A Night to Surrender (24 page)

Twenty-two

R
eally. The man was impossible. When Susanna managed to get her hands on him, she was going to fling him off the bluffs herself.

It was late afternoon, almost evening. After a long day overseeing progress in the village, she ought to be heading home, making sure her father had eaten something today. Instead, she huffed all the way up to the castle ruins. On the way, she passed Corporal Thorne drilling the majority of the militiamen on the flat. Straight lines, straighter posture, a respectable unity of rhythm. Not perfect yet, but they’d made formidable progress in the past week. At marksmanship, she had all but a few of them loading and shooting in under twenty seconds now.

A few minutes’ more walking, and she reached the castle.

“Where is your lord?” she asked a lone volunteer standing sentry at the ancient, crumbling gatehouse. She recognized him as one of Bram’s farm recruits.

“Beg pardon, miss. I . . . I don’t believe he’s available.”

“What do you mean, he’s not available? He’s found time to devil me with these ridiculous orders all day.” In her fist, she clutched his latest handwritten missive. “This is the third one he’s sent this afternoon alone. I know he’s here.”

“He’s here,” the man hedged, “but . . .”

“Lord Rycliff!” she called, striding past the soldier.

Dinner greeted her as she crossed the bailey, with a friendly bleat and a questing nudge at her pocket.

“Someone’s been spoiling you.” Pausing to spare the lamb a brief pat, she passed into the grassy, open center of the castle grounds, drew to a halt, and lifted her voice. “Lord Rycliff, I need a word.”

“Up here, Miss Finch.”

She tilted her head to view the keep.

“On the parapet,” he called.

Shading her eyes, she let her gaze climb higher still. From atop the southwest turret, between the crenellated notches of the battlement, he lifted a hand in salutation. The sinking, amber sun lit him from the back, bathing him in a glowing corona of light. Like a halo of fire—perfectly befitting the handsome, tormenting devil.

“I’d appreciate if you’d come down, my lord,” she called. “We need to talk.”

“It’s my turn on watch.”

“You’re the commander. Can’t you make it someone else’s turn?”

“I don’t shirk my duty that way, Miss Finch.”

Susanna marched through the keep’s open door, crossed the roofless, ancient hall, and went straight for the spiral staircase of the southwest tower. If he refused to come down and talk to her, she would simply climb up to confront him.

As she ascended the stone risers, she called out, “What’s the meaning of all these missives? The seamstresses are tying their fingers in knots, trying to appease your absurd demands with the uniforms. First, you send a note demanding the coat lining should be bronze silk. We’re twelve pieces into the cutting, and now another note: Not bronze anymore, but blue. Not just any blue, mind.
Iris
blue. Well, no sooner do we have the blue laid out, than the next missive arrives. ‘I want pink,’ it says. Pink, of all colors! Are you serious?”

Lord, there were a great many stairs. Her brain whirled with the constant circling. She paused a moment, leaning a hand on the stone wall and gathering breath for the remainder of the climb. As well as for the remainder of her complaints.

“It’s my militia, Miss Finch,” he called down to her. “I want what I want.”

“It’s not as though we have nothing else to do, you realize,” she went on. “It’s not only the uniforms. We’ve only a matter of days before the field review. I have the ladies rolling cartridges. Miss Taylor is struggling valiantly to repair Finn and Rufus’s sense of rhythm. With marksmanship practice scheduled to last all tomorrow morning, we simply don’t have time for your capricious whims regarding coat lining and—”

No sooner had she gained the top of the stairs than he had her wrapped in his arms. He swept her straight off her feet.

In a swift motion, he carried her to the opposite side of the tower and pressed her against the parapet of cool, hard stone. At her back, the top edge of the wall caught her just beneath the shoulder blades. From the front, his solid heat and brute strength trapped her. Excited her. She’d already been short of breath, but this . . . ? This was dizzying.

“I told you,” he said in a low, possessive growl, “I want what I want. And what I want right now, so fiercely I can scarcely see straight, is you.” His kiss bruised her mouth. “I can’t believe it took three of those ridiculous notes to get you up here. Stubborn girl.”

“
That
was your purpose? Bram, you might have just said so.”

“I did say so.” His lips traced the curves of her neck. “Those notes were all about you. This shimmering bronze hair. Your iris-blue eyes.” He licked the underside of her jaw. “All your many, many, luscious shades of pink.”

A sigh of pleasure eased past her lips. “
Bram
.”

She should have been angry, but his embrace felt so good. So necessary. In the week since their tryst in the cove, they’d managed to steal a few hours together nearly every evening, making love beneath the night sky and then conversing on every topic under the stars. Still, she couldn’t be parted from him for a minute without missing him. These big, grasping hands and these hot, hungry kisses.

“What about the uniforms?” she asked.

“To the devil with the uniforms. Make the coat linings any color you wish. I don’t give a damn about any of it.”

He slid his hands to her bottom and pulled her flush against him, bringing her belly in contact with his prominent arousal. The evident, intense hunger in his eyes sent desire racing through her.

“I want you,” he said. Rather redundantly.

She wet her lips. “Perhaps tonight I can slip away from Summerfield.”

“No. Not tonight.” He kneaded her backside with both hands, lifting and molding her body to his. “Here. Now.”

The idea made her heart race, and made her intimate places go soft with longing. She glanced to either side. “We couldn’t possibly.”

“No one can see us,” he said, guessing her question. “Not on this side of the tower. There’s only rocks and sea below us here.”

The other three parapets were unoccupied. All the men were down the slope, at drill. He was right, there was no one to see. A mild breeze whipped around and between them. The purpling sky hung so close overhead, she felt as though she could brush it with her fingertips. They stood on top of the world, alone.

