Wicked Nights With a Lover (16 page)

“It’s fearsome cold, and late. I do not relish the idea of braving the outdoors again this eve. Not when I might stay warm here with you.”

She swallowed at the decidedly lascivious look in his eyes and swung her head from side to side with denial. “You cannot mean—”

“If I did what everyone ever told me, I would have long ago died on the streets.” His hand shot over the chair then and seized hold of her arm. “I’ll not start now. Even for the woman I am to marry.”

She yelped as he dragged her to him. Sliding an arm beneath her knees, he lifted her high off her feet and carried her into the bedchamber.

Against her will, her hand came to rest on his chest, palm down on the smooth expanse. Silken marble beneath her fingers. Her body automatically softened in his arms, settling into the easy rocking motion of being carried.

“I’ve quite finished letting you lead me on a merry chase, Marguerite. You and I are going to happen.”

His words sank in, terrifying and thrilling. She trembled in his arms and closed her eyes in a long, pained blink, hating the flash of excitement that made her belly drop and twist.

The whisper-soft sound of his voice made her eyes drift open again. “What are you so afraid of?”

He’d asked her this before. She stared at him bleakly, unable to answer with the truth.
Everything.
Afraid of dying without having really lived. Afraid she will not leave any mark on this world. That there will be nothing to say that Marguerite Laurent was ever here, that she had lived. Gazing up at him, she wondered how he would react to such words.

When it became clear she would not answer, he lowered her down on the bed and proceeded to remove the last of his clothes, shamelessly and unabashedly revealing the muscled perfection of his body. Firelight danced over his taut flesh, licking every inch of his smooth skin, every scar, every hollow and curving muscle. Her palms tingled, imagining the texture, the feel of him.

He stood before her gloriously naked. More beautiful than any statue she’d seen in a museum … and certainly more generously proportioned. Heat flooded her face as that particular part of his anatomy expanded before her eyes.

Her breath fell sharply, eyes burning for lack of blinking. She couldn’t look away. Not if her life depended on it. A painful sob built in her throat at that ironic thought.

Then a tempting voice rose within her, whispering darkly across her mind.
You’re not married. This isn’t following the course Madame Foster had predicted.Accept him, take what he’s offering—what you want. What you’ve wanted all along.

Moving forward, he stroked her upturned face, sliding the rough pads of his fingers down the curve of her cheek. His entire hand spanned half her face. Everything about him was large. Imposing. He could crush her with the smallest effort, and yet she didn’t fear that from him.

Her eyes strayed to his manhood again, jutting forward so close now that she could reach out and touch it. And yet it didn’t frighten her. She wanted to touch it, him, with a fierceness that might have shamed her a fortnight past, but not now. Now she yearned. Now she craved his strength, his power working over her.

Perhaps this was it.
He
was it. Her taste of life. The
living
that she sought if her time on earth was limited. How many women could say they made love to a man like him? That he craved her in turn? No matter what happened to her, she’d have that.

Perhaps that would be enough.

She’d make it enough. Make it count, make it last forever.

Holding his gaze, she slid back on her elbows, her arms quivering with tension, scarcely able to support her weight.

He stilled, angling his head and watching her for a long moment, as though he expected her to resume her arguments—or jump up and flee from the bed into the snow-buried wilderness.

When it appeared he would make no further move, she lifted her hands to the front of her gown, signaling her decision. Her fingers fumbled before getting a grip on the brocade-covered buttons. She followed the trail of them to her waist, parting her bodice wide, baring her delicate chemise to his view.

She stilled, expecting he would make a move now.

“Finish,” he rasped, his voice a husky rumble.

With a shaky nod, she resumed working at her skirts and petticoats, unfastening them and kicking them down her trembling legs. Her pantaloons followed. Her breath fell fast and hard. It took all of her will not to dive beneath the coverlet and hide from his eyes.

Knees locked together, she bent her legs in front of her, shielding as much of herself as she could. The intensity of his gaze, the looming presence of him so near, so deliciously, shockingly naked, utterly destroyed her. Her legs trembled so badly, she could barely hold them up.

