He pushed Zel onto her back and nibbled at her hipbone. His teeth traced a jagged line down her outer thigh, stopping at her knee to scan her long, sleek body.
“Damnation!”
She jerked to awareness, her voice fuzzy and languorous. “What is it?”
“Those cursed animals. I want to see you.”
Zel laughed shakily. “I think I’m glad you cannot.”
He ran his teeth down her shin. “Then I’ll just have to see you with my mouth.”
She sighed as his tongue slivered up her calf and he bit at the tender skin behind her knee.
Wolfgang continued his path up her inner thigh, licking and sucking until he could feel little shivers run up from her toes.
Giving her no opportunity for counter or retreat, he launched his tongue into the soft, moist cleft at the juncture of her legs, seeking the core of her.
Her thighs clamped hard over his ears. “What are you doing?”
“As much as I love your thighs about my head, you’re hurting my ears.” Wolfgang pushed open her legs and darted back in.
Pulling at his hair, she protested again. “Stop, you can’t do this.”
He lifted his head. “But this is the something different I promised. Relax and enjoy it. If you make me stop I have no idea what I’ll do next.”
Zel released his hair and he returned to his ministrations. She lay very still for several moments, then the low moaning started again. He flicked his tongue rapidly over the center point of her pleasure, and her moaning grew louder. He eased a finger into her tight channel.
“Stop! You’re killing me.” Her fingers threaded roughly through his hair.
Wolfgang raised his head, gulping down a few steadying breaths, leaving his finger embedded deep within her. “Are you all right?”
“If you stop, I think I’ll die.” She tugged his head back down.
He stroked her with finger and tongue until she writhed and bucked, crying out for him to stop with every other breath. But when he paused for even a second, she gripped his hair so hard his scalp ached. The tension built rapidly to a breaking point, he could feel it in her rigid thighs, arched back, and clenched fingers. With a sharp shriek the shudder of release finally washed over her. Stunned, he reached down to touch himself, unsure of whether or not he too had climaxed.
“Thank God!” Wolfgang gasped, relieved to find himself still hard, urgent to take her and make her his. He lifted himself over her and plunged in to the hilt. Fires of Hades! She was so tight and hot! He would die of pleasure.
“You’re hurting me.” Zel’s cry carried through the fog of exquisite agony surrounding him. She struggled against him.
“I’m sorry.” Wedging his hands beneath her, he held her close. “Keep still, the pain will ease,” he murmured into her ear, biting carefully on the lobe, then tracing the hollow of her cheek to her mouth. Gently he molded her lips to his, sharing the searing tenderness that so strangely tempered the passion. He had never been so lost in bliss, yet at the same time so aware of her, her pleasure and pain.
Zel began to relax. Wolfgang could feel the stiffness leave her muscles as the sweat broke out on his brow. A few more moments. He could hold out that long. Concentrating on the air entering and leaving his lungs, he kept himself motionless second after second. Finally he ran his hands up and down her back, starting to rotate his hips, ever so slowly, gradually stretching and opening her, tormenting himself. Her arms crept round his neck. He withdrew, hesitating, readying his reentry.
Jerking him back, she groaned. “No.”
Wolfgang stopped, wishing he could see her eyes.
“Is it over?” she whispered so softly, he barely made out the words.
“No. Am I hurting you?”
“Only when you stop.” Zel wrapped a leg around him, pinning him captive in the cradle of her hips.
“Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Clootie!” He dropped all pretense of control, pounding into her, stroke after stroke, trying to penetrate past her flesh, trying to bury himself so deep inside her that a part of him would never emerge. Zel cried out again and again, but he didn’t stop, knowing she had ventured far beyond ordinary pain into the same realm of torturous ecstasy he inhabited. His shout of triumphant release mingled with her culminating scream.
Energy drained from his body with his seed, and he collapsed onto her warm softness, breathing in time with her rapidly beating heart.
Zel’s voice rumbled faintly against his neck. “Am I still alive?”
