Sweet Deception (25 page)

She squeezed her legs together, seeking relief but only causing more tingles. She tried to open her thighs, but his knees blocked her. She raised her hips with a protesting moan.

His eyes flared. “God, Emma. Everything about you makes me burn to—” Derick moved up her body in a flash. He rubbed his clothed member in a long stroke against her as she got her legs fully opened. Molten heat shot through her body as the rough fabric of his trousers dragged against her over-sensitive skin. But as delightful as that was, she had no intention of being the only one without a stitch. She wanted him naked. Now.

She pulled at his shirt, tugging it from his waistband. “I want to see you. After all, turnabout is fair game,” she murmured.

Derick shuddered, his chest heaving. “Play, Emma. Turnabout is fair play. However…” He looked for a moment as if he would deny her. Emma’s stomach clenched. There was no way she would have that. She ran her palm over the hot skin of his stomach beneath his shirt, then boldly caressed his arousal through the fabric of his trousers, pressing her palm hard against him.

Derick’s eyes closed and he gasped, pressing himself against her as if caught in something he couldn’t control. Emma thrilled, knowing she did that to him. “Now, take your shirt off,” she ordered, heady with the sense of power she felt all of a sudden.

Together they got the shirt over his head. “Oh my,” Emma whispered as the expanse of his chest came into view.

Muscles rippled beneath his skin, not bunched or
puffy but lean, sinewy. His skin was smooth, with only a smattering of black hair dusting the surface. A thin line of hair trailed down his stomach, a dark vee that disappeared beneath the fabric of his trousers, leading to…Emma felt a fresh warmth of moisture between her thighs. She needed to see more, see all.

She reached for the fall of his trousers, frantic now to get them off. Derick seemed equally frantic, their fingers fumbling over each other’s in their haste. Finally, the fabric was pushed down around his hips and Emma stilled as he sprang free, her eyes fixed on what she’d only been able to feel recently.

Derick kept moving, pushing the trousers down his thighs and pulling his legs and feet free, but Emma couldn’t drag her eyes from his thick manhood, which jutted proudly from between his thighs.

Her center ached, an empty sort of longing, even as trepidation set in. She wanted to look her fill, and yet she couldn’t wait to touch him without the barrier of cloth. She could look later.

She opened her hand on him and he stilled. Positioned above her as he was, it was easiest to run her palm along the underside of his arousal. She gave him a long stroke, pressing upward with her palm. “You’re like hot satin against my skin,” she marveled, squeezing him, testing him, amazed at the dichotomy of hard and soft that rested heavy against the inner skin of her wrist.

She looked up at Derick. His head was leaned back, a look that could be pain but could also be pleasure riding his face. His eyes were closed.

“Not fair play,” she said, squeezing his shaft in a quick, sharp grip much as he’d nipped her for the same crime.

His eyes flew open, and the hot look he gave her strangled the air in her chest. He’d liked that. She squeezed him again—

“Enough,” Derick growled, grabbing her wrist. He
lifted her arm away, maneuvering it above her body while he laid her back against the blanket. Then he pinned her wrist above her head.

Emma had but a moment to feel any worry before his mouth crashed down upon hers. His tongue breached her lips boldly and she sucked him in with a keening moan. She automatically raised her other arm to rest next to its sister. The movement eased the heavy ache in her breasts a little, lifting them high.

Derick nudged her legs wide with his knees and the crisp hair of his thighs rubbed against her skin as he settled himself once again between her thighs, this time with nothing separating them.

Emma vaguely felt the pressure of his finger as it entered her, was barely aware when he added another. She was too awash in the feeling of having her naked body covered entirely by his—hot skin and coarse hair, hard muscles moving against her softer ones, her aching breasts smashed deliciously against his chest, his intimate heat insistent against her folds—

Derick flexed his hips and pressed into her. Not far, but enough to center every single one of her nerves on the spot. Her skin burned, stretched and yet somehow ached for more.

His other hand skimmed up her body, up her arm until his fingers entangled themselves in hers. He released her wrist with his opposite hand and did the same, still pinning her but palm to palm now. Hands entwined intimately.