His voice rumbled through the shadows. “Continue.”

With a shuddering breath, she pulled the ribbon at the front of her chemise, wondering if he really intended for her to strip herself naked. Was that the normal course of intimacy? Would he not call a halt and invite her beneath the coverlet where they could then proceed with some vestige of modesty?

She’d always thought couples did this sort of thing in the dark. That they went about lovemaking in a reticent fashion, sensitive to the other’s sensibilities.

From his unflinching stare, she gathered Ash did not put a great deal of weight in attending to her sensibilities. Perhaps that was how it was done. When it came to this sort of business, she was vastly uninformed, after all. She knew there was pleasure to be had. Excitement. Why else would all manner of people pursue physical pleasure with such single-minded focus? Her mother had been a perfect slave to it. Even Fallon and Evie had succumbed. Marguerite would at least finally know. She would discover carnal pleasure for herself.

“If you mean to torment me with your leisurely actions, you have succeeded,” he growled, his voice a stroke on the still air. “I think it only fair to inform you that if you do not finish undressing in the next five seconds, I shall handle the matter of ridding you of your clothes myself.”

Chapter 15

M
arguerite’s hands flew, stripping off the last of her garments with feverish speed. Only once naked, she wondered why she did not let him finish the chore. She might have enjoyed that.

He chuckled and the low sound rippled over her bared flesh enticingly—and then his laughter died. He fell silent, his gaze crawling over every inch of her, missing nothing. No curve, no hollow, no flaw went unnoticed. His dark eyes seemed to liquefy within his intense stare.

She folded her hands across her breasts in an attempt to shield herself from his hot-eyed perusal. She pressed her legs together, turning and angling them so that he could glimpse little of her womanhood.

“Don’t hide from me,” he commanded in a quiet murmur, his dark eyes snapping with a need she couldn’t refuse.

With a deep breath, she lowered her arms. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it. No half measures.

He stared at her for an endless moment. She forgot to breathe altogether in that time, waiting anxiously as his gaze devoured her. All of her.

“Beautiful,” he murmured.

Heat flared over her face, spreading throughout her. She scooted back on the bed, maneuvering herself carefully so that her legs stayed firmly together. She wasn’t so bold as to endure his gaze
there.
She stopped at the head of the bed, realizing she had nowhere else to go.

Ash smiled wickedly, knowingly, lowering to his knees on the bed.

“You look like a scared virgin,” he teased.

She smiled back at him, her lips wobbly on her face. Now wasn’t the time to tell him that was a fairly accurate assessment. Not if she wished to explain the true nature of her relationship with Roger. And that would lead to other uncomfortable admissions.

He crawled toward her on the bed like some kind of stalking jungle cat, muscles undulating beneath smooth, taut skin that gleamed golden in the firelight. Her heart thumped madly against her breast.

She gave the barest jump when his hand circled her ankle. The hot press of his fingers singed her, branding her skin.

He smiled again … that wicked grin coiling and twisting her insides tighter, melting her bones to butter.

“Relax,” he drawled.

Then, in one fluid motion, he pulled her by the ankle, sliding her down until she was square in the middle of the bed, her hair a great fan around her. She gasped.

He came over her, a great weight carefully balanced on quivering forearms. She was certain it wasn’t from a struggle to support his weight but more from his restraint. His large hands rested near her face. He turned them slightly inward so that his fingers tenderly brushed her cheeks, pushing dark tendrils back from her face and tucking them behind her ears.

No part of her was free of him. His chest covered her, abrading her sensitive nipples into hard peaks. His legs slid between hers, the crisp leg hair an erotic scrape against her tender thighs.

The intimacy of this—of
him
—on her, over her, between her splayed thighs left her breathless. His manhood prodded at her core, the hardness of him rubbing intimately against the most private part of her, creating a delicious friction that made her inner muscles clench with an aching need.

That must be it. The start of it all. A delightful torment that would only intensify until he relieved the ache and buried himself inside her.

He lowered his head, seized her lips in a deep kiss. There was no easing into it. Nothing gentle.

