Her eyes swam with unshed tears, and her slender throat convulsed with emotion. “Then don’t say it as wretched, faithless Prince Hamlet, for I’ve no intention of falling from a tree and drowning myself. Say it for yourself.”
“I love you, Lucia,” he said, the words so simple and yet meaning so much. “I love you.”
“You are certain?” she asked, her voice no more than a breathless, broken whisper. “That you love me?”
“Never more certain of anything in my life,” he said firmly, not wanting to leave any doubt. “I love you, Lucia.”
She tried to smile as a single tear escaped to slide down her cheek and along her jaw. “And I love you, Rivers. I’m daft, I’m mad, I’m a fool to speak such a thing aloud, but—”
“You’re not,” he said. “Not at all.”
Before she could speak again, he tipped her back into the crook of his arm and kissed her, a kiss blistering with all the passion he’d been keeping bottled up within himself for these last weeks. He had his answer. He loved her, yes, but better, infinitely better, to learn that she loved him. It was all that mattered to him now, and all he’d left to do was to show her how much she meant to him, and how much he wanted her.
But with that handful of words, she was his now. Her full, ripe mouth was his to kiss and taste and relish as much as he wanted. Her round, full breasts would finally fill his hands as he’d so often imagined, her lithe legs would part for him, her body would rejoice with his as they truly made the love they’d just declared.
He couldn’t mistake her hunger as she kissed him, her little tongue darting against his as she made small happy moans of excitement that he felt rather than heard, vibrating between their mouths. Her hands were everywhere, blindly sliding under his coat and waistcoat and up along his back to his shoulders and down again over his spine, as if striving to learn every bit of his body.
It excited him, knowing her desire matched his. What little restraint he still possessed was rapidly fraying as she began to open the long row of buttons on his waistcoat, her fingers brushing against his chest. Impatiently he growled, and brushed one of her hands aside and cupped her breast, her flesh warm above the scarlet silk. Deftly he pulled the already-low neckline down farther, freeing both her breasts from the stiff boning of her stays, and immediately her nipples tightened against his palms. She shuddered, arching into his caress with a hissing small sigh of pleasure, and he kissed her again with unapologetic hunger, marking her as his.
He had to get her to the bed, only a few steps away. His thoughts had narrowed to one goal, desire pounding through his blood and more especially in his cock. She was so small that it was nothing for him to sweep her from her feet and into his arms and across the carpet.
But before he could set her down again, she had wriggled free of his embrace, stronger than he’d guessed. Now she was backing away, determined to separate herself from him. She stopped just out of his reach, tantalizing him, her lips parted and swollen from his kisses, her eyes wild. Although she pulled her shift back over her breasts, her aroused nipples showed through the thin linen in a way that was almost more enticing than if they’d still been bared.
“What the devil?” he asked roughly, stunned. She could not change her mind, not now, not after they’d come this far, yet the gentleman that he’d been bred to be knew that he could not force her against her will. “Lucia, please, you can’t mean—”
“Are you certain no one can see us from here?” she asked breathlessly, tossing her hair back from her forehead. “Are you sure of it?”
“It’s impossible,” he said, breathing hard. “No one can, and no one will.”
“Very well.” She raised her chin, almost defiantly, and yanked the carefully arranged pins from her hair. She raked her fingers through the heavy waves, breaking the stiffened curls that Sally had labored so to create, and shook her now-freed hair back over her shoulders like a wild, tousled mane.
“I love you, Rivers,” she said, her voice shaking, “and will love you, here, with only the heavens as witness. But I’ll come to you without shame, without artifice, without acting, without these fine things that you’ve bought me.”
“There’s no shame between us,” he said firmly. “Whatever I’ve bought for you was meant as a gift, not an obligation.”
“That’s not what I mean, Rivers.” She pulled the pins that closed her bodice from the silk and shoved the gown from her shoulders, leaving her standing before him in her stays, shift, and petticoats.
