The Bridal Quest (27 page)

His hands slid over her, punctuating his words, curving around her breasts and sliding down over her hips.

"All I want is you," he finished, his lips hovering at the corner of her mouth. Then his lips were on hers, hard and hungry, opening her mouth to his seeking tongue.

Irene shook under the force of the passion sweeping through her, and she dug her hands into his shirt, clinging to him. Her breasts felt swollen and aching, the nipples tightening in need, and she pressed herself up into his body, yearning to feel his hardness against her. Desire blossomed between her legs, hot and damp.

His hands clamped over her buttocks, grinding her against him, and he pulled his mouth away to string hot kisses down her throat and onto the soft curves of her breasts.

"Marry me," he murmured urgently against her soft skin. "Take me from this misery and be my wife." He raised his head and looked down into her eyes. His face was soft and slack with hunger, his eyes ablaze with desire. "I want you in my bed. I want you beside me every day. I want your face to be the last thing I see at night and the first thing I see in the morning."

"Gideon ..." Irene breathed, swamped with emotion.

"I haven't a poet's way with words," he went on. "I am a blunt, hard man, I know. I cannot offer you words of love. I think that love is ... not in me any longer, if it ever was. But I know this—I want you as my wife. I want to share my life with you. I want to know you in every way a man can possibly know a woman. And I can promise that I will protect you and care for you. I will not harm you. I swear it. Marry me, Irene."

She stared up at him, her mind a jumble of thoughts and emotions. His words had melted her; she burned with desire, and yet felt strangely weak and tender. He did not love her; he had made a point of saying so. How could she hope to live a happy life without her husband's love? Yet how could she choose anything but a life with him?

"Gideon, I—I don't know what to say."

"Bloody hell!" he cried in a low voice. "Can you not, just for once in your life, say yes?"

"I must think," she told him shakily. She had always prided herself on thinking, on not being ruled by her emotions. How could she throw all caution to the winds?

"Don't think!" he shot back. "Damn it, Irene ..."

They stared at each other for a long moment. She felt frozen, unable to move or speak.

With a low oath, he broke the embrace, took a step away, then swung back. "I cannot go back in there. I am going to the tower."

He did not finish, just broke off and strode away across the terrace and down the steps into the garden.

Irene hurried after Gideon to the top of the steps, watching him as he disappeared into the dark of the garden. She stood there, her hands clenched into tight fists, struggling to hold back her tears. She felt bereft, as if something had been torn from her. And she knew in that moment that what had been taken from her was her heart.

She loved Gideon. No words, no logic, no amount of thinking could change that. She was not sure when she had fallen in love with him, when the immediate, intense desire she had felt from the moment she met him had turned into something deeper. But somehow, somewhere along the way, she had given her heart to him.

She loved him, and she knew that the last thing she wanted was to turn away from him. She had thought the worst that would happen when she refused him was that she would have to return to live with her brother and sister-in-law. But now she realized that her life would be far worse than that—she would have to live without Gideon for the remainder of her years. Just the thought of it sent pain slicing through her.

She brought her hands up to her flushed cheeks. She knew deep down that she could trust Gideon. He would not harm her, would not control her, would do none of the things that had always made the thought of marriage so frightening. Such fears were, in the end, not what had held her back. What was truly frightening was the realization that she could give her love to him and not receive his love in return.

And that, she thought, was what held her poised over the precipice now.

If she went to him, if she married him, she would be giving herself entirely to him, offering up her love, her very self. Yet Gideon had just told her that he did not love her—indeed, did not think himself capable of love. Could she allow herself to step into such emotional danger? To love even though she might never receive his love in return?

But even as she wondered whether she could, she realized that not to give him her love would lead to a worse fate, much worse. To hold back from marrying him now would be sheer cowardice. The only true course that her love could take was to commit herself to him. If she did not follow that path, she was denying her love, denying her very self. She would be giving herself over to a life of lonely bitterness, and all because she was afraid to take the ultimate step.

Irene let out a low cry and ran down the steps. Lifting her skirt to her ankles to keep from tripping over it, she hurried through the garden, following the path Gideon had taken. The light of the moon was all she had to see by, and when she came to the darker reaches of the garden, where trees and shrubs grew up to hedge her in and block the light, she had to slow to a walk.

She arrived at the edge of the gardens finally and emerged onto the narrow path leading to the ruins. To her right lay the woods, dark and impenetrable. At another time she might have been frightened of passing this way by herself at night, but tonight she thought of nothing but Gideon.