He broke their kiss, and pulled his face back from hers.

“Look at me now, Emma.”

She did. His eyes glittered with heat as he fought for breath, turned dark with satisfaction. He flexed his hips again.

But this time he didn’t stop. His jaw clenched tight as he filled her, stretched her. Emma couldn’t breathe at
all, every bit of his intimate invasion overwhelming. An odd pressure stretched, then burst with a pinch and suddenly he slid all the way in, his pelvis bumping against her in a way that set off trembling little quakes of sensation.

She kept her eyes on his the entire time. Neither one of them seemed to be able to look away. Even when he began moving. He pulled himself from her, a tugging glide that both relieved and left her feeling empty. She moaned at the loss, pulling her knees up to try to keep him with her.

He surged forward again, hot, huge, filling her with force and purpose. He seemed to go even deeper than before now that her knees were raised higher. He stroked again. Again. Again. Steady, even thrusts that drove her mad. She sensed there was more, could be more. She
craved
more as the tightness within her grew. And still he kept his thrusts relentlessly controlled. Again. Again. Again.

All the while, she held his gaze. She longed to touch him, but she couldn’t with her hands pinned by his. So she squeezed him between her thighs as tightly as she could, spurring him forward with her heels to his buttocks.

A groan ripped from Derick’s throat and he slammed into her. He dropped his head, forehead to hers and bucked again.

“Yes!” she cried out as his rhythm devolved into irregular, jarring surges. And suddenly one of her hands was free as he sent his between them, bringing his thumb against her in circling rubs. She threw her arm around his neck, holding him tightly to her as he pounded into her—holding him to her heart, wishing they could be even closer. She closed her eyes, now able to focus only on the fire licking her body.

And then she flew, clenching and grabbing at him as if he were the only anchor that kept her lifeline tied to
the earth. Her body hummed, her ears rang—she heard his harsh shouts of pleasure as if they were somewhere far below her, though in truth he was above her. She felt him shudder between her thighs, felt a hot gush of warmth within her even as she floated…floated…floated back down to where, in actuality, she lay beneath him. Surreal. Perfect.

Emma gradually became aware of Derick’s heavy weight upon her. He’d released her other hand, his head had dropped atop her shoulder, and his hot breath rushed against the side of her neck. She brought her other arm around him now, cradling him to her much as she still cradled him between her thighs.

She opened her eyes, almost surprised by the blue sky above her. Sounds and sights of the forest gradually filtered back into her consciousness—birds chirping, the creek gurgling, the bursts of color that stood out from the greenery. “Dear me,” she mused with a sudden bit of humor, “deflowered amidst the wildflowers. For shame.”

But rather than shame, she was filled with a peace and happiness unlike any she’d ever known. A euphoria almost. Derick loved her. Oh, he hadn’t said the words, but he’d shown her with other words, with his body.

Emma hugged him tighter to her. How many times had she sat in this very spot, dreaming of this moment? Well, not this moment exactly, because she hadn’t had the worldly knowledge to imagine anything
close
to what had just happened between them. But dreaming of Derick and herself, together. In love.

Emma idly stroked her fingers through his hair. He stirred. He lay against her for a moment, then shifted his weight, moving his hands to brace himself above her. Emma smiled as his face rose above hers, but it froze upon her lips as she registered his pale complexion, his features twisted with regret.

“Oh, hell. That was a mistake.”

E
mma flinched, her head falling back and her eyes widening with shock, much as if he’d slapped her. And damnation, he may as well have.

“Oh, Emma.” His voice sounded raw to his ears, yet slurred with the languid satiation that battled with his self-disgust and with a bone-deep fear he could not name. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

Hell.
She
was the one who blurted her deepest thoughts, not he. He was supposed to be in control of himself—his actions, his emotions, his words. And yet, lying here with Emma, still buried between her sweet thighs with her satiny skin surrounding him, with her lavender scent mixed with the heady smell of sex and woman still arousing him, he was in control of nothing.

A tremor passed through him. Damnation, he was shaken to his core. Sex had never been like that for him. Never once had he so completely lost himself in another person. He wondered vaguely if he’d ever find his way back—if he even wanted to.

