The Reckless Bride (30 page)

With Rafe’s footsteps fading, Loretta, once more staring at her great-aunt, felt forced to clarify, “Is there really a list?”

Esme opened her eyes wide. “Well, you did ask, dear. And I really don’t think a list and wagers are things dear Therese would be likely to invent.”

“No.” Consternation, quite genuine, gripped her. “I had no idea it would be that bad.”

“As I’ve lectured you ad nauseum, you are a Michelmarsh, dear. Females of our line are always
considered highly marriageable. Added to that, while not a grand heiress, you are certainly very well dowered.” Esme regarded her, then added, “And you should remember that the words most frequently associated with Michelmarsh young ladies are bold
and passionate. To most gentlemen, those words have a connotation, an implication, beyond the social.”

Loretta frowned direfully. “I am not going to consent to marry any gentleman who puts his name on a list.”

“Of course not. However, apropos of your current situation, I believe it’s my duty to remind you of one of life’s great maxims.” Esme caught her eyes. “If a chance that is right for you comes waltzing by, seize it. Do not let it slip past. You can never be certain that fate, as fickle as she’s wont to be, will allow you a second chance at happiness—not if you refuse to grasp the first.”

Held in Esme’s gray gaze, Loretta understood what her incorrigible great-aunt was suggesting—indeed, advocating. As it happened, she was fully in agreement.

Jaw firming, she nodded. “Thank you.”

“Not at all, my dear—that’s why I’m here.” Esme grinned roguishly, then pushed to her feet. “And now I’m going to retire.” The sounds of footsteps on the companionway reached them. “And there’s Gibson, just in time. Good night, Loretta dear—and sweet dreams.”

Loretta didn’t react to that last recommendation. She heard the others in the corridor, then Rose came in. She and Rose chatted, discussing wardrobe matters, then she let Rose go off to her cabin and more slowly headed for her own.

Closing the cabin door, Loretta looked at the porthole, at the darkness beyond, and wondered how long it would take for the others to settle in their cabins and fall soundly asleep.

An hour later, Rafe was still pacing his cabin, three strides one way, three back, when a faint tap sounded on the door.

He’d just reached the porthole. As he whirled, the doorknob turned; the door opened. Loretta peeked in, saw him, and whisked inside.

She was in her nightgown and robe, her hair down, soft slippers on her feet.

Her attire answered one of the questions circling in his
mind. He waited while she closed the door, then crossed to him.

Halting before him, she looked into his face. “You heard what Esme said.” Her gaze turned inward as if consulting some prerehearsed speech, then she drew breath, said, “I understand your position—all you said about your mission, its importance, its demands, and how that impinges on any exploration of what’s between us.”

She refocused on his face. “But I can’t wait.” Jaw firming, she searched his eyes. “I’m not prepared to risk losing any chance we might have for a shared future by returning to London without knowing about us. Without having learned what I need to know. I’m not prepared to risk never knowing—and if that means I have to take a risk, take a chance—roll the dice—now, so be it.”

When she tried to step closer, he seized her waist, held her back. “Was that true, what Esme said?”

“Apparently, yes!” She flung up her hands, then set them down on his shoulders. “I had no idea, but she assures me she had it from Lady Osbaldestone, and why would she lie to Esme?”

Why would Lady Osbaldestone lie? Because she was one of the arch-meddlers in the ton. Why would she lie to Esme, however? … that was a great deal harder to imagine.

Looking into Loretta’s eyes, Rafe didn’t need to ask what she wanted. What she expected. He glanced at the narrow bunk, around the small cabin. His jaw tensed. “This isn’t how I would have had it.”

One small hand flattened against his cheek. She turned his face back to hers. “I don’t care.” Her lips firmed. “You said it yourself—the further we go down the Rhine, the greater danger we’ll be in. We’re safe here. For tonight there’s no danger. So it has to be now, it has to be here.”