Wolfgang chuckled. “I think so.” The chuckle expanded in his chest to a full, boisterous laugh. Zel drew in a sharp breath, but when he rolled to his back and rocked her against his chest the laugh overtook her until she was shaking with mirth. He pulled her head to his for a grateful kiss. “But I’m not so sure about me.”
“Grizelda Amadea Fleetwood Hardwicke is a screamer.”
“Sshh.” Zel listened for any sign of movement outside the bed curtains. “You’ll wake the animals.”
Wolfgang’s voice lowered as his tongue circled another toe. “Zel Hardwicke is a screamer.”
“I most certainly am not.” Zel tried to pull her foot away.
“Are too.” He grasped her ankle firmly, nibbling on the tiniest toe. “And I like it.”
“Well then …” She paused to think of a good rejoinder. “Wolfgang John Wesley Hardwicke, Earl Northcliffe, is a toe sucker.”
He released the toe, laughing deeply. “Aye, that I am.” He gently bit her big toe. “But only if the toes are wickedly long and graceful and attached to the body of the new Countess Northcliffe.”
“Have I been insulted? All you can find to praise is my toes.” She pulled away, jerking the sheet up to her shoulders.
Wolfgang pushed the bed curtains slightly open, allowing in a ray of moonlight. Yanking the sheet down, he rolled her onto her back. “How can I praise what you hide?” He ran a finger slowly up her leg, over her hip and across her stomach. “Besides I can’t decide what I like best.” The finger circled her breast, as his warm, solid body slid over her. “Much as I admire your toes, they aren’t in the running with your breasts and thighs.” He pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear and licked the lobe. “But if I had to choose, I must admit a partiality to elfin ears.” His tongue moved painstakingly up the outer shell. “These little points at the top of yours utterly demolish my self-control.”
Her answering laugh disappeared into his kiss as he wrapped his arms about her, clasping her so tightly she feared her ribs would crack. If they did, it wouldn’t matter a bit, as she planned to never leave his fierce embrace.
Zel planted kisses along his neck and he gradually loosened his hold, carrying her with him as he rolled to his back.
She pushed up on her elbow, her fingers tracing lazy circles around his chest, savoring the contrasting textures of crisp hair and soft skin overlaying steely muscle. He choked in a breath when her nail caught his tiny nipple. She giggled, pausing in her exploration. “It’s funny how this is so small but it hardens like mine does.”
Wolfgang took her hand, sucking on the fingertips. “Are you laughing at me again?”
“No.” She thought through the act they had just completed. “But you must admit making love is a very strange thing.”
“Strange?”
“Strange.” She laughed again. “And funny.”
“Damnation and the devil’s tail, woman! You laugh at my body, then you laugh at my sexual performance.” He ran a finger up her spine. “Do you wish to completely unman me?”
Zel wiggled against him, her body wedged to his hard, unyielding form. “Even if that were my aim, it’s not working. I can feel something growing.”
Wolfgang groaned, but his answering laughter permeated his voice. “Already?”
“Is it too soon?” She wiggled more.
“No, my little glutton, it’s not too soon.” He ran his hands down her back, cupping her bottom. “So, you still think it’s funny?”
> Sighing, she nipped at his shoulder. “From the ridiculous comes the sublime.”
“I don’t know about the ridiculous.” Wolfgang rubbed against her belly. “But we could aspire to the sublime, reach for that ultimate shiver.”
Zel pushed into the long-fingered hand that had drifted between her legs, smiling at the rumble coming from his chest. “A shiver of the, which would it be, fourth kind?” With a bow of her back, she moved her mouth to his chest, nuzzling and seeking. Catching that tiny nipple between her lips, she teased it with her tongue, fascinated again by the reaction, wondering if he felt the little strings vibrating from the hardened tip to the juncture of his thighs. His moan told her he felt something akin to that delicate torture.
Arching her back more, she ran a curious hand down his ridged chest and flat stomach, skirting about the part she had earlier grasped so brazenly. His fingers pushed into her, stretching her, making her ready for the exquisite entry to come. The ache inside burned nigh to unbearable, heightened by the tenderness of flesh newly tested and stimulated.