“Lucia, please.” He reached out his hand to her and she backed away, shaking her head.
She kicked off her slippers as she quickly untied the knot on her petticoats and her hoops as well. She let them fall around her ankles and stepped free in her stockinged feet, her gaze never leaving Rivers’s face. Finally she reached behind her and undid the knot that closed her stays, pulling apart the lacings until she could work the stays over her head and cast them aside as well.
In silence, she now stood shamelessly, even proudly, before him in only her shift and stockings, her head held high and her hair streaming behind her. Her breathing was rapid from both the exertion of undressing and, as he watched her breasts rise and fall, excitement as well. Her knee-length linen shift was so fine as to be nearly translucent, with the dark triangle of hair at the top of her thighs a shadowy temptation. There in the moonlight, she’d never been more beautiful to him, nor more desirable.
Yet still she purposefully stayed out of his reach, and something about her expression warned him not to cross the invisible barrier she’d put up between them.
“Love me as I am, Rivers,” she said, her voice raw with emotion. “Here, now. Love me and want me as Lucia Maria di Rossi, and nothing else.”
He nodded, accepting, and understanding, too. He thought of how she’d worried that she’d lose herself through acting, that somehow the Mrs. Willow that they’d created together had come to mean more to him than she herself. She was wrong, achingly wrong, but words alone wouldn’t prove it to her.
She’d said she wished to come to him free of any artifice, and she could not have chosen a braver way to make her point, standing here before him in only her shift. If this was some kind of challenge, some kind of dare to prove he truly loved her, then by God he would match it. He would not fail her now.
With his gaze still locked with hers, he pulled his arms from his coat and tossed it aside, followed in rapid succession by his waistcoat, his neck cloth and shirt, his buckled shoes and stockings. All that was left now was his breeches. He liked the feel of the warm evening breeze across his bare skin, the freedom of it shared with her. In all the times he’d come here, he’d never once stood on the roof this close to naked; perhaps all this time he’d been waiting to share the experience with Lucia. She’d asked him to feel, not to think, and there couldn’t be anything less intellectual than standing bare-chested here beneath the moon.
Briefly her gaze flicked downward, over that bare chest to the undeniable bulge in his breeches. She didn’t regard him with the coy appraisal that her cousin would have shown, but rather looked with unabashed interest, with eagerness, with desire, which only made his cock swell harder still.
“I’ll take you as you are, Lucia.” He raised his voice to proclaim to the world, not caring who heard him so long as she did. “I’ll take you if you’ll do the same, and take me as you see me. Forget everything else, and take me only as a man. Your man tonight, Lucia, if you’ll have me.”
She didn’t answer, and for an appallingly long moment he wondered if he’d misread her. Then she swept her hair back over one shoulder, lowering her chin and granting him the merest beginning of a smile, and he knew he hadn’t.
“You know I will,” she said softly. “Now untie your hair.”
“My hair,” he repeated, mystified. He wore his hair in a tidy queue, the way most gentlemen did, wrapped and tied with black ribbon by Rooke each morning; he was never seen without it. He’d be more comfortable with
out his shirt than with his hair untied, but if she wished it that way, then he’d do it. He reached up to the back of his neck and fumbled with the knot, silently cursing Rooke for being so thorough. Finally he undid the ribbon and raked his fingers through his hair.
“There,” he said. “Is that what you wished?”
“It is,” she said, her voice husky. “Your hair is like a mane of gold. Il mio grande leone d’oro! You are like a great golden lion, the fiercest, bravest king of all the wild beasts.”
He smiled, thinking of how this was odd and yet how very Lucia, and ridiculously arousing, too. Because of her, he did feel like a wild beast, barely able to keep himself in check. “If I am a lion, does that make you my lioness?”
She didn’t answer, but reached down and seized the hem of her shift, and in one swift motion swept it over her head, leaving her only in her stockings and garters. With her body bathed in moonlight, she was more beautiful, more perfect, more enticing than he’d ever imagined.
