The Summer Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance) (19 page)

“I’m that glad you came with me, Flynn,” she said softly. “Thanks for being here, and for sticking up for me.”

“I’m glad too,” he said. “I needed to see my rival.”

“Rival?” she frowned, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“This.” He gestured to the shop, his gaze not leaving her face. “This is what’s keeping us apart, isn’t it? What you want instead of me.”

There was a long silence. The breeze picked up. Below her she could hear the rumble of the city, the cooing of pigeons. “It’s not like that,” she said at last.

“Isn’t it?” There was a thread of bitterness in his voice.

And it was partly true, she couldn’t deny it—but only partly. Gazing up into those blue, blue eyes, for once not gleaming with wickedness and laughter and arrogance, all her resolutions fell away.

It was marriage she was rejecting, not Flynn. Flynn she wanted with a burning hunger. And right now, with excitement coursing through her veins, on the doorstep of her
dream coming true, she needed to show him, share this moment with him. Love him.

She stepped forward and placed her palms on his chest, feeling the strength and the warmth beneath her fingers. “I do want you, Flynn. I want you something fierce.” And she pulled his head down to show him exactly how much.

“Do come now,” said he . . . , “pray come, you must come, I declare you shall come.”

—JANE AUSTEN,
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

T
he moment she tasted him she realized how much she’d craved the taste of him, hot, masculine, dark and addictive. Her dreams were nothing to this.

Lord, but the man could kiss. The slow, deliberate slide of his tongue over hers melted her bones, stole the breath from her body.

She thrust her fingers into the thickness of his black hair and held him close, angling her mouth to explore him deeper. He moaned and his arms tightened around her.

Without breaking the kiss he lifted her and carried her to the table, setting her on it. Her legs opened and she wrapped them around his hips, pulling him hard against her.

She released his mouth and, panting, leaned back a moment just to look at him. His eyes were dark as the darkest night, midnight blue and yet somehow . . . hot. She reached for the buttons of his waistcoat just as he reached for the fastenings of her dress.

Their hands clashed and they laughed, and then the laughter died and she was feverishly undoing his waistcoat, undoing his elegantly knotted neckcloth and dropping it to
one side. She reached into the opening of his shirt, desperate to feel him, skin to skin. Best quality linen but the neck was too narrow.

She ran her hands over him, enjoying the feel of his hard strength beneath the smooth fabric. Her fingers encountered his small masculine nipples, raised hard and wanting. She lowered her head and sucked one through the fabric of his shirt.

“God, lass, you’re killin’ me,” he moaned. “Don’t stop.”

She shifted her attention to the other one, biting it gently and smiled as he groaned again, throwing his head back. He pulled away from her a little, and without thought her thighs tightened around him. She wasn’t ready to let him go yet.

He felt it and gave her a swift smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not goin’ anywhere.” He pulled the shirt off over his head and tossed it aside. It floated to the dusty floor unnoticed.

Daisy couldn’t drag her eyes from him. Golden skinned with a sprinkling of dark hair across his broad chest, he was all hard, muscular man. “Gawd, Flynn, you’re gorgeous.” She traced the line of his chest with a finger.

“Men aren’t gorgeous,” he said but she could see he was pleased by the compliment.

“You are.” She lifted her bum and wriggled and squirmed, tugging at her skirts.

“What are you doin’?” he moaned, his hips still locked between her thighs. “God, but you’re killin’ me, Daisy-girl.”

“Sauce for the gander,” she muttered.

“Callin’ me a gand—” His words died as she pulled her dress up and over her head and dropped it on the table beside her. His gaze burned into her.

Her chemise was thin, fine cambric, perfectly plain and unadorned, but delicate enough to see through. She wore nothing underneath; her nipples would be visible. She could feel them hard and throbbing, eager for his touch.

“Now if we’re talkin’ beauty here . . .” He bent and, cupping her breast in one hand, he took one aching nipple in his mouth, sucking it through the fabric, and it was her turn to arch and moan. She clutched at his hair, kissing whatever part of him she could, her hands roaming over him, learning the feel of him.

Now her hands moved lower.

“We ought to—” The words died, strangled in his throat as her palm settled over the fall of his breeches, cupping him. Hard as he was, he hardened more under her touch. She rubbed her hand over his thrusting cock-stand, exploring the shape of him through the soft, supple doeskin.

“Don’t,” he groaned, pulling back. “I’ll explode.”

She made a sound, half laughter, half gasp. “That’s the idea, ain’t it?”