There, ahead of her, stood the ruins of the tower, and her pace quickened until she was almost running. "Gideon!"

She called his name again as she hurried up to the base of the tower. She stopped at the ruined doorway, one hand upon the stone to steady herself, and drew in her breath. Suddenly she felt a little shy, and when she said his name this time, it came out more tentatively. "Gideon?"

There was the screech of wood on stone, and light spilled into the stairway above her head. "Irene?"

"Yes." Her heart was pounding so hard that she thought he must hear it even from the floor above her. "I am here."

"Irene!" Feet pounded down the stone steps, and he came to a stop on the landing, looking down at her. His eyes were dark in the dim light; his skin seemed stretched tautly over his facial bones.

"My answer is yes," she said, unable to hide the little catch in her voice.

He took the stairs two at a time and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her up and burying his face in her hair. "Irene, Irene ... I've been half mad. I thought I'd been an utter fool, leaving like that, making you choose."

He kissed her ear, her hair, her face, as his words spilled out. "I was about to go back and tell you that I was an idiot, that I would wait for as long as it took you to decide."

Irene let out a delighted chuckle. "But you needn't, for I am here now, and I have decided. I want you. I want to marry you."

"Then we are of one mind." He swept her in his arms and started up the steps. "That is no doubt a first for us—and it may be the last time, as well."

"You think that we shall argue?" Irene asked him, opening her eyes wide in mock dismay. "But, my lord, we shall be as one."

"If you ever stopped arguing with me, I am sure I would not know what to do. In fact, I think I would be certain that something was very, very wrong."

Gideon carried her into the room he had made in the tower and set her down, kicking the door closed behind them. He stood looking down at her for a long moment, then set her on the floor and cupped her face in his hands.

"Lady Radbourne. My wife," he said experimentally.

"I am not your wife yet," she reminded him.

He took one of her hands and raised it to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. "We are promised now. Bound. I will tell my grandmother tomorrow, and then I shall go back with you to London to formally ask your brother for your hand. But I have received the only answer I need tonight."

He opened her hand, turning it up and laying another kiss in her palm. "I have only one requirement," he said, then kissed her hand again.

"And what is that?"

"That we be married soon," he replied, a wicked grin curving his lips.

He traced the line of her jaw, watching the progress of his finger as it curved down over her chin and onto the tender flesh of her throat, gliding lower and lower until it skimmed the soft fleshy tops of her breasts and slid down into the dark crevice between them.

Irene's breath caught in her throat, and her heart began to hammer like a mad thing. "Have you no patience, sir?"

She cast a long golden look up at him from beneath her lashes, full of invitation, and was rewarded by the faint trembling of his fingertip against her skin.

"I have no patience at all where you are concerned," he answered, and his smile was a little vulpine. Yet Irene found it did not frighten her at all; it only stirred her blood more.

He lightly traced the neckline of her ball gown across the tops of her breasts with the fingertips of one hand, then spread his hand out flat across her chest before sliding it up to curl around her neck.

"I want you now," he said thickly. "And always."

He bent his head to brush his mouth across hers lightly, returning again and then a third time, tracing the seam of her lips with his tongue. Irene drew in a little breath of surprise at the intimate touch, and she felt him smile against her lips as his mouth settled onto hers.

He kissed her for a long, leisurely time, exploring and teasing sensation after sensation from her. She felt as if all her muscles and bones were melting, and she leaned into him, her hands going up to his chest to support her.

Gideon spanned her waist with his hands, holding her upright as his mouth continued to plunder hers. When at last he raised his head, she sagged weakly against him, her cheek upon his chest. He bent and kissed the top of her head, murmuring her name.

"You are so beautiful," he told her. "You looked like a goddess tonight. Rich and golden. All I could think about was putting my hands on you."

He matched his actions to his words, sliding one hand down her back and lingering over her hips. With the same slow care that his lips had used on hers, he caressed her. moving his hands slowly, intimately, over her. He turned her so that she leaned back against him, and she went easily, willingly, luxuriating in his touch. Looping one arm around her waist, he held her against him, while his other hand smoothed over her breasts and down onto her stomach.

Gently he aroused her through the material of her clothes, his fingertips teasing over the sensitive tips of her breasts and curving beneath them to cup their weight, then sliding down over the flat plane of her stomach and abdomen to delve into the notch between her legs.

