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by Crystal

  He smiled and gave her another quick kiss just as the carriage rounded the front entrance of the inn. “It was music to my ears and a reminder that you belong to me now.”

  “Don’t sound so barbaric.” She pinned her braid in a bun. “I belong to myself.”

  “If you say so.” This time when he leaned in for a third kiss, she pulled back.

  “George, there are people outside. What should they think with you kissing me in full daylight for all to see?”

  “That we are madly in love.” He kissed her anyway and moved to the opposite bench. “I nearly forgot—” He reached into his vest pocket. “—a token for our upcoming union.”

  The small ring of gold was warm from being tucked close to his heart. He took her hand when she seemed transfixed on the object he held.

  “But we’re not yet married.”

  “In our hearts we most certainly are.”

  He slipped the ring around the third finger. It fit perfectly. Besides, the ring was necessary to avoid questions and speculation from anyone at the inn.

  She raised her hand so the shaft of sunlight coming through the window illuminated the ring. Tears filled her eyes as she looked at the simple band about her finger. “It’s so pretty. And it’s my favorite color. Oh, George, this is undeniably the most romantic moment we’ve ever had.”

  “I knew it was your favorite color when I searched for it. They call it Russian gold.”

  “It’s perfect.” She threw herself at him and gave him a tight hug. “Thank you so much.”

  “If that’s to be your reaction for a simple gold ring, then I will shower you in jewels once we are married.”

  “You needn’t do anything so extravagant.” She tied a bonnet under her chin, hiding her disarrayed hair, then looked at her ring again with a contented sigh.

  “Are you ready, then, to make your first appearance as the Countess of Carleton?”

  Her smile could light a dark room. It was so genuine and exactly what he wanted to see.

  “Absolutely. I’ve been waiting for this moment for years.”

  She took his hand and let him lead the way down the carriage and through the doors of the inn. His footman had arrived yesterday and made arrangements for their stay.

  When they were finally alone in their own room, Kate threw her bonnet and cloak on a green velvet armchair sitting beside the door. “Whatever shall we do to amuse ourselves for the next few hours?” she asked.

  He stepped toward her and grasped her lightly about the waist. “I can think of a few things to keep us well amused for the remainder of the day.”

  “Well,” she said with a glance over her shoulder at the bed behind them, “there is some unfinished business from the carriage.”

  That was invitation enough for him. He reached for the neat row of buttons on her bodice. “You’re sure you don’t want to wait for our wedding night?”

  “In a sense, we are already married and committed to each other since we are running off to Gretna Green.” She twisted the ring on her finger. “I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.”

  George lay claim to her mouth and bent her back over his arm as their tongues twined. Kate’s hands ran through his hair, and she emitted little panting noises between each thrust of his tongue. He made quick work in removing her corset and the ties holding the thin skirt at her hips. While he left her chemise in place, the rest of her clothes fell in a heap at their feet.

  Never breaking their kiss, he scooped Kate up into his arms and walked them toward the bed. He placed her at the head of the mattress amidst the stack of twilled decorative pillows and followed her down. His hand was caressing her from temple to cheek, and to the smooth arch of her neck.

  Lying on his side, head resting against his curled fist, he looked over the soft, lean form of the woman he loved. The curve of her breast could be clearly made out, the tip was distended beneath the cambric hiding her from his voracious gaze. He touched the flare of her hip as she rolled toward him on her side.

  Opening her eyes, she stared at him with those big pools of blue.

  “I’m going to make love to you, darling.” His voice was thick with his mounting need to have her.

  She touched the side of his face, running her fingers over the stubble that had grown over the night. She kissed his nose, his mouth, his cheeks with gentle pecks of her lips, all the while releasing the buttons on his waistcoat. “You’ll treat me as your wife this morning.” Going up on his knees next to her, he shucked off the weighty material as Kate pulled his shirt from his breeches. He aided her in pulling that over his head, too.

  When he was stripped of half his clothes, she kneeled in front of him and explored his chest with a curious touch. Her finger twirled around one areola, and her nail traced a path between his chest and lower to the dark trail of hair that disappeared beneath his breeches. He closed his eyes, clenched his fists at his side, and prayed for patience. He wanted to lay claim to her, but she was new to this type of intimacy, and if she wanted to explore and learn his body as he intended to do with hers, he’d give her a few moments before he took control. They did have a lifetime ahead of them.

  The back of her hand rose again to caress him from collarbone to sternum. “We are so different.”

  Her innocent comment brought a cocky grin to his lips. “I should hope so, love. We are made for very different things.”

  He reached for her, unable to hold back from touching her a moment longer. Hand around her back, he pulled their bodies flush together. Being that Kate was tall, they were nearly eye to eye on the bed. The soft plumpness of her breasts crushed against his chest. His hand wandered lower, feeling the slight roundness of her derriere, and the firmness of her thighs as he guided one of her knees up to rest over his hip.

  “The contrast is not what I expected.” She wrapped her arms around him, tracing the muscles that lined his back and shoulders.

