His Stolen Bride BN (27 page)

Stepping up to the expanse of his broad chest, she whispered in his ear, “Once I thought
to fight the pull of our attraction. But when we made love, you forced me to acknowledge
my desire.”

“And you think I owe you the courtesy of displaying mine like an untried boy?” His
sarcasm cut through the air.

“Nay. Then, you had what you wanted. Now, I will have what I desire.”

Though Drake’s face remained blank, when Averyl stopped before him, heat burned in
his eyes, setting her afire. She sent him a bold stare as she fit her hungry hands
beneath his shirt, touching his fevered skin. After a sharp intake of breath, his
heart began to pound with the force of a marching army.

Tortured desire loomed around his pinched mouth, hovered in his clenched jaw. And
those eyes, hot, knowing, troubled, and angry. Clearly, he waged some battle within,
one Averyl was determined he would lose.

She drew his mouth to hers slowly. With a mixture of desire and panic on his face,
he leaned in. Averyl tensed, fearing he would stop her, refuse her this kind of control.

Finally, his taut arms rose to push her away.

“Kiss me, Drake,” she murmured against his mouth. “’Tis all I ask.”

Expression rigid, his fingers clutched her waist. Averyl held her breath. Would he
accept her or reject her homely face and body as he rejected her heart?

An infinite moment of silence later, Drake pulled her against him, fingers clutching
her waist. Her head snapped back until their gazes met.

For an instant, silence held, broken only by their breathing. Desire had won. Averyl
saw that in the blaze of his eyes. Elation swirled through her.

Then he claimed her mouth. Completely. With a ferocity that forced the breath from
her. Her elation turned to molten desire in the span of a heartbeat.

Parting her lips for his probing tongue, she groaned when he entered her mouth. He
tasted of desperate hunger and need.

Again and again, he exacted her response, his mouth urgent. Her own desire soaring,
pooling between her thighs, she sidled closer and returned his kiss, measure for measure.
She gave everything, her mind, her devotion, her love. Gave without hesitation, without
thought, hoping only that he understood.

He propelled her backwards, trapping her between the cottage’s door and his body.
He anchored his palms on either side of her head, pinning her to the rough wood. Primal
hunger dominated his countenance. Averyl felt an answering chord within her, a savage,
twisting desire that would not abate.

“Is this what you want?” His breath came hard, fast.

She arched against him. “Aye, and more.”

He pressed his body closer, until she felt each inch of his full arousal. “And this?”

Her voice trembled. “Aye.”

His hand fell to the laces down the front of her shift. One, two, three; with speed
and agility, he unraveled them. His greedy palm enveloped the newly exposed skin of
her shoulders. On a moan, he murmured something incoherent and kissed her neck.

A riptide of yearning swelled within her, drowning her in its intensity. Whatever
burdens had held Drake back now dwindled beneath the onslaught of desire.

He murmured her name, his lips claiming hers again. No gentle need, this raging fire
between them. His tongue slid against hers hotly, salty-sweet.

He took. Demanded. In return, he gave tenfold.

Averyl surrendered, clutching the bunched muscles of his shoulders, warm against his
heart, wishing they could stay thus.

Drake’s arms felt like steel as they banded about her. She felt his erection flush
against her belly and arched wantonly to the temptation. He growled from somewhere
deep in his chest as he rolled his hips against her in a fevered answer, a gesture
of possession.

With impatient fingers, he tugged her smock above her head. Suddenly she was naked,
her heated skin exposed to the morning breeze drifting through the open window. The
savage desire in Drake’s eyes made it worthwhile.

His gaze whispered across her sensitive flesh like a secret. She forced herself to
stand still, shoulders squared, and invite him with her eyes to look his fill.

His black stare lifted from her thighs, over her abdomen, and caressed her breasts
on its way to her face.

To her shock, Drake turned her to face the door. With his heated chest at her back,
Averyl felt his palm about her breast and his hot breath upon her neck. The sensation
of feeling each exquisite touch yet not seeing its source heightened her arousal.

“Lass, how can you make me want you so?” he asked raggedly.