He drew a deep breath. “If we take the next step—”

“I don’t want to discuss anything further. Not beyond the next step. I don’t want to consider consequences—if this,
if that.” She framed his face with both hands, looked into his eyes. “I want you to make love to me, no strings, no expectations. I want it simply to be you and me together—I want to learn what could be, what we might have between us—honestly and openly, you, me, and our passions—and I can’t have that, we can’t be that, if you’re going to hedge us in, surround us with contingencies.”

She drew breath. “I need this—I need you. Now, tonight. And I don’t care what the risks are—I’m willing to take them and pay whatever their price.” She held his gaze. “Are you?”

She could have been him. She could have been Reckless. She spoke directly to that side of him—and to all the rest, too.

His hands were firming about her waist, his head lowering to hers even before he said, “Yes.”

She met him halfway.

Their lips touched, brushed, locked. Fused.

And they were lost.

Why it should have been different just because he’d let his resistance fall he had no clue, but the desire that surged, the passion that leapt so hungrily in its wake, was nothing short of need incarnate. The slaking of abstinence, however long enforced, had never been this powerful. This overwhelming.

Her lips parted under his, welcoming, inviting, and he took. Supped, sipped, then settled to plunder. Her hands sank into his hair and she gripped and kissed him back, equally hungry, equally urgent.

His grip on her waist eased; he spread his hands, holding her to him. Urging her closer. She pressed closer yet, her body all evocative curves and alluring feminine heat, sliding, then fitting snugly against him, a deliberate provocation of his ravenous senses.

Between one heartbeat and the next desire ignited. Passion flashed, soared, hot and greedy. His arms
locked about her, seizing, holding. He angled his head and deepened the
kiss; in a tangle of tongues she met him, flagrantly challenged and dared him. Heat rose in a wall and bore down on them, crashed into them, filled them, overflowed, and swept them on.

“Clothes.” Loretta tugged at his collar. “You have too many on.” Her gasp was a command; desire sang in the sound. Her breasts were already aching, her senses flushed and needy, and she wanted him naked.

His lips closed over hers again; he found her tongue, stroked, sucked as if the taste of her was an ambrosia he had no intention of ever giving up.

But his arms released her. Even while he plundered her mouth, in a rush of grasping, greedy hands he and she together wrestled him out of his coat, out of his waistcoat, stripped off his cravat.

He had to let her go and step back to haul his shirt off over his head.

She seized the moment to dispense with her robe.

His eyes gleamed through the moon-drenched shadows as, flinging his shirt aside, he reached for her.

Lips throbbing, she let her robe fall where it would and reached for him.

They came together in a clash of sensual fire that left her mentally reeling. Inwardly gasping as her hands met his bare chest, as the weight and resilience of the heavy muscles banding it screamed
male
to her giddy senses, as his strength wrapped around her and he took control of the kiss, as his hand found her breast and kneaded.

In that instant she realized they’d stepped beyond some boundary, that he’d taken her at her word and come to her honestly, openly, just him, her, and their passions—with no reserve, nothing held back, nothing to mute his aggression and power.

Nothing to mute the delight that filled her, the certainty that welled, swelled and rushed through her.
His. Mine.
Two sides of the one coin, this was what she yearned for.

Grasping his head again, she wildly kissed him back,
dropped every last fading link to convention and gave herself over to him, to this, to her Michelmarsh self.

To bold and passionate pleasure.

It swirled around them, swept over them, slid through them, sending insidious heat licking over every square inch of skin they exposed. Every square inch of her he reverently caressed, every inch of him she gloried in.

Exploration she’d called it. To her reeling mind the description was apt. But the lead changed between them, leaving her wallowing in long moments of mind-stealing sensation as he feasted on her breasts, only to have him still, eyes closing as with lips and tongue and wicked little nips she returned the pleasure.

She’d never thought to feel so free. So free to feel, to exult in the physical, to reach for pleasure with such uninhibited abandon, to feel so moved to lavish pleasure and delight in return.

He sat and pulled off his boots, then stood and drew her to him. He divested her of her nightgown with a touch that spoke of reverence.

At her insistence, he allowed her to unbutton his breeches, then stepped back and stripped them away.

