With fervor, with passion, with desire unleashed.
Firm and warm, deliberate and certain, her lips moved on his in a blatant incitement that exploded across his senses. That reached straight through his defenses and connected directly with the warrior-guardian inside.
The kiss lured, powerful and potent, laden with the promise of making his most immediate and urgent dream into reality, and he couldn’t not respond. Couldn’t not reach for her. He’d grasped her shoulders and drawn her to him, into his embrace and deeper into the kiss, before his whirling mind caught up with his actions.
And by then, it was far too late.
Too late to haul on any reins and pull back.
He cupped her nape and held her head steady as he took control and deepened the kiss. Her lips had parted, luring him in; he took full advantage, thrusting into the honeyed warmth to plunder and claim.
But she wasn’t about to surrender so easily.
Stoked by the ensuing duel, the exchange flared into a blaze of heat, hunger, and escalating need.
Her free hand traced his jaw, then trailed down to rest, palm down, on his chest; her fingers curled, and she clutched his shirt, braced her arm, and supported her weight as she leant over him the better to engage. The better to press the reality of her need upon him.
Not that he needed any instruction. His senses had expanded; even while engrossed in every nuance of the kiss, in the passionate duel it had become, he was acutely aware of every element of her—of the alluring feminine curves pressed against his side, of her legs brushing and threatening to tangle with his, of that evocatively clutching hand on his chest. Of the warmth of her breasts that hovered so tantalizing mere inches above him.
As his warrior self, that guardian who she alone truly touched, who she alone truly commanded, that inner self for whom protection of his woman—this woman—was a compulsion impossible to resist, vied with her for control, through the now-blazing kiss, through the insistent, persistent message of her lips, through her blatant caressing of his tongue with hers, he sensed her purpose.
One part of him—that warrior part—thought: Why argue? As long as he scripted the play, there would be no danger. Wasn’t this—her surrendering to him—what he wanted?
Against that, his rational, cautious side pushed him to slow their onward rush—long enough, at least, to determine that she really did intend them to thunder down this particular road.
That she understood where the road ended.
That seemed a sound idea on several fronts. With an effort, he drew his awareness from the kiss—and from where her busy fingers had opened his waistcoat and were currently engaged on a quest to slide every last button down the front of his shirt free.
Breaking from the kiss—battling his own urges, primitive and powerful as, when it came to her, they were, while simultaneously countering her and her always-flagrant incitements—wasn’t easy. In fact, it rated as one of the hardest things he’d ever done. But finally, he closed his hands about her shoulders, lifted her more fully across him, then held her high enough to press his head back into the pillows and force their lips apart.
Apparently accepting the change, she hung in his hold, her gaze falling to her fingers and a recalcitrant button. By relying on his support, she could use both hands and eagerly did—rushing ahead in her usual impetuous fashion. Further compounding his problems, she shifted and slid one sleek thigh, still screened by gold satin, thank heavens, across his hips, and swung to sit astride his waist.
He drew in a deep breath and fought to block the sensations of her warm weight across his stomach, of the firm pressure of her inner thighs gripping his hips, fought to block his awareness of the softness that lay at the apex of those widespread thighs… For him, that was a losing battle.
Clenching his jaw, battling the impulses she was inciting, the flames she was so deliberately stoking, in a voice that desire had roughened to a low growl, he managed to say, “Cleo—you do know where this leads, don’t you?”
She glanced briefly at his face; her eyes fleetingly touched his. “Yes. Of course.” Immediately, her attention shifted to tugging his shirt from the waistband of his breeches. Triumph infused her features as, succeeding, she hauled the halves of the shirt wide, baring his chest.
The look on her face as she stared down at what she’d uncovered—the open delight and blatant covetousness that gleamed in her eyes and stroked him like some invisible flame—made him literally groan.
From the brightening of her expression, the sound delighted her even more. Ignoring the tensing of his fingers on her upper arms, she eagerly spread her hands and set her palms and fingers to his chest. To skin that flamed at her touch, to heavy muscles, already hard, that her evocative caresses turned to iron.
The trail of her fingers over his skin shattered his concentration; the tripping of her fingertips through the wiry hair that adorned his chest vaporized his ability to think. The intensity of her gaze as she visually drank in his body, her focus as, like a cat, she sank her fingertips into the muscles she’d claimed, testing their resilience, felled his good intentions and left him awash on a sea of conflicting emotions, of clashing impulses.
He wanted her—beyond thought.
And it was perfectly obvious that she wanted him. In the same physical, sensual, earthy way.
He caught his breath as she found the flat disc of one nipple and artfully circled the sensitive skin. Closed his eyes as she threaded her slim fingers through the coarse hair on his chest and gently—very gently—tugged.
He opened his eyes, read the truth she made no effort to hide in her gloriously open expression, and knew without question in which direction she was—with her usual deliberate impatience—heading.
But he—they—had to get this right. He had to be sure they were walking the same path. He could assume…but he needed to know. With her, he needed to be certain.
From where such unexpected vulnerability sprang, he had no idea, but this was her—and she was different. She was the only woman he had ever wanted to—yearned to—wake up with after, in the stark light of morning.
