. Otherwise,

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  I will be gone like that"—she snapped her fingers—"with the sunrise."

  “Is that truly what you want?'' he queried. He had to squelch any desire to leave, so he struck at her most vulnerable spot. "Would you return to your father's care, where he can foist you off on that drunken sot you call fiancé?"

  "I'd rather be back in the duke's house, than living here like this. Where I'm an ... an invisible person who has no claim on you, no ties to you."

  "The duke might do anything to you!"

  "Then, I will escape again." Viciously she added, "I found you to help me the first time, didn't I? I shall find another, and if I'm lucky, he will be a man who enjoys my company."

  At the mention of the prospect that she might seek out another, Lucas became furious. She was his! In some buried section of his heart he suspected that she had been his forever, and the time had finally come to claim her for his own. No one else could ever have her.

  "You are mine!" he contended. "You belong to me and with me."

  "Then, show me your regard is genuine!"

  Penny held her breath, waiting, then waiting some more, to see what he would do.

  The night had been the longest, most horrible of her life. She'd been forced once more to examine herself and wonder, as she had continually for the past three years, why she was so unlovable.

  Why didn't anyone want her?

  As a girl she'd been so vainly proud. About her beauty. About her family's exalted status. About her role in society. About her marital prospects.

  Because of her arrogance, she'd been petty, overbearing, rude, and insensitive. She'd believed that every boon was exactly what she deserved. Her attitude had caused hurt and jealousy wherever she went, and she hadn't noticed what kinds of reactions her contemptible behavior stirred in others.

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  When her first engagement had ended so hideously, it had come as an enormous shock when reality began to rain down. No one liked her! She had no true friends! Those people who'd fluttered on the fringes, pretending camaraderie and affection, had merely put up with her, enduring her with a jaundiced eye. They had delighted in her downfall, and in retaliation they gleefully jabbed at her with hateful words and actions whenever they had the chance.

  In the lonely aftermath of abandonment by her acquaintances, she'd molded herself into a different woman from the one she'd been raised to be. She tried to exemplify every positive characteristic her peers did not. She'd grown attentive, concerned, involved. Loyal. Trustworthy. Likable. The kind of woman anyone would call friend.

  By the time she'd met Lucas, she'd evolved completely— or so she'd thought—and it had never occurred to her that she would still be so unappreciated. At his decision not to come to her bed, she felt as if all the soul searching, alterations, and personal changes had been for naught.

  How could he not love her?

  The first hour had passed in breathless anticipation, and she'd jumped at every noise, hearing his foot on the stair. The second hour she'd spent pacing to the window and looking out, trying to catch a glimpse of where he'd gone. The third hour had left her unbearably angry, and the fourth, miserably despondent.

  But with Lucas's reluctant appearance, and her opening to vent her frustrations, she was no longer despairing, for her words and his had totally focused her mind: She wanted Lucas; she had from the first night she'd laid eyes on him.

  A fierce battle was raging inside him. He coveted her, but some unknown factor kept him from admitting it and following through on his natural inclinations. She didn't know what was driving him to behave as he was, and she didn't want to know. Whatever the reason, she simply needed him to move beyond it, so that they could clear up her past and begin their future.

  The internal war continued unabated. His fists were cl
enched,

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  an angry muscle ticked in his jaw, and he was breathing hard, as though he'd just run a long race. Unfortunately for him, she was tired of tarrying while his mind came to terms with what his body so obviously craved.

  Deliberately she reached out and laid her hand on the lower part of his abdomen, and she was delighted to feel him instantly begin to swell against her palm. Clearly taunting him, she asked, "Are you a man or aren't you?"

  "What did you say?" he rasped as he snatched her hand away from his enlarging erection.

  "Colette and I were merely wondering...."

  She never had the occasion to finish her insult. With her crude gibe, she'd finally destroyed whatever personal dam had been restraining his wave of desire. His arms came around her, holding her tautly, so that their fronts intimately merged. Her breasts were mashed against his chest. His muscled legs cradled her thighs. Against her stomach he was boldly aroused, and his hands lowered to her bottom. He pulled her closer still, so that she could experience every throbbing inch of his erect male member. It seemed alive, and it strained ferociously to be released from his trousers.