“I know not, for I am equally cursed to want you.”

Drake’s breathing was hard, labored. “Aye, ’tis a curse,” he said finally. “Truly,
you have bewitched me.”

His hand left her breast to ignite a trail of fire across her belly, then down into
her woman’s flesh damp with want.

She gasped as his one hand held her steady at the hip and his lips burned a path from
the slope of her shoulder to the crook of her neck. The other hand found her pleasure
bud with unerring ease. He circled the nub in rhythmic strokes. Tingles built to tightness,
tightness to aching pressure. The aching pressure burst, and she cried out at the
pulsing release.

He did not stop.

“Aye. Let me feel you again,” came his warm command.

Amazingly enough, with a few strokes of his fingers, pleasure exploded, awashing her
again, leaving her trembling.

Before she could take a breath, Drake turned her to face him. Fingers of iron clasped
her hips, lifting her. His mouth closed over her breast, the soft abrasion of his
tongue like kindling to a fire. A whimper stuck in her throat as he pulled on her
flesh with his lips and a gentle nip of his teeth. Averyl arched closer, drowning
in his scent, something heady, musky, indisputably male.

His breath came in short pants as he tore off his tunic and worked out of his breeches
and braies. “I can wait no more.”

Hunger hung in the air between them, sharp and tangy, as he backed her to the door
again. Against her belly, she felt him bare, rigid, urgent. She thrilled to the primitive
realization that he meant to take her here, claim her now.

She met the thrust of his tongue earnestly as he filled her mouth with his taste,
surrounded her body with his raw power. His fingers blazed like wands of fire as they
delved between her thighs, urging them apart.

His lips teased the sensitive spot behind her ear when he plunged his fingers within
her. She gasped, clutching him tighter, silently begging. The strength of her desire
roared like a beast, demanding its way. She answered the call without remorse, glorying
to the intensity of his need.

“Now!” she insisted.

“Aye, now,” he groaned, lifting her, drawing her legs about his waist.

With one hard push, Drake was around her, inside her, filling her every corner with
ecstasy.

Then she had no time to think. He found a rhythm, one uncivilized in its domination,
ruthless in its ability to render her mindless. Excitement bubbled within her, erasing
all thought from her mind except of Drake and this joining.

She tightened her arms about his shoulders, her legs about his hips, as sensation
swept over her in a hot gush, crashing through her body without mercy. Arching against
him with a cry, the feeling burst within her like an explosion of the sun, glittering,
bright, brilliant. Drake drove into her again, then spilled his seed deep inside.

Averyl opened her eyes slowly as they sank to the soft carpet of earth beneath them.
Drake still held himself inside her, with her above him. She wilted across his chest,
listening to the rhythmic pounding of his heart and the chugging cadence of their
breathing, accompanied by a lark’s song outside.

Never had she felt so complete, the moment so perfect. He’d responded to her completely,
holding nothing of himself back, even when he resisted sharing aught. She knew it,
felt it in his need for her, demonstrated by his mouth, his body, instinctively knowing
he’d never before given this much of himself to anyone. By his own admission, she
had bewitched him.

And
she
, homely Averyl, had been the one to unlock those feelings. She had been able to persuade
this strong-willed warrior to share his emotions through his touch when he’d wanted
nothing more than to keep such locked within his soul.

As he stroked her hair away from her damp temples, she felt a new truth dawn: She
was not ugly, except in her father’s eyes. Today, Drake had taught her to believe
differently, for ’twas clear he did, and she had been the fool for taking her father’s
opinion into her heart.

Relief soothed her like a mother’s touch. Tears of repletion, of joy, welled in the
corners of her eyes, spilling onto the hot flesh of his chest. She sniffled, trying
to stop them, but it was too late.

“Here now,” he whispered, lifting his head to look at her. He wiped her tears away
with gentle fingers. “What’s this?”

“’Tis nothing,” she lied, even as his very tenderness caused the tears to come faster.

“Nothing makes you leak like a sieve?”

Against her will, she smiled at his teasing. “You are incorrigible.”

“Me? Nay, ’tis you, my beautiful, wanton wife.”

