Rafael laid her gently on the mattress and opened the buttons of her skirt, sliding his hand beneath while he drank hungrily from her breast.
Annie sobbed his name, putting all her wanting, all her needing into the sound. “No, my hellion princess,” he rasped, against her well-suckled nipple. “The treasure you would give me is for another man, on another day. But I can teach you pleasure—by God, I will have that much of you!”
Annie felt his hand move beneath the waistband of her wet and clinging riding skirt, beneath her drawers. She raised herself to him, wanting something she didn’t fully understand, offering everything.
Rafael reached lower, finding that most sensitive place, and she felt his fingers part the moist folds of her femininity.
She uttered a low, insensible cry and bucked against his palm, but he only murmured, “Soon enough, sweeting. It will happen soon enough.”
Annie felt as though she’d been taken with a fever—she was delirious and lightheaded, and her body writhed wildly under Rafael’s hand. Gently, he pinched the little nubbin of flesh where all her passion seemed to center, and she moaned in desperation and impatience.
“I might have kissed you here,” Rafael teased quietly, stroking her now, in a rhythmic circle made of fire, with the pad of his thumb. “I might have taken this into my mouth, the way I did your nipples.”
The suggestion, coupled with the spiraling sensation between her legs, made Annie pitch and toss under his patient ministrations like a wild creature. When Rafael bent over her, and took her breast again, she came apart in an explosive riot of heat and satisfaction, shouting hoarsely, raising her hips high off the bed to follow his hand wherever it might lead.
He continued to suckle, more gently now, until she had settled back to the bed, until the sweet, convulsive flexing of hidden muscles had ceased. Then, as she lay dazed, still not truly understanding what had just happened, he stroked her forehead and her hair.
“Shh,” he said, consoling her in her inconsolable joy.
After a long time, she turned her head and looked into his gray eyes, seeing sadness there, as well as passion. “I want you to do that to me,” she told him. “What you said before—about taking me into your mouth.”
He groaned. “Annie, love—have mercy. A man is allotted only so much honor and forbearance.”
She didn’t know then, perhaps she would never know, what caused her to be so brazen. But she was. She raised her hips off the bed and, at the same time, pushed down her skirt and drawers, revealing herself to him.
Rafael made an elemental, innately masculine sound, somewhere between a moan and a curse. Then he removed her boots and her stockings, as well as her skirt and drawers, and she lay before him, naked except for her gaping shirtwaist and camisole.
“May God forgive me,” he murmured. And then, still kneeling on the floor, he turned Annie, so that she lay sideways on the bed, with her legs on either side of him.
A primitive cry of welcome escaped her when he burrowed through the silken tangle and took her hungrily, greedily, into his mouth.
*
What in hell had he done? Rafael asked himself, after Annie had been sated not once but several times. What demon had possessed him, that he would teach an innocent young woman the finer points of pleasure?
“Rafael?” She was still naked, but he’d put her legs back on the bed and covered her with a musty blanket brought down from the chest in the loft. The fire was burning low, and if Barrett or his men were out looking for them, they must have run into trouble….
He turned his back on her and went back to the hearth, making a fuss with the fire, wanting to hide the hard arousal pulsing behind the buttons of his trousers. Whatever his other sins, he had not plunged inside her, even though he’d never wanted a woman more than he wanted Annie Trevarren that rainy afternoon.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked, in a small voice, and Rafael cursed, for he did not want her playing the game so many women played, torturing herself for doing and feeling things that were perfectly normal, even instinctive. No, he would have Annie revel in her glorious femininity, not feel shame for it.
“No,” Rafael said, but he would not look at her. Indeed, he could not. “There’s been no harm done, Annie,” he said, testing her clothes, which he’d hung over the backs of chairs close by the fire, for dryness.
“Harm?” he heard the corn husks inside the old mattress rustle as she sat up. “Of course there’s been no harm—it was wonderful, but—”
Rafael ran one hand down the length of his face, wishing she would be quiet and at the same time feeling her voice brush the strings of his soul like a soft breeze passing through a harp. “But?” he prompted, moving to the window, hoping to convey an air of disinterest. He saw the gelding, still tethered to his branch, ears laid back, hide soaked, flanks quivering, and felt profound pity for the beast.
