Love With the Perfect Scoundrel (12 page)

“I think it would be safe to say I’m inclined,” he rasped out. “But, sweetheart, soon you will return to your world and I shall continue on here. Most would say it’s evil—say it’s wrong. But I want it.” He had to force himself not to clutch her arms in his urgency.

“I want it too,” she said very quietly.

“Well then.” The enormity of it crashed in on him. It had been one thing to find himself in her arms in the middle of the night in bed. But here and now they were fully dressed, caught in the lengthening shadows of the library.

He refused to let her out of his sight to precede him above stairs to undress and wait for him. It would give her too much time to change her mind. And he was overly selfish to allow for the possibility. There had been just too many times in his life when the promise of happiness had been snatched from his fingertips.

And so he dared her to avoid his eyes as he unbuttoned her gown and drew it from her. Her mended shift was so fine it was almost translucent. The shadows of the small rosy peaks beneath caused his fingers to tremble. God, he wanted her too much. Touching her last night and the feel of her hesitant, soft hands had only served to inflame him like no other.

Those same hands were grasping his coarse shirt, and he leaned forward to urge her to pull it over his head before leaning back in the large chair.

Firelight danced across her lovely face, her light eyes grown darker, like the stormy winter skies in Virginia. He reached for one end of the delicate bow gathering the front of her shift and tugged at it, taking care not to touch that which lay below. Without a word, he lowered the material and the bandage and with relief found the cut dry and healing.

“Satisfied?” she murmured shyly.

“Relieved,” he returned.

Letting the last of his fears slip into the evening, he grasped her tighter and rose from the chair only to gently, ever so gently, place her on the thick carpeting in front of the fire.

“Aren’t we going above?” she choked out.

“No. Won’t waste a moment.” He tossed the large pillows of the settee to the floor in between the economical movements needed to divest himself of his clothes to join her.

And then he was lost. Lost in the sensation of touching her, stroking the silk softness of her.

Kissing her was like diving into a pool of sun-warmed water and coming up gasping. She was the element he couldn’t describe but knew without a doubt was vital, and the shock of that knowledge made him hold her tighter to him, desperate to imprint her form on his, knowing all the while the futility of the effort.

He couldn’t stop kissing her, her lips, her throat, her breasts—and then his lips followed the fast-beating pulse down to the curve of her hip and the hollow of her soft abdomen. She was like a decadent dessert, all spun sugar and temptation immortal.

As he inched lower still, her voice became a satiny ribbon, knotting his mind, that grew tighter until he became conscious of her words.

“Oh, please wait…Wait! What are you doing?” Her voice was reedy, confused; her hands unsteady on his shoulders.

“Kissing you,” he murmured. His lips trailed near her navel, and he inhaled the marvelous mysterious scent of her, so different from his own. “You’re not going to ask me to stop, are you?”

There was uncertainty in her expression, maybe even fear. He leaned on one forearm and stroked his other palm down her too slender side to behind her knee.

“No,” she said on an exhale. “It’s just that I’m alone up here, and I’m not sure what I should be doing.”

“Oh sweetheart,” he said, easing back up to her face to kiss her forehead.

“And…well, I was beginning to form the idea that you were going to…”

“Going to do what?”

“Nothing—nothing. Forget I said anything.”

“Really?”

She nodded slightly.

“I hope it wasn’t anything
wicked
,” he said, hiding a smile while he dipped down to taste the tips of her exquisite breasts. A shuddering sigh escaped her lips. He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. “Because I daresay I’ll have more than enough to atone for before dawn.” He rose up and looked down into her dazed eyes. “You did propose a night of sin, did you not?”

“But I didn’t mean to suggest—”

“And I plan to make the most of it.” He was sure she was going to argue, but then, inexplicably, her eyes became a deeper, softer blue, and she uttered but one word…one magical word.

“Please…”

He closed the gap between them, his hot flesh molding to her cooler body. He took care to envelope her within his arms until he had chased all her fears away to replace them with yearning.