Her mouth trembled into a smile. “Thank you for making me believe that.”

“’Tis truth and always has been.”

Drake placed the softest of kisses upon her forehead and stroked the slick skin of
her back. Never had he been this tender after their lovemaking. Of great relief was
the fact the haunted pain had left his eyes, replaced by a soft satiation. Mayhap
she had succeeded in helping me to see love’s goodness.

Hope made her cry again.

“Ach, more tears. Why, Averyl?”

Chin trembling, new tears burning her throat, she stroked his cheek, her heart diving
straight into the concern filling his dark eyes. She could no longer restrain the
truth.

“Why?” Her voice shook. “Because I love you.”

Those three words hung as heavy as an anvil in the weighty wake of silence. Even the
lark beyond their window ceased his cheerful song. Averyl held her breath, heart pounding
like a frightened rabbit as Drake stiffened below her.

After the wild, golden joining of their bodies and hearts, the fact that she loved
Drake should not stun him. Yet clearly her admission of such had shaken him, down
to his very core.

From the jolt of shock evident on his face, she saw that his peace was gone.

Though their bodies lay still joined in slick intimacy, Averyl felt an insidious separation
sever the closeness they had shared, as surely as if he had taken his broadsword to
a ribbon.

Something within her cried out as he set her away, his back taut, lending credence
to her fear. Knees cushioned by pungent earth, Averyl clutched the hard span of his
shoulders, yearning to hold him to her until he understood he had nothing to fear
from her love.

Drake would not be held. With a shrug, he rose to his feet without a word, never meeting
her questing gaze.

Watching in painful silence as he hurriedly donned his clothes with little care, Averyl
searched for the words to chase away the chill between them, despite the warming summer
morn. To assure him she would never crush the heart his thoughtless mother had scarred
years ago. To convince him she would never misuse him, hurt him, cast him aside.

No words came to mind.

’Twas as if he refused to look at her, face her. Holding back hot tears, Averyl dressed
in silence, wishing she knew what to say.

The silence stretched on. The tense breadth of his shoulders told her eloquently there
would be no discussion of her feelings. His fear, his rage, stood between them as
effectively as a boiling ocean.

Still, Averyl could not let him walk away.

“Drake?”

Finally, his dark gaze reluctantly slid over her face before coming to rest on his
boots. “I am sorry.”

An iciness crept across Averyl’s skin as she reached for him. “Sorry? Nay, you must
not be. I seek nothing, but simply to tell—”

He cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand. “’Tis but a matter of time before you
would want your feelings returned. Even now, your eyes plead. Nay.” He shook his head,
directing his angry gaze to the roof. “Love is naught but a painful trap designed
to twist a man inside out. I will not fall into it.”

Averyl watched in mute pain as her husband walked out the cottage door. Dark clouds
drifted across the sun, obscuring the sunlight, just as Drake had obscured her hope.

He withdrew further, in a way he had not done even in the earliest days of her captivity.
She swallowed fiercely.

Aye, she’d known his views on love and hoped, perhaps without reason, that she could
change them. The furious slam of the gate reached her ears and beyond mocked her.
Drake wanted nothing between them now but separation.

She stood on shaky legs, fighting the tears of despair that stung her tired eyes.
The smells of burning wood, coffee and…Drake triggered a barrage of memories. She
recalled their first kiss so many weeks ago, Drake sharing his bitter fury at his
mother’s cruel betrayal, the times they had joyfully joined their flesh as man and
wife, his tenderness upon witnessing her fear of the dark.

Drake was a hard man to know, complex, often hidden. But Averyl thought she had solved
the puzzle, dug into his heart to find the hurt that pained him. She’d even thought
to heal it.

This morn proved only that she knew nothing.

Deciding against any breakfast for her roiling stomach, Averyl prepared and poured
fresh wine warmed above the dwindling orange fire. She sipped, scarcely noting the
brew’s bitterness.

And now that she’d uttered of love, she must face the consequences.

A gentle splash took her from her thoughts. A ripple in her wine, coupled with warm,
salty tracks running down her face, slammed her with a new wave of despair.