Adam leaned toward her, sweeping her into his arms until she was lying against his chest. Every masculine part of him roared with hunger. He knew he should proceed slowly but burned to ravish her.
His mouth closed over hers, as gently as he was able considering the ravening male beast she had loosed. With a little cry, Emma looped her arms around his neck. The fragrant scent of her hair, combined with her warm, feminine essence, intoxicated him more than the most potent brandy. Made him desperate to possess her.
He deepened the kiss, his mouth slanting against hers with such wild ardor she trembled in his arms. He cursed himself.
“Forgive me, sweetheart, I do not mean to be so clumsy. But I—”
Emma squirmed against him, cutting off his words. “Hush. I don’t want you to stop.”
Her arms tightened around him and she deposited a row of frantic kisses on his throat.
Her excitement spurred his, making him so hard and stiff he thought he might embarrass himself like a green boy. He ached with his need, and knew he could not contain his lust or control his desire much longer, despite what he’d told her. Emma did this to him. Only Emma.
He groaned as she drew him down to her. When their lips met, a bolt of hunger hit him like a cannonball. This woman made him half-crazy, as delirious as when he’d thrashed with fever after falling, bloodied and broken, to the sun-baked Spanish earth. No, not like that. Then, he’d struggled to regain his senses even though consciousness meant he’d arrive back in his world of suffering and pain. Now he basked in his delirium, wanting to wallow forever in his joy of Emma. He could drown in her and be a happy man.
The thought startled him. Happy? He barely remembered that emotion. Emma made him want to go on living. And so much more.
“I don’t think you understand,” he growled. “You’re driving me wild, Emma. I—”
“Show me.” She slipped her fingers into his hair, and he was lost. “Teach me.”
He crushed her against him, desperate to feel her soft, lush form curved into his larger frame. His mouth came down urgently over hers, his demands more insistent. He parted her lips with his own, sliding his tongue inside to strafe against hers.
“Oh.” She exhaled the soft word as a wondrous sigh, as if she were savoring something both marvelous and unexpected.
The taste of her drove Adam to the edge of his limits. He felt as if he were standing on the dangerous lip of the chalky cliff again, about to fall off the precipice and plunge toward an unknown heaven. His body ached, his groin on fire and his cock throbbing with urgent need. Nothing had ever been as bittersweet as this.
He ran his hands up and down Emma’s sides until she arched back. Her sweet breasts strained against the flimsy muslin of her dress. Her hands left his hair to grip his shoulders, her fingers digging into his taut sinews. Before he took final leave of his senses, he had to allow her a last chance to choose.
“Are you sure, poppet?”
“Chuckleheaded man. Do I appear unsure?”
“You’re trembling, sweetheart.”
“Not from fear.” She groaned and nipped him in the hollow between his shoulder and neck. “Except the fear that you will cease what you are doing and pull away from me.”
She gave him another tiny love bite. The feel of her teeth pricking his skin made him insane. He rained savage kisses on her temple, her brow. He seized her mouth, his lips so demanding against hers that she gasped.
“God help me,” he muttered.
“You don’t need any help.” Her arms tightened around him.
Her neck and throat were bared by her gauzy frock. He pushed the tiny cap sleeves off her shoulders to expose still more of her, nuzzling her pink flesh with more intimacy and urgency than before, claiming her with his lips and teeth and tongue, marking her as his own.
“You’re mine, Emma,” he growled. “Say you’re mine.”
“Yes. Oh, God, yes. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.”
Adam tugged the gathered bodice of her gown lower, pushing the material out of his way to free dusk-tipped breasts. He groaned and sucked in a breath, cupping the gently rounded fullness in his palm, as if her breast were a delicate bird. Her skin warmed, silky as rose petals. Beneath his hand, her heart leaped wildly.
“Adam!” Emma’s hand closed over his.
He paused, nearly shaking with need. If she stopped him now, he thought he might lose his mind.