She searched what she could reach of Wolfgang’s hips and thighs and with a sigh slipped her hand between their bodies, returning to the object of her most avid curiosity. But this time she wouldn’t squeeze him like a milkmaid at an udder. Instead she caressed him with a feather soft touch.
“Satan’s small clothes!”
“Am I still being too rough? It’s such a strange mixture of hard and soft.” Zel whispered into his shoulder. “I’m not sure how to go about touching it.”
“You’re doing fine.” His voice sounded low, raspy, as he ran his free hand through her hair, pulling her face back to his. “Only, you’re calling me strange again.”
“I’m sor—” His lips angled and pressed into hers. When his tongue caught hers, she realized the salty taste she had noticed on his tongue was her. She squirmed against his hand until his thumb rested on the amazingly sensitive little button of skin. That newly familiar tightening began deep in her abdomen, pulling at her until she felt drawn and taut as the strings of her pianoforte, and still he stroked her.
“Now,” Zel breathed, releasing him and rolling to her back to give him access to her. “I want you to be part of me again.”
Wolfgang wound an arm about her. “Then where are you going?” Not waiting for an answer, he drew her over his chest and glided into her slowly and smoothly. “Have you never wished to ride astride?”
The grip on her insides tightened as she pushed nearly upright, bracing herself, with hands splayed on his chest. “I think I like this.” She moved her hips in a circular motion, grinning at his groan. “Yes, Mr. Centaur, I like this a lot.”
“I could get quite used to this view.” His hands edged up her sides to weigh her breasts in his palms, his thumbs teasing her erect nipples, his eyes absorbing her. “You have a perfect seat, ma’am, among other things. Can you go the distance?”
“Try me.”
“Your wish is my command, Countess.” He started out seductively slow, an easy walk along a path in a well-tended park. Yet as she adjusted to his smooth movements adding a few twists of her own, he shifted to a trot.
“Lord.” Zel gasped, her whole insides clenched as if in the grasp of a giant fist. A fist that kept squeezing her, shaking her, pulling her away from the safety of the trail.
“Better than—” he muttered between quickening breaths, “—sidesaddle?”
Rational speech left her and she could only nod as Wolfgang moved into a canter, slapping her thighs softly against his chest and sides. He hauled her to his chest, claiming her lips with the same force he claimed the rest of her body.
“God, Wolf.” Zel breathed into his mouth as they broke into a full gallop and his fingers slipped between them. She felt her body stumble and shake as she neared the precipice toward which this mad ride was headed.
“Now. With me,” he whispered, harsh, ragged, pulling her screeching over the edge, dashing her senseless, shattering bone, nerve, and sinew.
“Good … Lord, Wolf.” Zel slumped against him, conscious only of the rhythmic pulsing fanning from her core. She lay still, unable to move, unwilling to break their joining, contact more intimate than anything she would have imagined possible just days ago, leaving her open and vulnerable yet warm and content.
As Wolfgang’s breathing slowly returned to normal, his unsteady hand threaded through her hair. “Centaurs are immortal, Gamine, but not deity.”
She stirred, tickled by his chest hairs against her cheek. “What are you talking of now, you madman?”
“More insults! You call me god. You call me centaur. Now you call me madman.” He tugged on her ear, playfully pinching the tip. “Which is it, elf?”
“I think you are a half-mad centaur.” Zel laughed into his neck. “But if this gets any better, I fear I may begin to worship at your feet.”
“Do you think we will ever get vouchers for Almack’s?” Wolfgang watched Zel’s shoulders jerk as he broke the silence.
Her eyes were wide when she looked up from the thin-sliced beef she’d been gradually slipping to the waiting hound. “Almack’s?” She coughed. “Us?”
“Yes, us.” He gestured to her plate. “Remus can go to the kitchen and get his own food. We’d do that stuffy, old assembly hall some good.”
She smiled shyly. “Who would agree to sponsor us?”
“Lady Cowper owes me a favor.” He grinned broadly before bathing a piece of crisp carrot in the tangy sauce and popping it into his mouth. “Plus she’ll like you.”
“I don’t know.” Lowering her eyes, she pushed a few peas around her plate. “We should let the gossip die down first. There is no hurry.” She stabbed one of the elusive vegetables. “Besides, I am a little frightened to go.”