Her mouth dried as he straightened, as he stood bathed in moonlight, a golden god, the gilt wash glinting in the fine blond hairs that dusted his arms and legs, the deeper golden brown of the curling hair that swept across his chest, then arrowed down to his groin, casting mysterious shadows and drawing her eye.

Her breath caught. Her lungs seized.

He stood before her, his rampant erection declaring his desire. It was she who moved closer, drawn. She closed her hand about the rigid length, and felt him shudder.

He shifted nearer. His hands slid around her hips, skin to naked skin; he bent his head and took her mouth again, but he didn’t deny her—didn’t draw her hand away but allowed her to claim him, to with her hands trace and
learn and know….

Passion rose with their heartbeats, a crest of silent thunder rolling in and taking them under.

Hands gripped, slid away, stroked, then returned to claim again. A flush spread beneath her skin as touch transmuted to sensation, and sensation was all pleasure.

Their breathing harried, still they dallied, wanting each moment, stretching each scintillating second, drinking each other in.

No rush, no hurry. This night was theirs.

Rafe had never before felt such fascination, as if this were fresh, uncharted territory. As if this was the first time his fingertips had ever glided over a woman’s naked thigh, the first time he’d gripped and felt sleekly rounded flesh fill his palm.

The unexpected novelty held him in thrall.

His heart beat in a cadence he didn’t recognize, heavy with lust, yet deliberate and slow. Slow so his senses could take in the wonder, the absolute delight of the woman in his arms.

Yet beneath the slow dance of tactile possession, the heat still built.

And built.

Until on a gasp she broke from the seething conflagration the melding of their mouths had become, her fingertips sinking into his upper arms, her head tipping back as her body arched to his in need, in want, in unspoken entreaty.

He swept her up in his arms, laid her on the bed, and covered her. Spread her thighs with his and settled between. Caught her mouth with his, caught her hands and pinned them one on either side of her head, held her down as desire erupted, raged, and ripped through them.

Ravaged them.

She kissed him back as ferociously, as temptestuously as he kissed her. Her body arched beneath his, hips tilting in primitive evocative invitation.

One touch confirmed she was ready.

He set the aching head of his erection to the slick entrance of her sheath. Felt the nails of her freed hand score his back. Felt her desperation, felt her need.

Felt his own need swamp him.

One thrust, and she was his.

The sudden sharp pain shocked her. Loretta clung for one second, her shriek muted by their kiss. She hovered, for that instant caught between two worlds, but then passion closed around her, tugged, and she let go, let herself sink into the heated tide once more.

Her body softened around his, accepting the heavy intrusion, his presence at her core igniting a flame that burned hotter than any she’d felt before.

The sudden tension eased, and he drew back.

In flaring panic, she clutched. “No!”

She heard a raspy chuckle as he reversed direction.

“Not a chance.”

Those were the last words they exchanged. The last words either was capable of uttering.

Whatever her imagination had prepared her for, it had never come close to this.

Possession. Possessing.

Giving and taking in a rush of heat and flames, of sharp desire and scintillating passion.

Of a communion of the physical that reached to the soul.

And touched it.

Intimacy. She’d never thought it could encompass all this—the closeness, the yearning, the vulnerability.

The feel of his body moving over hers, the weight of him crushing her into the mattress, the rough abrasion of his hair-dusted limbs and chest over her sensitized flesh, over her tightly peaked nipples, the sensitive inner faces of her thighs.

The shivery reality wrapped around her, held her, impressed itself on her through the thrust of his flesh so
deep inside her, the instinctive clutch and cling of her sheath, the rocking of her body as she cradled him.

As she held him and gloried, and surrendered and claimed.

Pleasure and delight welled, and overflowed, spiced with a blossoming joy unlike any she’d felt before, a giddy feeling verging on euphoria.

And over and through it all sensation swelled, pressure and friction, slickness and heat.

Pressing her on, driving her higher, filling her until she thought she would burst.

Until her nerves and senses imploded, the climax both familiar yet not. Deeper, brighter, a cataclysm of sensation that shattered her, shredded her, hollowed her out, then flung her into some void.

Open and empty, naked and helpless, she clung, then was swept away on a tide of ecstasy.