“But I don’t think you enjoyed the experience—” She stumbled in the middle of the sentence, and he knew without looking that she was blushing again. “I don’t believe you were as—happy as I was.”
Happy. The word struck Rafael funny, and he might have laughed aloud if he hadn’t known Annie was serious. She was especially vulnerable now and he didn’t want to hurt her.
“It’s all right, Annie,” he managed to say, turning around at last. She was sitting up in bed but, God be thanked, she pulled the blanket he’d given her up to her throat. “I’ll be fine.”
Something flashed in her eyes, a sort of wounded fury. “You’ll turn to some other woman,” she accused. “Miss Covington, perhaps.”
Rafael schooled himself to patience. Annie was a woman, and a young one at that, and such things were vitally important to her. He must be gentle, for she might well remember this afternoon for the rest of her life, and he wanted her recollections to be pleasant ones. “I’m a man, Miss Trevarren, not a rutting boar. I can govern my physical desires quite nicely.”
He heard the horses then, and knew his interlude of joyful madness was at an end. Now, he would have the rest of his life—a relatively short time, in all probability—to remember that he’d made a fool of himself this day. That he’d wanted a woman badly enough to put aside his values and his better judgment to play her sweet body as if it were a dulcimer or a lute.
He had been a self-centered bastard, and not just because of the things he’d done to Annie, however much she’d enjoyed them. No, his crime lay in the fact that he’d trifled with her feelings. She was young and unsophisticated, a product of the privileged life Patrick and Charlotte had given her, and she might well expect a devotion he simply could not give.
“Get dressed,” he said, tossing the still damp garments to her. “Someone is coming.”
Annie scrambled out of bed and into her clothes, and Rafael couldn’t help watching out of the corner of his eye as she wriggled and tugged in her haste to avoid being caught in a compromising situation.
Little did she know, Rafael reflected, as a thunderous knock sounded at the door, practically shaking it on its hinges, that it was already too late.
“Your Highness,” Barrett’s voice boomed through the thickening twilight, “Are you there? Let me in!”
Ruefully, Rafael glanced back at Annie and saw that, although she was decently clad again, her red-gold hair tumbled down her back, unconfined, her eyes blazed with a lingering, deep-seated pleasure and, if those things hadn’t been revealing enough, there was a telltale glow to her skin. Unless Barrett had gone blind since Rafael had last encountered him, he would know exactly what had been going on.
“Yes,” Rafael called back, unable to hide his irritation. Despite the noble things he’d said to Annie about controlling his physical desires, he was vastly uncomfortable, and he would remain so for some time. “I’m here.” With that, he wrenched open the door and stood facing his friend and guard.
Barrett wore a cape, splotched with rain, and his expression was uncommonly anxious. “Great Scot, Rafael, I thought yo
u’d been captured, or broken your neck—” He saw Annie then, it was plain that it all registered, in an instant.
Rafael stepped back to admit him. “You took your time starting a search,” he remarked, while Barrett studiously avoided Annie’s gaze. His neck was a dull crimson. “I might have been hauled halfway to France by now.”
Barrett started to speak, cleared his throat and began again. “Lucian said he’d seen you out riding, and that you’d be gone a while,” he explained awkwardly. “I know you like to have some time to—to yourself now and then, so I wasn’t concerned. It was only when the rain didn’t stop, and twilight came on—”
Rafael touched his friend’s arm. “It’s all right, Barrett,” he said quietly. He suspected that the man had been occupied with some pursuit of his own that afternoon; that would account for his embarrassment, as well as his delay. “Have you brought a horse for Miss Trevarren?”
“We didn’t know she’d left the keep,” Barrett said.
For the first time since Barrett had entered the cottage, Annie spoke. Her voice was clear and strong and ever so slightly defiant. “Didn’t my mare return to the stables?” she asked.