  One hand on her rear, he tilted her pelvis toward his so he could thrust into the warm vee where their groins were perfectly aligned. She released a sound of surprise with the new sensation.

  He pulled her lips between his. “Herein lies the greatest, most intriguing difference, darling.” He rolled her hips in his hands and let her feel the steel length that would soon be buried between her pretty thighs.

  Her fingers were tangled in his hair, her neck arched back so he could lick and nip at her there. His mouth moved lower, kissing her chest through the light material still covering her. Cupping one breast gently in his hand, he sucked the distended tip of her nipple into his mouth. His teeth gently played with the tip, making her mewl in surprise and delight.

  Her legs fell open and she pressed herself closer to him. Kate couldn’t believe all the feelings bombarding her sanity right now. She wanted something she had no words for, so she followed her instincts and let George do very wicked things to her body.

  Gently laying her atop the covers once again, he caressed her thighs as he stood from the bed and released the buttons holding up his breeches. Kate put her arms behind her head and watched him. She didn’t know the first thing about breeches and wouldn’t have found the hidden buttons he was revealing. She swallowed when the material was pulled away to reveal the stiff standing manhood at his center.

  Kate’s eyes widened. How had he walked around with that gigantic thing in his trousers all the times they’d been together? It stuck up well past the dark patch of hair that surrounded it. Good Lord, did he mean to put that part of him inside her?

  He must have read the worry in her expression for he chuckled. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you good and wet before we consummate our union.”

  “Wet?” Her voice was husky and unrecognizable to her.

  His grin was pure wickedness as he stepped out of the last stitch of his clothes and joined her on the bed once again. His hands wrapped around her ankles and slid up her calves. As he trailed his hands upward, the material of her chemise was raised bit by bit higher, reve
aling pale flesh that had never been seen by another person. Oddly though, she didn’t feel shy at his slow perusal.

  When he uncovered her knees, he leaned over her and pressed a kiss against each kneecap before brushing his lips over the inside of her thighs. While his light touch tickled, it also had a rush of butterflies spinning in her stomach and creating the oddest, most pleasant sensation between her legs.

  The higher the material was inched up her body, the more nervous she grew. Even though she could hardly be considered dressed, wearing a chemise that you could see through in decent light, she felt as though he were stripping her bare of her modesty inch by slow inch. She raised herself up on one elbow and reached out to grasp his shoulder, afraid of what was to come next only because she didn’t know the steps in this erotic dance.

  The hunger she read in George’s gaze was somehow empowering. One of his fists clenched the material of her chemise; the other pushed out her knee so his shoulders fit between her spread legs. Kisses were rained over the inside of her thighs—higher and higher till he was nearly at the part that ached most for those kisses.

  The first press of his mouth against her moist center made her moan; the sound was foreign to her and full of desperation. She bit the side of her hand to stop from making more noises. His fingers spread the folds of her sex, and the next she knew, his tongue was sweeping a delicious path of ecstasy over the sensitive nerves of her womanhood.

  As her legs fell open, George’s hands slid beneath her rear and pulled her off the bed and tighter against his feasting mouth. She’d never felt a pleasure like this before, and biting the side of her hand ceased to mute the noises emitted from her throat at bay a moment longer. Threading her hands through George’s hair, she held him tight and squeezed her thighs around his head. His tongue moved in a circular motion around the swollen nub at the apex of her thighs. The sensations built and built; then his finger pressed into her sheath, spreading the evidence of her pleasure and finally tipping her over the edge and into a bliss she hadn’t realized she could experience with the simple touch of his tongue.

  Kate released his hair, and dropped her thighs wide, suddenly spent. George rose over her. With her body so relaxed, his manhood jutting out between their bellies looked less intimidating where it hung heavily against her navel.

  “It’s time to remove your chemise. I’ll see my soon-to-be wife in nothing but her flushed skin.”

  George pulled her up and removed the thin slip of material, tossing it somewhere behind her. She couldn’t help her curiosity and reached out to brush her hand tentatively over that private part of him. The skin was almost silky, and it was surprisingly soft for being so rigid.

  George let out a harsh exhalation, and she pulled away. “Touch it more if you like.”

  She reached for him again. “What does it feel like?”

  “I imagine it’s a lot like when I touch you.”

  What would he do, then, if she put it into her mouth as he had put his tongue into her?

  Fingers under her chin, he raised her face so they were looking at each other. Did he understand what she wanted to do?

  “Not now, dearest.”

  Her gaze dropped back down, looking at that part of him that was so different from her. She felt the weight of his manhood in her hands, and tried to wrap her hand around the girth, but came up short of being able to do so. A bead of fluid emitted from the tip, which she touched with her finger. The consistency was odd, so she spread it around the flushed head.

  With a groan, George pressed her down into the mattress once again and covered her body with his. The weight of his body atop hers was a delicious sensation she had no words for.

  “I’ve wanted you for so long, Kate.” He kneed her thighs farther apart and positioned himself so the jut of his manhood pressed against her wet center. He closed his eyes with that first touch and held complete still above her. His forearm was braced on the bed next to her arm. “I need to be inside you, joined to you.”