  He stared her down, his dark eyes glittering angrily, daring her to virginally shrink away. With a resolve that easily matched his own, she returned his stare while she flexed forward, letting her hips meet the unyielding ridge of manly flesh.

  At her immodest gesture he tightened his grip and brazenly stroked his length across her, giving her a first clear hint of what was coming. "I am going to have you," he declared. "In every way that counts. Before the night is finished, you'll be begging me to stop."

  "I challenge you to try your best."

  "I don't want to hear any complaints after. Not one!"

  "No complaints. No regrets."

  With that, his mouth covered hers in a dangerous kiss. His fingers fisted in her long hair, using it as leverage to tip her head back, and he nipped, tasted, and sucked her, learning her

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  flavor and texture. His tongue came inside without hesitating, asking, or letting her become accustomed to the new sensation. He manipulated it back and forth in a carnal rhythm, making her stomach tickle and her breasts ache.

  As his lips and tongue worked savagely against her own, his hands were busy as well, caressing her back from her shoulders down to her hips, then up again, tracing the bumps on her spine, the width, the nip of her waist. He slipped inside the lapels of her robe, parting the front and pushing it away. The belt at the waist was knotted, so the fabric caught at her elbows, effectively trapping her arms. She wanted them free so that she could explore just as he was doing, but she couldn't get loose.

  While he had her partially immobilized, he took full advantage, roaming across her arms, her shoulders, her upper back. He abandoned her mouth in order to place kisses across her cheek, under her chin, to the sensitive area where her neck met her chest. In the exact spot where her pulse pounded so ominously, he sucked greedily, forcefully enough to leave marks on her creamy skin.

  Her body whirled with sensation. She felt hot and cold, ready to burst with laughter because she was so ecstatically happy. At the same time, she needed a few minutes of separation to calm her shattered nerves. The entire world had been reduced to this moment and this man. All she could hear, feel, taste, see, was him, but it wasn't enough. She wanted to touch every inch of him until there wasn't a speck she didn't know. If she could have figured out how, she'd have climbed beneath his skin to get so close that she could no longer tell where she ended and he began, but the binding at her waist kept her from going to all the places she truly wished to be.

  Ineffectively she fought to free her arms, the skirmish causing her mound to writhe against his swollen phallus, and the movement inflamed his already raging desire. No longer able to delay, he circled her small waist and lifted her off the floor, twirling her around and swinging her to the bed so fast that she became dizzy from the sudden rush. She landed hard enough

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  to bounce, and then he was on her, covering her. With his body. His hands. His mouth.

  His weight pushed her into the mattress, and her untutored body's first instinct was to move out from under the strange heaviness, but even as she attempted to escape, she endeavored to get nearer. Pinned down as she was by his legs and chest, the unusual confinement was one she hadn't known before, but her body instantly recognized it as something desperately essential.

  His lips were everywhere. Her forehead, eyes, hair. They dipped to her chest but never dropped as low as she craved them to go. Her breasts were screaming for attention, her nipples full and throbbing, and she perceived that he could ease some of the ache if he would only suck them, but he did not. He kept coming closer and closer, never quite stroking, grazing then moving on, biting and squeezing, hurting but not.

  A thigh wedged between her legs, applying pressure to her center, and suddenly she was riding him as though mounted on a horse. He drove against her, over and over in a maddening tempo, causing her interior parts to stretch and spread. She was light-headed, overheated, uncertain. Unable to continue. Unable to stop.

  Gradually the relentless ride eased, and he came over her until both his legs were between hers. She was splayed wide open. The sides of her robe did nothing to shield her tender inner thighs, and the rough fabric of his trousers rubbed eroti-cally, making her raw and sore and overly sensitized to his slightest motion.