Her hands left him slowly. She slid her arms under his where he’d propped himself above her, and crossed
them over her breasts, putting a barrier between them that squeezed something within him.

“Didn’t mean the words, Derick?” Emma’s voice sounded small, yet surprisingly strong. “Or didn’t mean to make love to me?”

Gooseflesh popped over his skin, cold now in the absence of her warmth. He felt her withdrawing from him, even though they were still intimately joined. With one slip of the tongue, he threatened to undo every bit of the self-worth he’d been trying to build up in her. Well, that and one monumentally foolish slip of control.

“Emma…” He didn’t want to answer her. Didn’t want to see the pain his words would cause, whether he told the whole truth or just part of it.

Her lower lip trembled, that lip which he’d so recently praised. Had taken between his teeth and nipped, suckled, and soothed. Looking down at her now, his chest ached. He’d known Emma was vulnerable to him—and by joining with her, he’d made her even more so, heartless cad that he was. All because he’d lost his damned head, because he’d been unable to resist
her
, been unable to stop himself—a reality he couldn’t fathom, yet it was there just the same, looming with unknown consequences he wasn’t prepared to face.

Still, he owed her the truth, even if it wouldn’t make things better for her. In the short run, that was. In the long run, it was for the best. He heaved a great breath.

“Neither. I didn’t mean the words, but I shouldn’t have…” Derick swallowed. He couldn’t bring himself to say “used you so.” That was too callous and cold for what had flared between them. In his many years as a spy, he
had
used countless women—mostly for the secrets they possessed, though sometimes there was pleasure in it, too. He had been used for the same just as many times. But Emma was as different from those women as he was from a blue-blooded Englishman.

However, neither could he utter the words “made
love to you,” the idea too foreign and disturbing for him to countenance. “I shouldn’t have touched you,” he finally said.

Emma’s chest hitched and then she shoved him, hard, successfully dislodging him. She scrambled from beneath him, coming to her feet while he was still catching his balance. He rose to his knees as Emma snatched her chemise and dress from the blanket where he’d tossed them. She yanked them over her head in harsh, jerky motions, forgoing the stays.

“That doesn’t add up, Derick,” she said as her head popped through the neckline of her bodice. She shoved her arms through the armholes next. “If you believe you shouldn’t have
touched
me, then you
did
mean the words.” She smoothed out her skirts, her amber glare turning watery. “You just didn’t mean for me to hear them.”

Her voice broke on that last, and a single tear slipped from her eye. That silent trail of moisture cleaved him in two. Derick dropped his head, unable to look at her pain. His eyes sought the blanket, the green, blue and yellow plaid blurring as he knelt naked before her, unsure what to say, unable to move, damning himself for a coward.

In all of his encounters over the years, he’d never stayed to see this part. He’d always left women happy, departing their beds with glib lies upon his lips—whatever he’d known they wanted to hear. Had he hurt any of the women he’d screwed for king and country? He must have, at least a few of them. But he had been gone long before he’d have known it.

Blessedly, Emma was the one to walk away. When he looked up, she had turned her back on him and seemed to be struggling with her boots. Though he heard no sobs, her shoulders were shaking and he was certain that not all of it was due to her efforts to dress.

He rose to his feet and gathered his own clothing,
slipping his trousers, shirt and boots on as he’d done a hundred times after sex. And yet, even after every stitch of clothing was perfectly righted, he still felt naked. Exposed. Bare as he had never been before in his life.

When he looked again to Emma, she had straightened, though her back was still to him. She looked so stiff and so…small. Smaller than her usual compact stature, as if she’d withdrawn into herself. Damn it, this wasn’t her fault. He crossed the distance between them, stopping silently behind her. He couldn’t let her think…What? He didn’t know, he only knew he couldn’t allow her to blame herself. To think it was she who was lacking. “Emma, I—”

She turned to face him then, her cheeks dry now, though her eyes were lined with red and her nose had gone puffy. “You didn’t mean any of it, did you?” Her voice held a flat, resigned note that ripped at him.