Irene let out a startled noise then, stiffening a little at the unexpected touch, but his fingers moved slowly, gently, igniting the myriad of sensitive nerves that gathered there, and before long it was a soft moan of pleasure that escaped her lips. Moisture flooded between her legs, and she was aware of a deeper, hungrier yearning.

She moved against him, rubbing herself against his body behind her, and she was pleased to hear his low groan. The sound of his desire further stirred her, and she realized that she wanted very much to arouse him as he had aroused her.

Irene turned into him, setting her hands to roam across his body. "Show me how to please you. Let me give you pleasure."

"Everything you do gives me pleasure," he assured her, stiffening and suppressing another groan as her fingertips slid across the front of his breeches.

"I like it when you do this," she said, running her hands around behind him and gliding over his buttocks. "Do you like it?" she asked, sinking her fingertips into his flesh.

His response was a choked noise and the sudden jerk of his body against hers, and it was answer enough for her. She smiled, caressing him again. Then she took a step back and reached up to pull the pins from her hair.

"You told me once that you wanted to see my hair come down," she said softly.

His eyes glittered in response. "I do."

He watched her, his chest rising and falling rapidly as her fingers worked through her hair, loosening curl after curl. The long tresses tumbled down over her hands and arms, caressing her skin. He watched her until at last he could stand still no longer, and then he reached out, sinking his hands into her springing curls.

He kissed her again, but with increasing urgency now, as if he could not get enough of the taste of her mouth. He pulled away at last to unfasten her gown with hands that trembled. With equally clumsy fingers, she worked at his buttons until she opened his shirt wide enough that she could slide her hands beneath it. Slowly she roamed the bare ridges and curves of his chest.

Gideon went still, his hands going to her shoulders to steady himself as she caressed his bare skin. His teeth sank into his lower lip, holding back the moans that threatened to break from him as her inexperienced fingers aroused him almost past bearing. She explored his ribs and chest, fingers curling around his flat masculine nipples and gliding downward over the softer flesh of his stomach until she came up against the barrier of his waistband.

"Sweet Lord, you are killing me," he murmured.

Irene raised her head, concerned. "Should I stop? Did I hurt you?"

He shook his head, seizing her hand and bringing it up to his lips. "Only a pleasure so sweet 'tis near pain." He shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it aside. "But let me please you now."

Gideon hooked his hands into the shoulders of her gown, now unfastened to below her waist, and peeled it down, revealing her soft white curves encased in only a chemise and petticoats. After untying the strings of the petticoats, he let them fall in a puddle at her feet. Watching her, watching his hands on her, he undid the ribbons of her chemise and opened it, freeing her breasts from all constraint. He slid the cloth off her shoulders, his eyes intent on the soft cotton as it dragged over her rosy, peaked nipples.

Irene's breath hitched. She had never dreamed that it would stir her so to have Gideon's eyes on her naked body, to see the desire that darkened his gaze and softened his mouth.

He reached out and slowly, delicately drew his fingertips over her breasts, circling the centers, which hardened even more at his touch. She trembled, unprepared for the intense pleasure that speared down through her, spreading in a hot pool deep in her loins. She had never known, never guessed, at a man's touch could make her feel this way—so unsettled, so eager, so tingling with pleasure.

Gideon cupped her breasts in his hands, his thumbs circling around her nipples. Then he bent his head and drew one nipple into his mouth, stroking it with his tongue as his thumbs had done a moment before. Irene's knees buckled at the new sensation, and she was grateful for the strong arm he looped around her waist, holding her up. His mouth tugged at her breast, hot and wet, while his tongue teased the tight bud. It seemed to Irene that some invisible cord of pleasure ran straight down through her, connecting her tender nipple to the core of her being, and with every pull of his mouth, every caress of his tongue, the cord pulsed, flooding her loins with heat and need.

She dug her fingers into his thick hair, holding on as the sensations swirled and built within her. Even the feel of his hair between her fingers excited her, she realized. She could not hold back a moan as his mouth left her nipple. She waited, panting a little, as his mouth trailed across her breasts. She felt supremely alive and sensitive to every slight sensation; even the touch of the evening air upon her dampened nipple made the hunger in her swell. And then his mouth fastened on her other breast, slowly, leisurely, bringing it to life.

Irene choked back a little sobbing breath, and her hands slid down the firm column of Gideon's neck to his shoulders. She stroked the bony ridge of his collarbone and curved her palms over his shoulders, then let them drift down over the smooth skin of his arms, underlaid with muscle, and found herself fascinated and aroused by the combination of textures.