When she sat back and, hands stilling, fingers splayed, on his chest, stared as if memorizing the landscape, the contours she’d conquered, he seized the moment. He steadied wits rendered giddy by barely leashed desire, hauled in a breath, and stated, “Just to be clear, if we go any further with this—you and me, together in this bed tonight—there can be only one possible outcome, and that’s marriage.”
Cleo raised her gaze to his face. It took an instant for her brain to shift from its preoccupation and replay his words. Her immediate impulse was to flash him a quick smile and say: Yes, of course. But something—instinct of a sort—made her hold both smile and words back.
She stared at his face, at his set expression. Simply agreeing—as if to a formal proposal—with a man like him…would mean that later, she would have no leverage when it came to discussing the aspects they would need to agree on to make any marriage between them work. Such as her work with the company. And her need for independence, at least to a point.
For her, tonight was supposed to be a step toward commitment—a vital step, but still just a step. Tonight wasn’t—or at least, hadn’t been—about any final and unalterable declaration, not on her part. Only after she was sure on all fronts…
Yet looking into his eyes, she could see that there was nothing flippant about his stance; he was in earnest and intent on getting an answer—the answer he wanted—from her. It struck her that, compared with the way she’d always heard such conversations went, they seemed to have switched roles. It was she who murmured, as seductively as she could, “We can discuss that later.”
Immediately, before he could tighten his grip on her shoulders, she gave in to her earlier impulse, swooped, and set her lips to the long, strong, lightly tanned column of his throat. She pressed a hot, damp, open-mouthed kiss to the warm skin, then licked up, then down to the hollow at the base of his throat. The
re, she laved, tasting his skin, feeling even such minor muscles tense at her touch.
He groaned softly, the sound plainly escaping despite his best efforts to stifle it.
A sense of power hummed beneath her skin as she drew back just enough to survey her playground.
“Damn it, woman!” His voice was a low, grating rumble. “Listen to me.”
The for-him-distinctly-weak command made her smile. “Why?” She was too absorbed, too intent, to meet his eyes. “Do you have any particular requests regarding what you would like me to do?”
“Yes—no! What?”
His confusion was music to her ears. “How about this?” She bent and, with her teeth, grazed the taut tendon at the side of his throat. His entire body tightened beneath her; excitement surged through her.
“And this?” She nipped, and various muscles spasmed, and his lower body jerked.
He sucked in a breath, then softly swore. He released her shoulders, swept his hands between them, and seized her wrists. Holding them together, he pushed her up and held her above him.
Balanced there, still straddling him, she looked down into his eyes—and saw something close to desperation in his bitter-chocolate gaze.
“No,” he gritted out, his eyes searching hers. “Answer me…please. Tell me you understand—that you accept.” He hesitated, his eyes locked with hers. For a second, he held back, then more quietly added, “Because for me, this—with you—is…it. Everything. The end of one life and the beginning of another.”
The sincerity in his eyes, the need in his tone, floored her. That she mattered that much to him, enough for a man of his ilk to find the words and the courage to tell her, to in unambiguous terms reveal to her how much he now saw his life as being dependent on her…with three brothers, with a father like hers, she knew the value of that.
She found a need of her own rising in response. Easing one wrist from his hold, she reached down and laid that hand, gentle and caressing, against his cheek. She hadn’t shifted her gaze from his eyes—couldn’t have even had she wished to. Drowning in his gaze, she found the right words waiting on the tip of her tongue. “I have no intention—none whatsoever—of backing away from this, from you. I harbor no thought of not committing to a life with you—marrying you is my shining goal.”
His eyes searched her face, and he seemed to breathe again.
She trapped his gaze and went on, “But if you feel that way—and I accept you do—then before we go further, I need to hear a declaration from you, too.”
Lost in his eyes, with her senses steeped in him, wrapped in the warm confines of the bed with the pale glow of the moon washing over them both, she looked into her heart, found her own vulnerability residing there, and forced herself to enunciate that critical fear—as he had. “I want nothing more desperately than to marry you—to be your wife and your partner in all things, to share a life and a future with you. But I need to know that you’ll accept me as I am in that role—that claiming you, and you claiming me, and us going forward thereafter hand in hand isn’t contingent on me changing. On me no longer being me—being the lynchpin at Hendon Shipping, being a lady more interested in managing an enterprise than in ton balls.”
She held his dark gaze and went on, “I know there’ll be adjustments on both sides—of course, there will. But if becoming Lady Cynster means I need to fundamentally alter who I am—”
“Hush.” He’d raised his free hand and laid a finger across her lips. In the poor light, his eyes seemed impossibly dark, his gaze impossibly intense. But his expression had eased, the hard angles and planes softening; his lips curved, his smile openly affectionate—openly loving—as he gazed up at her. “I don’t want you to change. The lady I want to take as my wife is you—exactly as you are at this moment. The lady who refused to run away and leave me to my fate in Black Lion Court. The lady who came to Morgan’s Lane tonight because she felt I might need her help.”