“Emma.” He heard the ragged hitch in his voice. “Let me, Emma.”
Oh,” she sighed. “That feels so…delicious.” She quivered, arching upward as if to give him greater access. “Touch me. Touch me all over.”
Beneath their joined hands her flesh heated, the coral blush spreading across her chest to the graceful column of her neck until her cheeks burst with color. Her eyes met his, turning a dreamy, smoky silver Adam found mesmerizing.
Emma increased the downward pressure on his hand, guiding his strokes in lazy circles over her breast.
But touching wasn’t enough. Adam wanted to taste. He inclined his head, bending to kiss her breasts, replacing the gentle persuasion of his hand with the hungry need of his lips.
“You are delicious, sweetheart.”
When she cried out, he recognized her stunned wonder. Her nipples peaked and hardened as he brushed first one, then the other, with his tongue.
“Do you like that, Emma?”
“Oh, yes.” She panted a little, as if finding it difficult to draw air into her lungs. Her eyes drifted closed, her pretty lips curved in a delighted smile.
He sucked her nipple, lips closing over the stiffened bud, his tongue flicking back and forth greedily, as if she were a confection dissolving in the moist heat of his mouth.
“Oh, yes, I like that,” she repeated. “I love that, Adam.” She feathered more frenzied kisses into his hair.
Her hands moved from his shoulders, down his chest, and she tugged the linen from his trousers. Her hand dipped below the fabric, her delicate fingers exploring him, cool against his burning skin. Her touch sent him to a place well beyond lust. Beneath her probing hand, his muscles leaped.
“Do you like that?” she asked, tearing a husky groan from him.
He sat up, disposed of his shirt, and leaned back against the damask cushions of the settee with a wink. If she wished to explore, he wanted to let her.
“Have at me, poppet.”
Emma stared at the jagged pattern of scars etching his chest.
Bloody damn!
How stupid to think this woman could thaw him. How stupid to think she—or any woman—could ever accept him the way he was. His marred chest was nothing compared to his mangled leg, which she had not yet seen. His leg was nothing compared to his bruised psyche. Emma was the one woman he most wanted to shield from the wretched sight of his wounds, souvenirs of the same battle that had taken her brother.
“What is this from?” she demanded. “Albuhera?”
“Yes.” His voice emerged toneless and cold. He could not hide his bitter disappointment. Only a paid whore would shut her eyes to his disfigurement. He grabbed for his discarded shirt. Emma swept it out of his hands and onto the floor.
“How?”
“Emma, I don’t want—”
“How?” she repeated.
“Pieces of shot. Flying fragments of metal.”
“It was very bad, wasn’t it?”
His gaze slid away.
“Oh, Adam. I am so sorry. I should have known, but—”
“It’s all right,” he grated through clenched teeth. “I understand.”
He reached for his shirt again, but Emma stilled his hand. Her eyes flashed at him, like angry bolts of lightning.
“I don’t think you do.”
Adam’s bleak words tore her apart. Deliberately, Emma placed her palm against his chest, running her fingertips over the thin, white scars.
“Your wounds hurt me because they hurt you. They do not offend my sensibilities.”
“I didn’t want to remind you. I—”
“I wish I had not wasted so much time trying to hate you. I wish I could have eased your pain. I wish I could have held you in my arms long before now. Don’t you realize how much I want you, Adam? How much I’ve always wanted you?”
She curled against him, petting him, increasing the pressure of her hand, her fingers meandering over his rib cage and then his pectoral muscles, making them leap. Her strokes became caresses. “I wish I could tease you back into a fever. Set you on fire like you’ve done to me.”
He met her gaze. “Do you think you haven’t?”
Emma shook her head. “Not yet, I think.” She bent her head and pressed her lips against his chest, flicking her tongue over his nipple the way he’d suckled hers, making it pebble.
