A shiver lanced through her. She should tell him first.
But she couldn’t. Because he was still holding back.
Not here, though. Not now. He arranged the pearls around her breasts and leaned away. “Lovely,” he murmured.
She mustered a weak smile. “I don’t think that’s the way they’re meant to be worn. Rather scandalous, don’t you think?”
“At King Charles’s court? Not a soul would even take notice.” But he drew them off and bunched them in a hand, meeting her lips for a desperate kiss.
There was something about him tonight…something about the way his tongue swept her mouth, the way his hands worshipped her body, the way he molded his flesh to match every curve of hers. Something. Something that made her feel, even though he was more of a man than she’d known existed, that somewhere inside lurked a lost little boy. Waiting to get hurt.
So she was gentle tonight, and he was gentle in return, running the bunched pearls over her skin in a heavenly, softly clicking massage. Guided by his hand, they rolled between her breasts and over a hip and down to her thighs. Her own hands skimmed his skin, soothing, everywhere she could reach. She sighed into his mouth, and his tongue stroked hers, more softly than she could remember, so cherishing that tears welled in her eyes and threatened to slip between her closed lids.
“Open for me,leannan.” A thick, velvet-edged whisper, his voice sent a gust of desire shuddering through her. And because she wanted to please him, she did what he asked, parting her legs until she lay there, flat on the bed, wantonly open and ready. Then gasped when he drew the pearls, that long, long strand, agonizingly slowly between them.
She felt every pearl distinctly, felt herself moisten as they slipped. She wanted him there, filling her where she ached. “Oh, God, Trick.”
“Hush,” he murmured, nuzzling her throat. He suckled her breasts, her nipples rising to hard points that he circled with his tongue. While down below, the pearls continued their exquisite trail along where she wanted him, deep inside.
This was torment, but oh, so sweet, each individual pearl driving her to distraction. “I cannot stand this, Trick. It’s too much.” She reached for his free hand, clenching it hard in hers.
“I cannot stand it, either,” he grated out, and he yanked the pearls away, coming over her to join their bodies together.
Her rush of relief lasted mere seconds before a new sense of urgency overwhelmed her. She wrapped him with her legs, her fingers threading in his hair, little sounds escaping her throat as his hips drove every thought but him from her mind. She rocked against him, wanting him closer, closer, hearing his breath ragged in her ear. Her heart pounded against his as her hands worked down his back and lower to pull him closer still.
If only she could climb the last of that wall and finally make them one.
Then, for one split second of infinity, theywereone.
Sixty-Seven
ALONG TIMElater, Trick felt beneath the coverlet for the pearls, smiling when he found and snagged them. Drawing them out, he held them to his nose, breathing deep of her sweet scent before he dangled them above her head. “Do you like these,leannan?”
“In more ways than I could have imagined.” Her smile, soft and achingly erotic, lit his heart. “But Trick…”
“Aye?”
“I mostly like them because we can sell them.”
His fingers tightened around them. “No, lass. They’re for you.”
She grabbed them from his hands, cradling them against her breasts. “They would feed the children for a decade, you said. No longer will you have to be a highwayman. I was going to beg you to stop anyway, Trick—I cannot stand the thought of you being hurt or caught in the act.” If her smile had lit his heart, her words melted it. “It’s bad of me, I know, but you’re much more important than the children. To me. The most important thing in my life.”
She looked pained at that guilty admission, but not as pained as he felt inside. That she could put him above everything else…if only he hadn’t the obligations that kept him from doing the same.
If only.
“Do you see the gift that Charles has given us?” She held it up. “We no longer have to choose between your safety and the children’s welfare.” Looking half-wistful, half-thrilled, she brought the pearls to her lips. “I’ll sell them tomorrow. And I have other ideas as well, for how we can help more children. This—this gift—will get us started.”
Her enthusiasm was more than he could bear. Soon he could bring her to the docks, show her whichever of his ships were in port, tell her that he could support all the orphanages she wanted. Soon this would be over, and he vowed to himself he’d be honest with his wife for the rest of his life. He would never make another promise that would be this hard to keep.
“You’re not selling them tomorrow,” he told her, peeling her fingers from the pearls. He lifted the strand and slipped it back over her head. “We’re going home tomorrow. And I promise you, the children won’t starve.”
Sixty-Eight
BACK ATAmberley the next day, Trick barely took time to see their luggage brought in before readying himself to leave.
Stunned, Kendra stood in their bedchamber watching him knot a fresh cravat. “We just got here.”