She’d tormented him long enough. She might not be able to dance, but she certainly was a devilishly seductive Di Rossi, through and through. He tore away the buttons on his fall and shoved his breeches down and kicked them aside. Two could play this game—it was, in fact, much better if two did—and he was glad to see how her eyes widened at the sight of how flagrantly hard she’d made him.
This time when he lifted her from her feet and caught her in his arms, she didn’t struggle, but instead melted against him with a willingness that inflamed him further. To have her naked against him like this, her velvety skin impossibly soft and as heated as his own, sharpened his lust even more.
Swiftly he carried her to the bed, and with one arm shoved aside the pillows. Not bothering to turn back the counterpane, he dropped her onto the bed. She stretched sensually with her dark hair fanned around her face, her body ivory-pale against the dark blue, and obviously delighting in the feel of the silk velvet beneath her. She smiled up at him, her eyes heavy-lidded and her white teeth pressing lightly into her lower lip, and held her arms up to him.
He lay beside her, and instantly rolled on top of her, kissing her hungrily. Mindful of how much larger he was than she, he braced most of his weight on his arms, but let himself glory in the feel of her body against his, how her breasts crushed softly against his chest and how at once she’d parted her legs for him to settle more comfortably between them. She’d called him her lion, and it was taking all his willpower not to ravage and devour her.
He slipped down to find one of her breasts, her nipples already hard from the evening air and from arousal. Her breasts enchanted him, not large in size, yet irresistibly lush to touch. Gently he sucked on the tender flesh, laving and teasing the tight little berry with his tongue, and she murmured wordless sounds of rising excitement as she arched wantonly beneath him, clearly wanting more.
Her hands roamed freely across his back, from his shoulders to his buttocks and back again. He suckled harder on her breast, grazing the nipple with the edges of his teeth, and in response she purred against his shoulder. Her fingers dug into his upper back, her nails sharp enough to make him grunt.
“Wicked,” he growled, coming up to kiss her again, and she chuckled into his mouth. Why in blazes had he waited so long, he wondered as he delved deep into the wet sweetness of her kiss. What possible, ridiculous scruple could have been worth them waiting for this?
Her legs were shifting restlessly beneath him, rubbing against his cock to tantalize him, and driving him past the point of restraint. His blood was pounding in his ears, driving him on, and he breathed deep of the heady scent of her arousal. He reached down between her parted legs and stroked her lightly and she tensed and arched against him, her hips bobbing in the air and wordlessly begging for more. He understood that tension, because he was feeling it, too, where the fever of desire made even the slightest caress almost unbearable. His cock was heavy and engorged with it. Yet she was soft where he was hard, her sex wet and swollen against his hand and her honey-sweet juices slick on his fingers—enough to drive him mad with lust.
Easing his finger between her nether lips, he rubbed and pressed the little bud at the top of her opening to build her need. She was moaning now in rhythm with his strokes, and he loved how she wasn’t shy about the primal sounds she made, without any missishness. He dipped lower, deeper, easing a single finger within her to press deeply into her slick passage and tease her from within. In turn she clenched tight around his finger even as her nails clawed over his back at the delicious intrusion, even as her hips rose greedily to seek more.
“Shush, shush,” he whispered hoarsely. “My wild little lioness. You’re so hot, you’ll scorch me.”
She was panting now in breathy little catches, and she clutched at his shoulders as if she’d never let go. Her body was taut and feverish against him, and even in the moonlight he could see the flush that stained her cheeks and chest.
He pushed his finger deeper, curling against the front of her passage, and she rewarded him with a soft cry that nearly undid him. She was so tight, so small, so hot that all he could think of was how much he wanted to bury himself deep inside her.
“Please, Rivers,” Lucia begged in a ragged whisper. “Oh, please, please.”
And yet as she writhed beneath him, Lucia was too overwhelmed to be certain what it was she begged for. For more of the unbelievable pleasure he was drawing from her body, for more of the intimacy that came with his touch, for more of this passion: oh, yes, she wanted more of all that. But she sensed there was more than that, an intangible, glorious more that was maddeningly just beyond her reach.