There was no breath of hesitation in her. She unfastened the fall of his breeches with fingers that were oddly clumsy. She wanted him—now.

She released him—he was a big boy, her Flynn. Her hand closed around the thickness of him.

He made a harsh sound, and she glanced at his face.

She could feel the tension in him—he was straining for control. She stroked down the length of him, light and delicate like thistledown, and he hardened even more beneath her touch. He was hard and soft—the skin softer than the finest doeskin, hard and hot beneath. She stroked him again, firmer this time, and watched as his eyes burned blacker and the tension in him mounted.

In both of them.

He was playing the gentleman, she realized dimly—letting her control how far and how fast. His body was shaking with the tension of it.

“It’s you who’s killin’ me, Flynn,” she whispered against the hot skin of his chest, because how could you not love a man like this? And yet she couldn’t let herself. It could only ever be this. It had to be.

Enough waiting. He was drawn as tight as a bowstring, she was wet and throbbing, aching for him. Her thighs trembled with the wanting. And she was drowning in his sea-dark eyes.

She positioned him, feeling the hot, blunt tip nudging at her entrance. He needed no further sign. He surged into her, a long smooth possession that shuddered through her gloriously and she arched her back, thrusting her hips up to receive him.

He moved, thrusting, pulling back, thrusting . . . over and over . . . Her body welcomed him, hot and tight, gripping him like a glove, feeling so right, so good. Shudders started deep within her as she arched and clenched around him.

His fingers touched her where they were joined and she screamed and bit down on his shoulder. And shattered around him. Dimly she felt him come, as she floated away in a hot gush of ecstasy . . . and oblivion.

*   *   *

D
aisy lay back across the table, one arm behind her head, the other resting on Flynn’s bare chest. He was sprawled beside her.

She stretched and winced. “Ooh, we got to stop making love on tables.”

He rolled over and stroked a finger up her bare thigh. “They have their charms—chiefly convenience—but you’re right. From now on we’ll make love in our bed. Comfort and convenience.”

She sat up and looked at him. “‘Our bed’? There is no our bed.”

“When we’re married, I mean.”

She sighed. “We’re not gettin’ married, Flynn.”

He sat up, frowning. “We damn well are.”

“No, we’re not.”

He gave her a baffled, angry look. “What the hell was this about then?” He gestured to the table, their scattered clothes.

“Not marriage, that’s for sure.” She jumped off the table, straightened her chemise and picked up her dress.

He grabbed her and pulled her around to face him. “You said you wanted me—wanted me ‘something fierce.’ So what the hell are you playin’ at—blowin’ hot and cold?”

She shook off his grip and started pulling her clothes back on. “I do want you, you big Irish lout—haven’t I just proved it?”

“Then—”

“I just don’t want to get married. Especially now.” She
picked his shirt up off the floor, shook it out and handed it to him. “Put your shirt on. It’s distracting.”

He ignored her. “Why especially now?”

“I’ve got even more to lose.” She gestured to her surroundings.

“What the hell are you on about? What have you got to lose? If you marry me, you’ll be a rich woman.”

She shook her head. “Nope. If I marry you, everything I own will belong to you. That’s the law.”

“So? What difference would that make?”

Daisy gave him an exasperated look. Could he really not see? One of the girls at the brothel had been born rich. She married a handsome feller, but it turned out he was only after her money. He sold her home, took the lot and dumped her, leaving her penniless.

There was nothing she could do about it. It was the law: the moment she was married, her husband owned everything. She’d even gone to a magistrate. He’d tut-tutted and been very sympathetic, but the law was the law he’d told her, and there was nothing he could do.

That was how the poor girl ended up earning a living on her back in the brothel—through marriage.

Daisy suspected it was also the reason Mrs. Foster wasn’t looking for another husband. Why would she, when life as a rich widow was ever so much more secure?

She looked at Flynn, who’d finally put his shirt on and buttoned his breeches and was much less distracting. “What if it was reversed?” she asked him. “What if everything you owned—all your ships and everything—got handed over to me. You wouldn’t even have a say in what I did with it—not legally. Would you marry me under those circumstances?”

He hesitated.

“See?” she said softly. “That’s how I feel too.”

“I’d still marry you,” he said.

She laughed. “You would not.”

“I would. I’d trust you to do the right thing and give me my company back. It’s not about legal rights, Daisy-love—it’s about trust.”

She bit her lip. “Ah, well then, that’s me problem. I dunno if I can.”