  When he opened his eyes, the blacks of his pupils could not be distinguished from his brown irises. Hunger wasn’t a strong enough word for the expression ensnaring her. Hitching up her pelvis with his free hand, he pressed slowly inside her. Fingers tangled together, they watched each other as he filled her.

  “There won’t be a day that will go by where I won’t tell you how much I love you, Kate.”

  “I love you, too, George.” Her back arched and her body opened up to him further.

  As he moved inside her, their gazes never broke. He brought her to that apex of pleasure once again with gentle thrusts in and out of her hot center. His hand reached between them so he could roll his thumb around the nub of nerves above her sheath. She nearly died away when the feelings became so much that they hit that final climax again. Her body clamped and milked his, until his motions quickened to a feverish pace. With one final hard thrust and a strained expression tightening the features on his face, she felt the pulse of his cock inside her as he held their bodies tightly together with a sound that was nearly a shout. Bracing his arms on either side of her, their bodies crushed together damp with sweat, he rolled them both over so they faced each other side by side.

  With her head resting in the crook of his arm, she drew lazy circles over his bare chest. Despite the fact that they were eloping, she’d just been intimate with a man not yet her husband. Emotion choked at her throat when the ramifications of their hasty actions dawned upon her: What if her father found them and forced her to go home? After she’d had the audacity to thoroughly ruin her reputation? What would he think, knowing she had fallen victim to the same carnal nature her mother had?

  George was a calm presence beneath her, but he seemed to feel that something was off, for he asked, “What’s wrong, love?”

  “This is all so new that I just don’t know what to say or do.”

  “You don’t have to do anything differently than you always have.”

  She pushed up on her hands so she could see his expression as she asked, “Then why do I feel so different?”

  His smile was slow, his eyes understanding of her feelings. “It’s just the two of us here as it should be, as it was always meant to be. Are you having second thoughts?”

  She started to shake her head, then stopped. Was she having second thoughts? Did she regret turning her back on her father? If given another chance, would she repeat the actions of last night? She knew her answer.

  “George, I would have done anything to avoid a lifetime without you.” She laid her head back down on his chest. “My father called me a lot of things he probably would have called my mother had he had the chance before she ran off.”

  George brushed her hair back from her shoulder and rubbed the back of his hand over her cheek. “He’ll come around, angel. He loves you too much to stay angry for long.”

  “I didn’t tell you what else my father said to me last night. He accepted Westmoore’s proposal; I was to wed him in six weeks’ time.” And really, that was what had decided her to leave with George in the end. She could have stayed and pleaded with her father, but once his mind was made clear, she knew she’d never be able to persuade her father in a different direction.

  “We’ll be married in less than a week.” George rolled her onto her back, his weight held on his forearms. “You need not worry about Westmoore a moment longer.”

  “I’m merely saddened by the fact that my father won’t see me married to the man of my choosing.”

  “He’ll come around in time, and we can get married all over again when he does, if you want.”

  George was always thinking of her. She had been silly to wait so long to elope, but she’d always held out hope that her father would come around to liking George. She knew better now.

  “You don’t think my father is on our tail right now?”

  He shook his head as he nibbled at her lower lip. “He won’t be. He’ll expect us to go on a direct path there, not backtrack and take another route alto
gether as we did last night.”

  “You’ve been planning all the details for some time, haven’t you?”

  “I might have been.”

  George pushed off her and moved to the edge of the bed to reach for his breeches on the floor. She rolled to her side, gathering the sheet close to her breast, still not quite ready to parade around him as naked as the day she was born.

  “Are we leaving already?” She brushed her finger down the strong line of his spine.

  “Not yet. I’ll have water brought up for you. You’ll want a bath so you aren’t sore.” He looked over his shoulder and gave her a slow, devilish smile, caught up her hand, and kissed the inside of her wrist. “And if I don’t get dressed, I’m not likely to get out of bed for the rest of the morning.”

  She blushed, having a good idea why she might be sore once the pleasure from their exercises faded. Half-dressed, he looked around the room for his shirt, which had been tossed clear to the other side. Once his clothes were retrieved, he came back to the bed and gave her a sweet kiss on the mouth.

  “I’ll have breakfast sent up for you, too. I’ll be back in half an hour. Throw on a dressing gown when I leave; the maids will be up with hot water before long.”

  Kate flung herself across the bed, arms stretched out. “I do wish we could laze about here all day.”

  “My sentiments exactly.” George tucked in his shirt and smoothed his hair back at the washstand. “Once we are married, we can spend weeks in bed.”

  “I like the sound of that. Who would ever have thought marriage meant spending your days in bed?”

  She pulled the sheet around her as she stood from the bed. Creeping up behind George, she pressed her cheek between his shoulder blades and let out a sigh. Twisting her fingers around the ring he’d given her only a couple of hours ago, she said, “I cannot wait to wear this ring in truth.”

  George turned around and took her hands in his. “Never think you aren’t wearing this is truth, even now.”

  Tipping forward, she gave him a kiss, lingering for a few moments with their mouths pressed together.