Barrett forced himself to look at her. “If it did, miss, I wasn’t told.”
“Never mind,” Rafael interjected. “Miss Trevarren will ride back with me.”
Minutes later, they were mounted, with Annie in front of Rafael on the impatient gelding. It was a singular torment, feeling her soft, delectable body against his, breathing the scent of her hair, the faint, musky perfume of her pleasure, and the fresh smell of spring rain. He could endure a great many things, he thought fancifully, as long as he could summon that distinct bouquet and remember Annie as she was at that moment in time.
Annie cherished the sensation of being safe within the circle of Rafael’s arms. She knew she would regret her shameless behavior soon enough, but that time had not yet come. In fact, she was still responding to Rafael’s lovemaking, feeling delicious little spasms of pleasure deep in her most womanly regions. Her nipples were hard beneath her damp camisole and blouse, wanting the touch of his tongue and the excruciatingly sweet tug of his lips. If she could have lain with him then, in the wet and fragrant grass, and taken him inside her, she would have done just that.
Too soon, they reached the stables, and Rafael swung out of the saddle and reached up to lift Annie down. She allowed it, though she could have dismounted on her own with no difficulty at all, simply because she wanted to feel his hands touching her again.
The rain had turned to a slight drizzle, and the keep and stables were glowing with lantern light. Rafael curved his finger under Annie’s chin and raised it, once Barrett and the others had left them, taking the gelding with them.
Annie ached to hear him say he loved her, even though she knew he wouldn’t. The events of that afternoon had been a dalliance to Rafael, an hour’s amusement, that was the truth of it, and she would forget that at her peril.
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry!” she pleaded, before Rafael had a chance to say anything at all. She hadn’t planned the words, and was wretchedly embarrassed that she’d blurted them out that way. Still, she meant them with every fiber of her being. “Please, Rafael, don’t ruin the best afternoon of my life by apologizing.”
He pulled her against him, not passionately, but in an effort to lend comfort, burying one hand in her mussed and tangled hair. “All right,” he said hoarsely, his breath whispering, warm, across her ear. “I won’t. But I want you to keep in mind that there are many such afternoons, and long, wonderful nights as well, in your future. Only the man will be different.”
No, Annie mourned inwardly, her face buried in the prince’s strong shoulder, shuddering at the prospect of another man—no matter how kind and handsome and honorable he might be—touching her the way Rafael had. She understood Phaedra’s trepidation at taking a husband she didn’t love as she couldn’t possibly have done before.
“Here, now,” Rafael protested gruffly, when she began to cry. “None of that. What you need now is a warm bath, something to eat and a good night’s sleep.” He was already ushering her toward the castle, and she didn’t want to go because she knew it meant they would have to part.
The great hall was empty and, at the bottom of the staircase, Rafael swatted Annie lightly on the bottom. “Go on,” he ordered, and though his lips were curved into a smile, his eyes expressed some other, darker emotion. “Get to your room. I’ll send a maid up immediately.”
She lingered for a moment, memorizing his face, terribly afraid that this one interlude was all she would ever have of him, wondering how she could go on with her life, knowing what might have been. God in heaven, she’d been better off with her virginal fantasies, never guessing at the things a man and woman could do to bring ecstasy to each other.
“Good night,” she said brokenly. Then she turne and hurried up the stairs and through the dimly lighted passageways to her own chamber.
True to his word, Rafael dispatched a servant right away. Annie was cosseted and fussed over—brandy and hot food were brought to her room and an enormous bathtub was promptly filled with steaming water.
For all those luxuries, Annie was miserable. Like a true gentleman, Rafael had seen that every comfort was provided—she could not doubt that he felt tremendous guilt for the things he’d done to her in that cottage. By now, he was probably in bed with his mistress, appeasing the passions he had not allowed himself to satisfy with Annie.
She had learned a great deal that afternoon; she had seen Rafael’s erection, and felt it against her buttocks and lower back as they rode back from the cottage with Barrett and his detail of men. Lying in the warm, scented water of her tub, Annie closed her eyes and imagined what it would be like to have him mount and conquer her. The thought made her breath quicken and her heart race, and inspired an achy throb down below.