He dragged his fingers to the traces of angel hair at the apex of her body, which tempted him in the low light. Marveling at the fine texture, he stroked her restlessly. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing with effort; her hands tentatively tunneled through his hair. Michael urged her thighs apart and delved deeper.

And then, there was nothing that could have stopped him from doing something he’d never desired before. He couldn’t explain this starved feeling she engendered within him.

With a groan, he edged his heavy body down hers and before she could say a word against it, he lowered his head and stole a taste of her. And then, just as surely as instinct engulfs a Virginia mountain lion after the first sampling of his own kill, the male hunger in him roared to life, making him deaf to every single last one of her choked protestations.

His shoulders bunched and strained to get closer until, without thought he curled an arm under each of her limbs and tilted her to suit him. The slow and thorough tempo of his ministrations rhymed with the beat of his arousal, leaving him maddened with a stark need to cover her, hold her, possess her. God, it had never been like this. Never would be like this again. He roared with need and prowled back up her delicate form.

“Hold on to me,” he groaned, his desire radiating from every pore of his body. “No. Tighter.”

He grasped his length and sweeping between her plush folds, he became all raw instinct as blood pounded in his veins and roared through his head.

His arousal felt like an anvil, hot and unforgiving, and she was so trusting and soft beneath him. The animal in him had robbed him of his power of speech and he would not be denied any longer.

He sucked in his gut until it ached with fatigue and then let himself loose on her, regret for his inability to hold back instantly flooding him. He plunged deep, deeper, like a rutting bull, overwhelming her beneath him. Worry warred with intense pleasure as he struggled to harness his desire.

Burning…his immense hard length bore into her, and she was powerless to stop it. He held absolute dominion over her and she finally understood the difference between quiet intimacy with her dearest husband and carnal possession by a man in his prime.

It was so very different from anything she had known; it was undeniably more than a little frightening given its primal nature. But seeing the wild hunger in his eyes, she reveled in the pure feeling of being intensely desired—without apology.

He had stopped after one powerful, endlessly long thrust, and was now shaking, his entire body as hard and immovable as a tree trunk. More than anything, she wanted to offer him all the pleasure she could after everything he had given her during the last few days. But he seemed to be waiting for a sign from her.

She eased the tension from her fingers, which clutched his shoulders, and whispered into his hair, “Yes…”

A harsh groan reverberated from his chest and like a great wave from the sea, his body undulated, surging deeper inside her.

Her hips ached from the massive body clasped between them, but still she urged him, sensing his concern for her and his desperation. “Don’t stop…
please, Michael
.”

He tipped back his head and roughly drew in a large lungful of air. As if controlled by another force, he seemed to unleash himself, hurtling his hips against her, filling her, stretching her until the intensity overwhelmed them both. Her breath caught the same moment he opened his eyes and stared at her, his golden eyes darkened with undistilled desire. The intensity she saw in those glittering depths was too great a promise, and she lowered her gaze.

“Look at me,” he insisted as if she would one day forget him. “Don’t look away.”

In that moment, Grace recognized the voracious passion within him and knew she returned it measure for measure without fear. She fully bloomed from the nourishment.

Wordlessly, their eyes enraptured by the sight of each other, their bodies and minds trapped and still, Grace felt a pulsing grow from her depths. And as if he read her need, he surged forward until her vision tunneled. Her body stiffened and spiraled wildly to completion, until finally, she could breathe once more.

With a harsh gasp, he withdrew and spilled himself in great pulsing shots. Arms shaking and with deliberate care, he lowered his lips to hers and kissed her tenderly, reverently.

He rolled to her side and swiped at the wetness before pulling her into his arms; his breathing still uneven.

Dazed and overwhelmed, Grace tried to regain her composure. Desperate to end the piercing, sudden stillness after the storm, she latched on to her first disordered thought. “Are you all right?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking
you
that?” His voice was nearly gone.

She stroked an unruly lock of hair from his face. “Are you suggesting I’m still asking the wrong questions?”