“Please, Rivers,” she gasped again, her breath tight in her chest and her entire body on edge.
“Yes,” he said, as if he’d been waiting to grant her wish. His face was strained with concentration as he shifted over her, settling between her legs, and impatiently he shook his untied hair back from his face. With his palms on her knees, he pushed her legs apart to open her farther. He stroked her again, and she shuddered and arched against him, seeking more of his marvelous touch.
But this time it wasn’t his finger pushing into her, but something blunter and larger, much larger. She looked down between her knees and saw his cock in his hand, so much larger and more rigid than it had appeared earlier, with the head an angry purple-red. She could not possibly take such a thing into her body, and frantically she tried to pull back and away, up against the mounded pillows.
“You’re so small,” he said, gritting his teeth as he stated the obvious, and she whimpered with agreement. He drew back and wetted the head of his cock with his spittle to ease his way. He held her steady and lodged the head between her lips, and flexed his hips. He pushed, and pushed again. He was stretching her wide and it hurt, forcing her to accommodate him in a way she’d never imagined.
“Relax, Lucia,” he said. “Be easy, love, and let me in.”
She wasn’t relaxed. She was holding her breath, every muscle tense, and trembling from the effort.
“Here,” he said, hooking his arms beneath her knees. “That should help.”
He nipped the inside of her knee, right above her garter, and stupidly she focused on how the red silk ribbon had come untied, the crumpled end trailing along the side of her leg.
He pushed again, and again, relentlessly making way until suddenly he was buried deep inside her, their bodies touching. He paused, breathing hard. She gasped at the unfamiliar pressure and the fullness of him inside her, and yet the first sharp pain was already fading. It was curious to hold him like this inside her and feel him pulsing within her passage. She’d feared she could not accommodate him, and yet it seemed somehow they were exactly the right size for each other. She’d always heard how a man possessed a woman, but she felt as if she’d possessed him instead, taking him so intimately deep inside her body.
Above her his handsome face sheened with sweat as he leaned down to kiss her, and once again he began to move his hips, slowly pulling
back and then shoving into her again.
She liked having the fullness of him inside her, of how he could stroke her even more deeply with his shaft than with his finger. Instinctively she began to move with him, rocking her hips to meet his, and the tension she’d felt before began to return, coiling deep in her belly.
“Damnation, Lucia, but you’re good,” he growled, his head bowed over hers and his eyes squeezed shut. “I should go slower, but I can’t stop, you’re that good.”
“I don’t want you to stop,” she whispered, her hands roaming along the length of his back. “This is what I want, Rivers.”
“Then you’ll have all of it, love.” He released her knees, and she curled her legs over his back to take him deeper, giving an extra wriggle to her hips as she did. He swore some sort of dark, muddled oath, and kissed her again.
“I won’t last much longer if you keep doing that,” he said raggedly. “Are you close?”
She wasn’t sure what he meant. They were as close as two people could be, joined together as they were, and instead of answering she kissed him again.
He was moving more forcefully now, his breathing harsh and his expression fixed. He thrust with a determined purpose and power that sent waves of sensation rippling through her, clear to the soles of her feet, and she felt her belly grow unbearably tight around him.
She struggled to breathe, her heart drumming in her ears. He lifted himself slightly and stroked her again where they were joined, relentless. She was so sensitive there that she cried out, but he did not back away, and in a rush she felt all the tension crash apart, convulsing around him in breaking waves that were so sublime she cried out again with the wonder and joy of it.
Rivers continued to drive into her, his thrusts frenzied with urgency and so hard that he shoved her across the bed. As her own pleasure began to subside, she watched him find his, contracting and jerking with the power of it, and his guttural shout when he spent truly was worthy of the lion she’d called him. Gasping, he collapsed over her, and let the last shudders vibrate between them.
A Reckless Desire Page 19