“Frightened? Of Almack’s?” He pushed back his chair, and in two strides shoved Remus aside and knelt beside her. “You needn’t be afraid of anything, Gamine. Together we can brave whatever the ton throws our way.”
“I am not as brave as you.”
“I disagree. I think you’re fearless.”
Zel looked at her hands. “I fear too many things.”
He scanned her face, surprised at her confession. “You don’t fear me, do you?”
She twisted away from him. “No, but it’s so … awkward, facing you over the dinner table.” Her fingers tensed around her fork. “After what we have done … to each other.”
“Then perhaps in future we should arise earlier.” Wolfgang eased the fork from her grip, rubbing her long slender fingers. “Then we can face each other over the breakfast table.”
Zel’s voice was tiny and low. “That won’t help.”
“I know what will.” He clasped her hand and stood, pulling her from the table. “Let’s get out of here. You haven’t even seen the bay yet.”
Unresisting, she followed him into the hall. “I can smell the sea air. How close are we?”
“It’s just over the rise at the back of the house.” Taking her elbow, he guided her down the hall and through a rear door. “We’ll take the road winding through the tall hedgerow over there.” He gestured toward a trail starting at the stables.
They walked in silence up the hill. Before reaching the crest, he turned her back toward the house. “I’ve always loved this place. Even as a child when I visited my grandfather here, I felt I belonged.” He slipped his arm about her waist. “I never liked the old man, but Cliffehaven, with its scrambled architecture and the wild beauty of its setting, I always felt should be mine.”
“It looks almost alive, glowing in the last rays of the sun.” Zel smiled at him. “It is a stirring sight.”
Wolfgang pulled her into him, nestling her backside against him, feeling that odd childhood sense of belonging expand to include her. Breathing in deeply, he tried to contain the sudden shakiness in his chest, twisting the sigh into a little chuckle. “Ah, it is stirring.” He turned her to face him. “But no more stirring than what I hold in my arms.”
Her blush crept up her neck, spreading over her face.
“You’re such an innocent.” Wolfgang grazed her red cheeks with his knuckles.
“But I’m not anymore.”
“You’ll always retain that intriguing mix of naive miss and siren.” He took her pointed elfin chin in his hand, looking deeply into her tip-tilted eyes. “I’ll still be able to make you blush when you are five and seventy.” He kissed her hard and quick. “And you’ll still make me feel like a randy youth of twenty, when I should have one foot in the grave.
“Come, I’ll show you the ocean before the sun is gone.” Wolfgang whirled her about and towed her at a run to the top of the hill.
Zel stopped, breathing in gulps, surveying the high cliffs and rocky beach below. “It’s splendid.”
“There’s a path down to the beach we can take another time, when we have more light.” He slipped his arm around her, smiling broadly when she rested her head against his shoulder.
Wolfgang stood quietly, watching the waves crash against the rocky shore while the brisk wind whipped about their clothing and hair. He inhaled deeply of the mixed scent of sea air and spice. “You always smell of gingerbread, fresh out of the oven, but that comforting scent has become far more erotic to me than roses or lavender ever could.”
A gust of wind threw her voice about his ears. “It’s just my hair soap. I’m glad you like it.” She sighed, wedging in tight against his chest, twining her arm about his waist. “Will your chef be insulted we left dinner so soon?”
“Mr. Nah has a pretty thick skin, but what did you think of his concoction?”
“I have never had anything like it before. But I liked it.” Zel huddled closer. “We should have served it at our wedding dinner. It would have been a nice surprise.”
“More than a surprise to some. Not all have an adventurous palate, Gamine. In fact, the English are notoriously unwilling to accept surprises at their dinner tables. Satan’s sweetmeats! I didn’t think of it, but one bite and mother and sister would never wish to visit again.” Wolfgang sighed, brushing his cheek against her hair. “I’m glad that bizarre crew is gone. If ever we entertain it must be in secret. Unless every relative but Grandmama and your aunt are on a far isle of Scotland.”
The Wedding Chase Page 29