His tongue delved into her mouth, mating with her tongue, his lips moving expertly, loving and sucking and nipping at her lips with a thoroughness that had her arching against him, parting her thighs and thrusting her aching heat up toward him in a motion derived solely from instinct.

He held her head in both hands, his grip strengthening as their kiss grew feverish, bold and desperate.

He slid one hand from her head, his broad palm dragging down her face, her jaw, her neck, descending to her bared breast.

She cried out into his mouth as he seized the aching mound, kneading it until her passion coiled higher, tighter. She felt the head of him poised and ready and wiggled her hips until his manhood pushed at her weeping opening.

She gasped at the sensation of him there, just the tip of him. Unsatisfied, desperate for all of him to fill her, she pushed up against him, hungry for something elusive but near. She knew it was near.

Moaning in need, she dug her fingers into the straining bulge of his biceps. Still, he would not give himself to her.

Releasing a bicep, she dragged his hand to her neglected breast.

He obliged, caressing and fondling the mound until she was a gasping, writhing wreck beneath him. When he dipped his head and sucked the tip deep into his warm mouth, she shrieked.

Hot tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as his tongue circled the burgeoning tip. His teeth scraped the hard point, spiking her need into something dark and violent and a little frightening. She screamed at the intense pleasure, felt something rupture and burst inside her. Gray edged her vision and moisture rushed between her legs. She dropped back on the bed, her body a boneless heap. Her chest heaved, gasping and winded as though she’d run a great distance.

And still, a desperate need clawed her. The center of her ached more sharply, throbbed more insistently, almost near pain.

She felt a shift in him. He pulled back slightly. His face loomed farther away, the firelight illuminating half his face while casting the other half into deep shadow.

Then she felt him, no longer the teasing tip, but all of him pushing inside her bit by slow bit. The deep pressure increased between her legs, filling her, stretching her.

She raked her nails down his back, clawing him closer, arching for the strange joy of it.

And then it swiftly ended.

With a snap, something ripped deep inside her. The pressure gave way, twisting into a burning pain. She pulled away, instinctively trying to break free, escape.

“Marguerite,” he ground out, grabbing onto her shoulders, holding her immobile under him. He stilled above her, utterly motionless inside her. Except buried deep, his member throbbed, pulsed alien and large. His eyes gleamed with an angry fire, and she knew. She understood what had happened.
Stupid, stupid.
Why had she not considered the matter of her maidenhead?

“Stop,” she whispered, not certain what she was asking.

“You lied to me,” he said, the accusation sharp.

She shook her head, wincing at the ebbing pain inside her. “You assumed,” she defended weakly.

“What was there to assume? You claimed to be another man’s mistress.”

She blinked burning eyes and arched her spine, hoping to launch him off her. The action only succeeded in moving him inside her. She hissed at the discomfort.

“I suggest you stop moving. You’re the one causing yourself pain. You’re small, Marguerite. Give your body time to adjust.” He brushed the hair from her neck, his voice gentling. “I might have proceeded differently had I known. I can’t stop now. You’ll never want to try again.”

“Indeed, I won’t,” she ground out, digging her nails into his shoulders. He made a sound of discomfort, but didn’t object.

She shook her head, lying perfectly still, determined to avoid the ripping agony again. It had all been a lie. The passion, the desire. Nothing but a cruel fairy tale. This was misery. Nothing exciting about the reality of it all. Those earlier sensations had been a trick. A lure so that women would go along with the whole lovemaking deed and the human race would not die out.

She relaxed her fingers over his sweat-dampened skin, thinking he might oblige her more if she wasn’t clawing his back to shreds. “Let me up.”

He lowered his head, his dark-bright gaze intent and level with hers. “Can you stand it if I just hold still?” Taking her mouth in a nibbling kiss, he promised, “I won’t move.”

She held herself motionless, feeling, checking her body. The pain had dulled to a low ache. Uncomfortable but not unbearable. “Just don’t move,” she warned, then almost laughed. She was in no position to be issuing demands.