His teeth caught lightly on her earlobe. “I swam alone last night, you know. Worked my way back and forth across that cove until my muscles were jelly. You owe me more kisses than I can count.”

She had a vision of the two of them, tangled in a warm, pillow-heaped bed. He was outstretched on the mattress, utterly naked, and her hair was unbound, dragging over them both as she repaid those kisses she owed. Ran her lips and tongue over his every last hot, needy inch.

“I . . .” She gasped as his palm slid to cup her breast. “I thought you were meant to be on watch.”

“So I am.” He kneaded the taut globe thoughtfully, rolling her hardened nipple beneath his thumb. “Very well. Keep watch with me.”

Stepping back, he grasped her by the waist and spun her about, so that she faced the stone parapet. He moved her sideways, positioning her before one of the crenels—a gap in the battlement designed for an archer to shoot through.

“Can you see?” he asked roughly, bending her forward so that her elbows rested in the crenel notch and pulling up her skirts. “See the cove clear, and the Channel beyond?”

“Yes.” Below them, she could clearly survey the rocky inlet and expansive waters. In the distance, a few white sails puffed. To the west, the orange-yellow sun was slinking toward the horizon.

“Good. Keep your eyes open. The watch is yours.”

With firm, insistent tugs, he gathered her skirts and petticoats, lifting them to her waist. He found the slit in her drawers and widened it with a loud rent of fabric, baring her delicate flesh to the cooling breeze and his warm, rough touch.

He petted her, parted her, spread her wide to his view. His fingertips traced every contour of her intimate flesh. She’d never felt so exposed. If she’d paused to think too hard about what he was seeing and doing, Susanna would have lost her nerve altogether. So she did as he said. She kept the watch, training her eyes on the sparkling blue water and the silver-kissed horizon.

A muted rustle told her he was freeing the closures of his breeches. She grew restless with need, damp with anticipation. A little cry of relief escaped her when his hot, aroused length sprang up to lodge snug against her cleft.

His hands caressed her bared bottom and thighs. “God, I think I’m going mad. You can’t imagine how much I think of this. All the time, everywhere. Yesterday, I stopped in the shop for ink, and all I could think of was you, spreading your legs for me on the countertop. Or bent over the display case. Then slammed against the storeroom shelves, skirts hiked to your waist and one leg propped on a crate. Every waking moment, I’m thinking of this. Every night, I’m aching for it.” He worked his hard, thick shaft against her, sliding back and forth over her sensitized flesh. “Tell me you want it, too.”

Wasn’t showing enough? She wriggled her hips, increasingly desperate for him.

“Tell me, love. I need to hear it. I need to know this madness isn’t mine alone.”

“I . . .” She swallowed. “I want you.” Excitement raced along her skin. Just uttering those syllables pushed her to a new, wanton degree of arousal. The madness was definitely shared.

“You want
this
.” He nudged her opening with the smooth, blunt crown of his erection. “In you, hard and deep. Isn’t that right?”

Those words . . . so indecent. So crude. So utterly arousing.

“Y-yes.”

He licked her ear. “Did you say something?”

Decency be damned. She had to have him, soon, or she would die of wanting. “Yes,” she said. “I want it. All of it. In me. Now. Please.”

Yes.

Yes. He entered her on a slow, gliding stroke. Stretching her. Filling her. Then retreating for a brief, agonizing pause before thrusting deeper still.

He set a rhythm, rocking her against the ancient parapet, and as they moved together, he lavished kisses over her bared neck and shoulders. The tight knots of her nipples chafed against her corset seams. Bliss curled and coiled from her center, spreading through every inch of her body.

He slid one hand around her hips, sifting through the folds of petticoat. His talented fingers knew just how to please her, circling gently over that needy bud as he kept up his strong, steady thrusts.

“Bram,” she gasped. “Hold me. Tight.”

“I have you.” His arms tightened around her middle. His pace did not relent. “I have you.”

She stared, eyes wide and unfocused, at that thin, indigo line of horizon. And then he pushed her beyond it. Flinging her off the map of charted sensation and into unknown, unimagined bliss. It went on, and on. She rode the crest of pleasure as far as it would take her. Startled sounds of pleasure pushed from her throat, mingling with the cries of gulls. She was helpless to stop them.

“Holy God.” With a profane growl, he pulled her hips tight to his, burying his full length inside her. Her intimate muscles clamped around his thickness. They moaned in unison. After a few thumping heartbeats’ pause, he began to move again.

He was close to his peak. She could sense it in the acceleration of his rhythm and the new, deeper angle of his thrusts. His guttural noises of satisfaction. If he wasn’t careful . . .

“Bram. Take care.”

“I don’t want to take care.” He bent close, breathing in her ear. “I want to take
you
. Mark you. Spend inside you, and feel you holding me tight while I fill you with my seed. I want the world to know you’re mine.”

Oh God. Those words . . . they both frightened and aroused her. She opened her mouth to object, to plead with him.
Take care, take care.
Take care with my heart when you say such things.
But then he shifted, thrusting deeper still, and his thumb grazed her flesh just where she needed it. Pleasure racked her body for a second time, and the only sounds from her mouth were primal, desperate moans.

She hadn’t known, hadn’t dreamed she could feel so exposed. With each one of these hasty, stolen couplings, he stripped yet more layers from the woman she’d always believed herself to be. He denuded her of witty banter, of polite virtue, of all the trappings of a gently bred, overly educated spinster. Reducing her to nothing but raw, wild sensation and a fiercely thumping, wholly unguarded heart.

While the last pulses of her climax were still shuddering through her, he withdrew from her body. She felt the hot splash of his seed against her thigh. In the aftermath, he held her, brushing sweet kisses to her temple and cheek.

His breath came in ragged huffs. He pressed his brow to her shoulder and gathered her close. “That gets more difficult every time.”