She felt his arms squeeze her closer. “No. I’m just that worried.”

Grace reveled in the warm strength of his arms, and wished she could tamp down the welling desire to never leave this illusionary bubble of happiness. How was she going to manage it? “You shouldn’t be,” she assured him.

“I crushed you, hurt you.”

“No.” She nuzzled under his iron-like jaw. “Just the opposite.”

He didn’t appear to believe her. “And you might find yourself with child, despite my efforts. God, you must promise me—promise me faithfully that you will write to me immediately if there is a child.”

“You mustn’t worry. I rarely…well, I almost never experience what other ladies complain about.”

“But you must promise me.” There was a hollow tone laced in his words. “I couldn’t bear the thought of a child of mine walking this earth without me being there to protect…” He leaned back, unable to continue.

“Of course I would tell you. I would never deny you your own child.” She rushed on, knowing she was ruining the intimacy of the moment. “You were an orphan, weren’t you? You met Mr. Bryn at a foundling home. Did you ever know either of your parents?”

His eyes searched hers. “My father,” he began, then stopped abruptly.

She reached up to stroke his head. “Will you not tell me what happened?”

“Nothing unusual. There was a fire when I was a child and, well, all was lost to me, and I was taken to Lamb’s Conduit Fields.”

“The hospital for foundlings?” she continued when he nodded slightly. “You didn’t have any other relations?”

“None,” he said with overt finality.

“I’ve no real family left either. No brothers or sisters,” she murmured.

She sensed his keen desire to stop examining his painful past. “Michael?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

She pulled away from his arms and eased up to kiss his cheek. “For confiding in me again. And for showing me.”

His heavy arms pulled her to him and rolled her on top of him. “Showing you what, sweetheart?”

“That I’m perhaps not so very different from my friends after all. That I’m not—well, that I’m not what I overheard in London.”

“And what foolish thing was that?”

“The ‘Countess from the Isle of Ice.’”

A warm, slow smile overspread his face. “Sweetheart, everyone knows Vikings lived in the northern climes for a reason—”

She laughed and shook her head. “I am
not
a Viking.”

“—Their passionate blood runs too hot to live anywhere else.” He tugged her head down to rest in the comfort of his immense chest. “Idiots, all such bloody idiots, in town. Although…”

“Yes?”

“I’ll admit your wee feet are of a cold I’ve never encountered before. Come.” He sat up with a groan and lifted her in his arms. “Let me wash you and get you settled for the night. You need to rest—you made me forget how much blood you lost.”

Grace encircled his neck with her arms. The poor man. He had no idea. If he thought for a moment that she was going to waste one of the last few nights she would ever have with him by sleeping, he was about to learn differently.

She smiled to herself.
Viking blood
. He had said she had Viking blood coursing through her veins.

The rest of the night was filled with short intervals of unconsciousness followed by painfully intense roiling emotions and actions, instigated always by her. But they shared few words between them. It seemed that while their bodies could not stop the pull of attraction, their minds would not allow the chance of any words tearing them apart. That is, until the first pink streaks of dawn colored the walls of the simple chamber.

Michael caressed the back of her neck, sad to see the red chafe marks from his night’s growth of beard on the slender column. Her words interrupted his reflection.

“You never did tell me the end of your dream the other night,” she whispered, her eyes still closed.

“I’m not sure I can remember it now,” he said gruffly. He dipped to kiss the top of her head.

“You said you saw me under a tree with a book…waiting.”

“Did I?”

“Yes. Who was I waiting for?”

He paused, determined not to go down this path. “Well, it certainly wasn’t for Mr. Brown.”

She rose up on her forearm and looked at him. “Why do you do that?”

“What, sweetheart?”

“Turn the moment with humor.”

He stared at her. “Because the truth of it is better left unsaid.”

Her expression played havoc on his good sense, more so than any words ever would. He brushed back the lush gold hair that had tumbled over her shoulder and could not stop himself from saying what should not be said.