He paused, then, his voice low yet resonant, his eyes locked with hers, continued, “You, Cleo Hendon, exactly as you are, are my perfect other half—my perfect partner. You are the lady I’ve been waiting to meet, and now I’ve found you, I will never let you go. And for the record, to have you as my wife, having you by my side, in my life, is all I truly want or need. However you wish to fill your days, whatever undertaking makes you happy, whatever adventure next strikes your fancy, know one thing—as your husband, I will be at your back, supporting and protecting you every step of the way.”
She felt her lips curve in a smile that mirrored his. Her heart swelled, filled to overflowing. She let every last shield fall and, with complete confidence, let her joy at his words shine through. “Thank you. That is all and everything I needed to hear.” Their fates, their future, were well and truly sealed. Her eyes on his, she tipped her head, her brows arching in question. “So…as you mentioned adventure, there’s a particular area of personal interaction I’m rather keen on exploring. Might I tempt you to join me?”
He laughed, then grinned at her. “Nothing”—he reached up, cupped her nape, and drew her down until their lips were separated by less than an inch—“would please me more.” He closed the gap and kissed her—and she kissed him back—with passion, with desire, with a hunger too long held at bay.
That hunger roared, erupted, and surged through them; it seized and ruthlessly commanded them.
He rolled and brought her down to the silky coverlet.
She wrestled with his shirt and waistcoat; he obliged by rearing back on his knees, stripping his arms from the sleeves, then flinging the garments into the shadows.
Before he could do more than lower his arms, she halted him by the simple expedient of spreading her hands over the magnificence of his chest and breathing the words, “No—let me look.”
He stared at her, but although his hands fisted, he remained kneeling and allowed her to explore.
When, emboldened, she eased upward and, pulling her full skirts out from under and around her legs, came to her knees the better to reach, the better to caress, his lids fell, and he tipped his head back, his jaw setting, for all the world as if he was battling some ferocious force.
She suspected he was.
Smiling to herself, she bent her head, set her lips to his heated skin, and traced…
His muscles tensed even more. Without opening his eyes, he ground out, “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
After a moment during which she licked her way around one pearled nipple, she murmured, “I can’t see the point in rushing.”
In those words, delivered with sultry intent, Michael saw, if not his salvation, then at least a viable way forward. He straightened his head, raised his lids, looked at her, then opening his hands, he raised them, gently gripped her waist, and murmured, “If you want to take things slowly…”
Predictably intrigued, she drew her lips from where she’d been branding his chest and glanced up.
He swooped and covered her lips with his, took possession of her mouth, her tongue, her senses, and calling up every ounce of his long-established expertise, waltzed her—slowly—into the dance.
A dance of which he knew every step, every dip and whirl, every variation and version. Clinging to a slow, regimented beat was guaranteed to heighten awareness—his as well as hers—and would ratchet the inevitable tension by several degrees, draw out expectation and anticipation to an almost-excruciating extent, and finally, augment the intensity of the crucial moments by an order of magnitude.
But she’d wanted slow, and as they danced—as their hands swept and caressed to the steady beat, and their pulses pounded to the arousing rhythm, as their breaths came in increasingly shallow drafts, and he helped her from the froth of her skirt and petticoats and, later, still clinging to the slow beat, unlaced her light corset, then ultimately, drew her fine chemise off over her head—she clung to him, to their kisses and increasingly arousing caresses, to the moment, and to that unrelenting beat with a fervor and a determin
ation to match his own.
His partner.
Even in this.
Even when he eased her down against the pillows and feasted on her breasts.
Even when he trailed his knowing hands over her heated skin, watching the fine, creamy silk flush a delicate rose as he traced every curve and hollow.
Cleo had lost touch with the world beyond the bed. Lying naked amid the rumpled sheets with him hovering over her, a dark shadow so intrinsically male, she’d discovered a universe ruled by sensation. He’d led her there, shown her the way—opened her eyes and all her senses to the pleasures and delights.
To the heat that steadily grew to furnace-like proportions, to the glorious tension that tightened nerves until they leapt at even the most delicate touch. To the slow, driving compulsion that steadily grew within them both to eventually rule their minds.
Between them, desire burned and passion raged, yet their adherence to the steady beat that resonated in their hearts held strong, held firm, and let her, let them, absorb each moment of scintillating pleasure to the full before being forced by that compulsion to move on.
She’d wanted to take sufficient time so she would remember the way, but she now knew she would never forget. Every new sensation he offered her—from his attentions to the full, swollen mounds of her breasts to the long, sweeping caresses that had her arching against his hard, so very male body—seemed to etch itself into the bedrock of her psyche.
She’d never imagined lovemaking would involve such a close communion, that it would involve layers of herself and of him that lay far beneath the surface of their conscious minds—far deeper than speech or touch, more in the realm of feelings. She opened her senses, her mind, her soul, and embraced it all—embraced him as he patently embraced her.
They opened their hearts, and with thoughts exchanged via soft gasps and the touch of their gazes through the moonstruck shadows, through the stroking of their hands, reverent yet sure as they progressed along the route they’d chosen, they anchored the other deep within.
An Irresistible Alliance Page 26