  "Please, Lucas," she whimpered in a voice that sounded nothing like her own. "Please," she said again, and she wasn't certain for what she was begging. Her body was on fire, a teeming cauldron of unrelieved agony. Her skin felt too hot and too extended, her breasts swollen nearly to bursting, her fingers and toes tingled, her heart raced, and between her legs she was wet and dripping, the moisture soaking the fragile scrap of lace that covered her woman's core.

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  He toyed with the knot on her belt, pulled it apart, then yanked the robe off her arms. They were finally free and ready to explore every inch of his torso, but he wouldn't allow her movement, continuing to hold her down with his size and strength. He tugged at the straps of her chemise, baring her breasts. For the longest time he stared, his gaze so intent that she felt as though he were touching her with his eyes. The heat caused her nipples to inflate further, until they were hard, erect, and excruciatingly inflamed.

  With thumb and forefinger he reached for both breasts and pinched the raised nubs, and she hissed out a breath of shock and surprise. He growled low in his throat as he squeezed, shaped, and molded them. The application of pressure caused her to wriggle, seeking escape, but she was trapped, thighs spread, and she couldn't get away from the immeasurable torture.

  Leaning down, he licked her with his tongue. Licked again, then sucked the roughened tip far back into his mouth, causing her to rise up off the bed. He pushed her down, keeping her in place and working at her until she felt she just might go mad if he didn't end her distress.

  Just as she decided she couldn't bear another moment of the delicious misery, he pulled his lips away, but he continued to massage the rounded globes. Her nipples were wet, pouting, and she sighed with regret over the loss of his mouth.

  His eyes bright with lust, he said, "I am a big man. Bigger than most." He flexed at the V between her legs, and the ridge of his phallus lay balanced against her cleft. "I'm going to take you hard."

  "I don't care," she said mindlessly, shaking her head, panting, out of breath.

  "I'm going to mount you, then ride you until I have you squirming and pleading for mercy."

  "I'll never ask you to stop," she insisted.

  "It's going to hurt," he said. "The first time."

  "It doesn't matter."

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  His hand left her breast and drifted down her stomach, low, lower, and he pressed the heel against her, massaging it in a deep rhythm and causing her hips to respond. He dipped below the line of lace
, his fingers spread out across her sex. She was dripping with want, his hand slippery with the flood of her desire.

  "God, you are so ready for me." He pushed one finger up inside, then another and another, until three fingers were exploring and stretching. Not gentle or cautious, neither taking his time nor giving her ease, he learned his route through the secret cavity, and she closed her eyes against the invasion, intrigued and repelled at being manipulated in such a strange fashion.

  "Why are you doing that?" she asked.

  "I'm preparing my way."

  "It's painful," she said.

  "It will get worse," he said bluntly.

  Needing more room with which to maneuver, he grabbed the sheer panties in his fist and ripped them off, exposing her to his hot, steady gaze.

  Before she knew what he intended, he leaned down and burrowed his face in her woman's hair, sniffing, smelling, then tasting. Startling her, his tongue parted the hair and found her slick, sizzling center. He flicked against her, then began sucking. The fingers of one hand were still buried deep inside and stroking back and forth. The fingers of the other hand were at a breast and pressing a rigid nipple.

  The pleasure was so intense that she felt she just might burst into flames if something didn't happen soon. With a vague sort of cognition she discerned what was coming in her direction. Colette had been a frank and explicit teacher regarding the pleasurable side of joining with a man, but how could mere words have possibly prepared her?

  Surely this sensation was more than one human body could tolerate.

  She was spiraling higher, out of control, and finally, blessedly

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  he shoved her over the edge, and she shattered into a million pieces and flew across the universe. Time and reality had no meaning, and the agitation continued until she began to believe it would never cease.

  Gradually sanity returned. Her eyes fluttered open, and Lucas was hovering above her, his weight braced on one hand. The other fumbled with the front of his trousers, and then his phallus was between her legs, burning and insistent. She felt finished, sated, and couldn't imagine how there could possibly be more, although she knew there would be. From the tension in his shoulders, the sweat on his brow, the intensity of his regard, she understood he was ready in a manner she couldn't have understood before they'd started.