His hands froze in the middle of knotting his neckcloth. He was making a right mess of it too. “You wouldn’t trust
me
?”

“Here, let me.” She pushed him back to sit on the table, undid the neckcloth, shook it out, and snapped it straight to take the worst of the wrinkles out of it, running it back and forth over her bent knee.

He watched in silence, his eyes boring into her. She stepped between his spread thighs, and looped the narrow strip of muslin around his neck, trying not to be aware of how close he was. She could smell the scent of his body, enticing and masculine, feel the heat from his powerful thighs. The smooth friction of his jaw, dark with recently shaved whiskers. The feel of those whiskers on her skin was delicious.

For two pins she’d push him back and have her way with him again.

But that would solve nothing. Probably make it worse. There was a stiffness in him now that had nothing to do with arousal and everything to do with being offended. She’d trampled on his pride enough today.

She tucked the ends in and stepped back.

“Finished?”

She nodded. “It’s not perfect, but it’ll do.”

“Thank you. Now you were about to explain to me why you wouldn’t trust me.”

“Well, I probably
would
trust you.”

The stiffness eased slightly. Then he saw her expression and frowned. “But?”

She shrugged. “I’m a fool like that. I trust too easy. I been taken for a ride twice in me life, and lost everything both times by people I trusted.” She shook her head. “I don’t have no judgement when it comes to trusting people, not when me . . . not when feelings are involved.”

“Feelings, eh?” He shifted closer.

She stepped back. “Yeah, feelings and I ain’t saying any more, so don’t push. It’s hard enough as it is.”

“It’s certainly hard enough,” he murmured, lowering his gaze.

She followed his glance to the fall of his breeches and laughed. “You’re quick off the mark, ain’t you? But I reckon it’s a bad idea. You’ll only start talking about marriage again.”

He pulled her against him for a swift, hard kiss. “Count on it, darlin’. But not today. A proposal a day, remember? And we’re done for today.”

And because the man kissed like a dream, and she was already half melted and aroused—and because she was a weak-willed woman who had not a single bone in her body that could resist him—she rolled back on the table with him, and made love like there was no tomorrow.

Because the way things were going, there might not be, not for her and Flynn. If he kept going like this, she might have to stop seeing him altogether. It would half kill her, but she could see no solution to their problem.

He wanted marriage and she didn’t. End of story.

*   *   *

A
fterward they lay sated and boneless. Flynn was the first one to stir. The table was hard and uncomfortable. He pulled his clothing into place, gathered Daisy into his arms and carried her out to the place on the roof that overlooked the city. He settled her against his chest and they sat in silence looking out over the huge pulsing city.

Below them carts rumbled by, a pieman called his wares, urchins shrieked, a dog barked—the sounds floated up, seeming to come from miles away.

It felt like they were sitting on top of the world.

“These two people who betrayed your trust so badly,” Flynn said after a while. “Who were they? Men?”

Daisy shook her head. “Only one was a man—though I dunno that I’d call him a man. More of a worm, really. Artie Bell his name was.” She was silent a while, reflecting, then she said, “I was sixteen and ripe for the plucking. He broke my heart and robbed me blind, the swine.” She sighed. “I
didn’t have much but he took all me savings, everything I’d saved since I was a kid, every penny I’d ever earned. Not just the money neither—me few precious bits and pieces, some of them not valuable—just things that were precious to me.”

The breeze was picking up. Flynn adjusted his position, and pulled his coat around her.

“A couple of bits of jewellery, a brooch one of the girls gave me when she left to get married—some of them did, you know. And a silver button that had fallen off the coat of one of the gentlemen. I offered to sew it back for him, but he told me to keep it, that he’d get a new coat.” She glanced up at Flynn. “Who’d get a new coat instead of sewin’ on a button? But that’s toffs for you.”

“How did he find your stash—this Artie, I mean?”

“Dunno. I had it hidden under a floorboard in the little attic room that I shared with one of the other maids. I dunno how he found it—I never showed it to nobody, not a soul—but the day he was gone so was me stash. Cleaned right out, every blessed thing—even the dust.”

“Had you quarreled?”

“No, he just . . . disappeared. I was such a fool. Young love.” She snorted. “Turned out he had a wife or two and kids by three more girls. He was a charmer, that Artie. A complete, cheatin’ low-life rat.”

“What happened to him?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Dunno. Come to a bad end, I hope.”

He pulled her closer against him. “Who was the other one? The other person who broke your trust. Another lover?”

She made a bitter sound. “Wasn’t a bloke that’s for sure. But just as low.”