Adam groaned and dragged her down to a bed of sofa pillows, his hard body pinning her, her skirts jumbled between them. He rubbed his bare chest against hers. The friction of his flesh on hers felt sublime. He set her ablaze, melting her so thoroughly that her sex tingled and throbbed, feeling full and soft and open. She’d never experienced such strangely compelling sensations.
She wanted Adam to touch her there.
The thought shocked her. But not enough to keep her from spreading her legs a little, and writhing beneath him as if to instinctively guide him where she wanted him.
“Adam.” She whimpered, nearly crying, so great was this new need.
Although Adam braced himself on his elbows and forearms, his weight, the feel of his strong, firm muscles crushing her into the cushions, made her belly contract and stoked her powerful need. Lust for him overwhelmed her. How had she lived all her years without this? Without this man? Her arms looped around his neck. His crisp juniper scent dizzied her with desire. Through his trousers, she felt the hard ridge of his bulging erection.
Suddenly, she was very glad she was a country girl, not completely ignorant of what took place between males and females. She fumbled with his buttons, but he moved her hands away.
“I want to touch you now, poppet.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes. I need you to.”
He seized her hem, pushing her scattered skirts up, past her knees, past her thighs. Cool air struck the naked skin above her stockings. She closed her eyes and bathed in Adam’s warmth as he lovingly caressed her legs.
She sucked in a breath. “Oh, Adam.”
He kept up the mesmerizing massage, his hand moving higher and higher along the inside of her thigh, tearing soft sighs from her. She wanted more, so much more. She ached and throbbed. She knew he could feel how wet she was. She pushed against him in desperation.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Emma.” She heard the strain in his voice.
Her lashes parted and she gazed up at him. His eyes burned with raging need. “You cannot. Except when you stop touching me. That is torture. I’m on fire for you.”
She spread her legs wider and her blatant invitation wrenched another groan from him. His hand glided up her leg. He cupped her mound, easing a finger into her swollen sex.
“Merciful heavens.” Emma sucked in another shivery breath. The erotic invasion was like nothing she had ever experienced. Only this man could thaw her heart so completely. Her blood thundered in her ears, pulsed in her sex. Adam withdrew his finger slowly.
“No,” she cried, grasping at his hand, bereft at the sudden feeling of emptiness, an emptiness she desperately needed to be filled.
“Stop?”
“No!”
He slid his finger back into her.
“Oh. Oh, yes.” Her head fell back against the cushions and she moaned.
“Like wet silk. Tight and slick.”
The wonder in Adam’s voice made her tremble. She knew he’d done this before, but he made her feel the art of lovemaking was as new to him as it was to her. She felt their mutual desire swirl around them like a living thing, holding both of them enthralled. She clenched her feminine muscles.
“By all that’s holy,” he ground out.
The glide of his finger had her clutching his shoulders, the cushions beneath her, and yet it was not enough. She gripped him with her inner muscles again. “Adam.” She whispered his name as if it were a prayer, moaned the syllables in a voice that broke with passion.
He teased her, withdrawing his finger and then slipping it back into her. Slowly. So excruciatingly slowly. In. Out. Again. And again. Her juices poured from her. His rhythm hastened. The slippery sucking sound as his finger entered and withdrew had her writhing. The tension within her increased as the pad of his thumb stroked back and forth over her throbbing button.
“Adam. Adam, please.”
She dug her fingers into his shoulders as a need both exquisite and indescribable built. She was certain something had to happen, but she was not sure what. She knew only that he had brought her to a feverish pitch that rendered her speechless. She did not know how long she could remain tottering on this brink of the beautiful unknown.
She had no words to tell him what she wanted. She knew only that she wanted, needed, hungered for him.
“Adam, you must!”
Emma clamped her thighs closed, impeding his movements. She spread her legs again, wider than before, thrashing and bucking, nearly crying, as she urged him on in a rush of excitement.
“Must what, sweetheart?” he growled.
“Must do something…more!”
He stroked her again, the finger inside her penetrating deeper and faster, the swirling pressure of his thumb relentless over the nub where all her sensations seemed centered. He glided a second finger into her.