She might have died of her unfulfilled wanting, she supposed, if Phaedra hadn’t chosen exactly then to burst into her chambers, uninvited, her eyes alight with mischief and some secret she would almost certainly refuse to reveal.
“The keep is overflowing with gossip,” Phaedra said, in an eager and delighted whisper. “Everyone says that you and Rafael were alone together in the cottage by the lake. Rumor has it that your hair was loose when they found you, and Rafael wasn’t wearing a shirt, and your clothes were mussed and misbuttoned. Tell me precisely what happened—as if I couldn’t guess!”
Annie was mortified that a reputation could be ruined so quickly and wondered how she would ever face people, when everyone knew such intimate things about her. “Nothing happened,” she lied. “We were caught in the rain, that’s all. The cottage was nearby so naturally we took refuge there.”
“Very well, then,” Phaedra responded petulantly, “don’t tell me. Sooner or later, you won’t be able to contain the truth any longer, and it will all spill out!”
Annie considered sinking beneath the surface of her bathwater and drowning herself, but the chances of rescue were too great, with Phaedra right there. “Nothing happened,” she said again, hoping there were no angels listening in, and putting a mark by her name in some heavenly ledger. As it was, she was probably going to be ushered straight through Purgatory when she died and handed over to the devil’s own gatekeeper.
Mercifully, Phaedra was consumed by some news of her own, something besides the secret shining in her eyes. She was bursting with excitement. “Felicia brought a dressmaker with her,” she said. “I’m to have the grandest gown in all of Europe!”
Annie was startled out of her own woeful reflections, gaping at Phaedra, openmouthed. Several flustered moments passed before she managed to sputter, “But you said—last night—Phaedra, have you gone mad?”
The princess laughed. “No,” she said, fetching a towel and handing it to Annie. “I’ve simply had a change of heart. It’s going to be a marvelous wedding, Annie, like something out of a fairy tale. I’ll have a glass coach, and six whit
e horses to pull it—”
“Phaedra,” Annie said, using the towel as a curtain while she stood and then wrapping it around herself and stepping out of the tub. She took her wrapper from the bench in front of the vanity table and slipped behind a screen to put it on. A moment later, she was crossing the room again, laying a hand to the princess’s forehead.
There was no fever, but Annie’s alarm was not assuaged.
Phaedra grasped her hand. “Don’t worry, pet,” she said earnestly. “I shall be happy, I promise.” Her shining eyes lent a certain truth to the declaration.
Still, having just learned how glorious it was to be touched and caressed in the most intimate ways by a man she cared for, Annie was even more of a firm believer in marrying for love. “Have you developed tender sentiments toward Mr. Haslett after all?” she asked hopefully.
“Something like that,” Phaedra said cryptically.
Annie was not reassured, but there was nothing she could do to change matters at the moment. She would, of course, give the situation a great deal of hard thought. There was more to this drastic turnabout than Phaedra was telling, that much she knew by instinct.
“You and I are about the same size,” Phaedra observed, taking both of Annie’s hands in hers and eyeing her frame critically. “Yes. The dress could just as well be fitted to you.”
Again, Annie was flabbergasted, even though she was used to being surprised by her friend. “You want me to be fitted for your wedding gown? Phaedra, that is the most incredible suggestion you’ve ever made!”
Phaedra met her gaze then, and Annie saw such pleading, such desperate hope in those familiar eyes, that she was staggered by it. “Please, Annie. Say you’ll do this for me. You know I couldn’t bear the boredom of it, standing still for hours and hours—I’d swoon for certain, or be taken with one of my sick headaches!”
Annie swallowed a retort concerning the convenience of said sick headaches, having been caught in this same trap many times before. It was madness to consent, but Phaedra St. James was her most cherished friend—all the others were dull by comparison—and something hidden away in her heart told her this favor was important to her friend.
Princess Annie Page 7