And then, suddenly, everything inside her completely shattered in a spectacular hail of pleasure and bliss. Her body arched and bucked as her muscles convulsed and her mind went blank. Torrents of pure delight broke over her, cresting, sweeping her away. This man. This beautiful man. He had done this magical thing to her.
After a long moment, she slit her eyes open and gazed up at him from beneath her lashes.
“Oh. Oh, Adam. That was beyond anything.”
Adam looked down at her, his smile brilliant. But strain knotted his brow. She sensed the tension that still gripped him, and touched his bare chest.
“Emma, I—” He shook his head and gently eased her hand away from his hot flesh.
“What’s wrong?”
She’d never allowed anyone such shocking intimacies as she’d allowed him. After the wondrous things he’d just done to her, she wanted him closer. She wanted him to envelop her in his strong arms, wrap his body around her, so she could satisfy him too. She wanted to slide her legs over his hips and rub her still throbbing sex against his hot, hard groin.
His face tightened, as he clenched his jaw. His set expression jarred her.
“I…will embarrass myself if you touch me again.” The rawness of his voice thrilled her. “Do you take my meaning, Emma?”
Emma’s face flooded with heat. Her gaze flew to front of his trousers. No denying the urgency of the huge erection tugging at the black cloth. She touched him deliberately. His cocked leaped, making the woolen material confining him twitch, and tearing an impassioned groan from his throat.
“Make love to me, Adam. I want to feel you inside of me.”
He arched away from her questing hand and ran a hand through his hair. “Don’t tempt me, Emma. I want you more than I can bear.”
She reached toward him, nudging open a button.
“Didn’t you tell me lust could be contained?”
Adam squeezed his eyes shut, as if battling for restraint. “To a point. That I’ve already passed. It’s been a long time for me, poppet, and I—” He sucked in a breath. “The way I feel about you goes well beyond lust, Emma.”
“I feel the same,” she whispered, suddenly in awe of him, of everything that was between them. And yet…so earthy and feminine and human, shimmering with the strength of her womanly power. She flicked a second button. The combined force of their mutual desire s
hattered the last tattered remnants of his control.
“Dear God, Emma. Are you very sure?”
“Beyond words.” Her voice shivered with her need. She gripped his shoulders and spread her legs for him.
Adam looked down at the glorious woman writhing beneath him. He wanted to take the time to savor her, but he could not. It had been too long. And he wanted Emma too much. God, how he wanted her. She deserved this moment to be wonderful and painless. But the way she moved and cried his name gave evidence of her own powerful need and desperation, her hunger like a living creature demanding to be satisfied. He was afraid he’d come the moment he drove into her.
“The next time it will be better, sweetheart,” he promised.
“Nothing can be better than this moment.”
“Such certainty.” He gazed at her and smiled. “Nevertheless, it will be. I shall make it so. Or die trying.”
Adam’s hands shook, but he somehow managed to get the rest of his buttons undone without popping any. He prepared her again, with deep, drugging kisses that made her relax, and with his hands and his tongue, until she was thrashing beneath him. And then he gripped the tender flesh of Emma’s thighs and guided himself into her hot, wet entrance. She felt like velvet, narrow and tight. Beneath him, Emma tensed. He pressed his mouth to hers again and her body ripened once more.
“I’m such a goddamned bastard,” he muttered, his voice hoarse. “I’m not going to be able to stop, sweetheart. Or go as slow as you deserve.”
“I want this. I want you.” She bucked upward against him, forcing him to move. With one sure hard thrust, he tore through her maidenhead. He seized her lips again, stifling her small cry of pain. In the next instant, he felt her soften, her passage slick and hot and inviting.
Suddenly, her inner muscles gripped him, drawing him all the way inside her until he was seated to the hilt. He thrust into her, increasing his speed. He drove into her again and again, flesh against flesh, bones against bones, all sensation centered at the site of their hungry joining.
Healing Hearts Page 6