When had that happened? Days ago? Weeks ago? Months? Had he been blind all this time, or simply deceiving himself about what he felt? How wrong he’d thought it was? There was unquestionably an unequal social and class disparity. That part was still true... yet wholly irrelevant. Helovedher. And love trumped everything.
Roper had been right. Alistair was both the stubbornest and luckiest of men. He had found love a second time. God had blessed this abbey with not one but two perfect women. God had spirited the first back to paradise but, in His benevolence, had seen fit to set Alistair upon the path that led him here, to this woman, to this bedchamber, to this moment. The angel in his arms was a gift straight from heaven. An answer to prayers he hadn’t dared speak aloud. Fortunately, God had had the wisdom to listen to a man’s heart rather than his words.
Sending a silent thank-you heavenward, Alistair held her even tighter.
She started, rearing up with a whistling gasp and clamping claw-like fingers around his forearms. Wide-eyed, she stared at him blindly for a long, heart-stopping moment before relaxing her grip and falling limply back into his arms. “It’s you.”
“It’s me.” He hesitated, then pressed a worried kiss to her forehead. “Bad dreams?”
Without lifting her head, she slid her fingers into his hair and sighed. “You cannot imagine.”
“I believe you. How can I help?” He warmed as her arms clung to him, keeping him close. “I cannot undo the past, but I have more than enough money for the hire of a good barrister. I will write my solicitor for recommendations first thing in the morning.”
“I wrote to a few already. The only funds I have are what I’ve earned since coming here, and I planned to put every penny toward my legal defense. Alistair, I... ” Violet propped herself up on his chest in order to meet his eyes. “I wanted to tell you. I did. But I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me, or to cut me from your life. Rightly or wrongly, I decided to wait until after I’d managed to acquit myself of any charges, in order to better prove to you what kind of person I am.”
“I already know what kind of person you are.” He smiled up at her. “Haven’t I said from the beginning that you were a miracle in our lives? You’re an angel from God Himself.”
Her expression was uncomfortable, rather than pleased. “Trust me, I’m hardly—”
“Nobody is perfect,” he interrupted quietly. “I am living proof. But this was not your fault, love. You are not to blame. I can understand not wishing to disclose the details before you knew how the story would end. And now that I do know, I can help. This Percy Livingstonewill not win. I swear it.”
The doubt did not ease from her expression, but she nodded rather than offer additional protest. “Thank you.”
His insides clenched. Hewouldfix this for her. Be the guardian angel of his guardian angel. He had promised. And he loved her too much to do anything less.
He caressed her cheek with the curve of a finger. “If there is anything else I can do, please say the word.”
The worry lines slowly left her face as she gazed down at him. A new look came into her eyes. A better look.Hunger. Her fingers tightened in his hair as she lowered her face to his.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
Alistair did not need to be told twice. He wanted nothing more than to keep her next to him forever.
Cupping her to him, he rolled so that his body was atop hers and her open mouth beneath his. Her mouth tasted like heaven. She gripped his hair and locked her thighs about his as he kissed her again, and again, and again. Oh, how he had yearned for this. For her. He could not help his body’s reaction as his pulse quickened and his cock hardened. Her gasps of pleasure as he slid its length against her core only served to heighten his arousal. She was perfect, and he ached to make her his.
She slid one hand from his hair to her shoulder and tugged at her neckline. His breeches tightened further in response. As an innocent, she wouldn’t be able to fathom how erotic it was to see how shyly she pulled the scooped neck of the gown down over her shoulder. He kissed the bared flesh, then her lips. Keeping her eyes locked to his, she lowered the thin silk inch by inch until one breast broke free of its confinement.
Plump and pale and perfect, the breast exactly molded to his waiting hand. The nipple had sprung to life before he’d even touched it. When he finally gave into temptation she gasped into his mouth at the feel of his fingers caressing and tugging the sensitive bud. He had dreamed of exactly this.
He tore his mouth from hers in order to taste that delicious breast, to feel his tongue rasping across the hard nipple. Her back arched, both her hands tangling in his hair and keeping him locked in his suckling position. She needn’t have worried—he wanted her just as much. Not wishing to startle her, he kept himself propped in place with one hand, and with the other began slowly, slowly, easing the hem of her gown up toward her hips.
Her legs parted without prompting, baring her naked thighs, baring everything to his palm, to his fingers. She was beautiful. Still teasing her nipple with his tongue and his teeth, he traced a light pattern up her thighs, across her belly, circling ever closer to her core without quite touching her center, until her flesh shivered at his touch and her taut legs trembled in the night air. He wanted this moment to be perfect for her.
The next time he teasingly swirled the tip of a finger tortuously close to her cleft, she bucked her hips without warning. Surprised, he bit harder than intended upon her nipple as his finger sank straight into her warm heat.
She cried out, her head arching backward. Just as quickly, she pushed his head back to her breast. He forced himself to take it slowly, to savor each gasp, each sensation. He wished to bring her joy. A memory to cherish. She clutched him to her chest as he drove his finger deeper and deeper within her. Every kiss, every thrust, was his body’s way of telling her how much he wanted her. How much he loved her. Heart thundering, he slid a second finger in to join the first, all the while circling the pad of his thumb across the slick wetness of her clitoris. She was ready, and so was he.
With his teeth, he tugged down the edge of her bodice until he bared her other breast. Slowly, tortuously, he applied himself to teasing that nipple with as much attention to detail as the first. He wished to bring her every pleasure, to hold back no part of himself.
She released her fingers from his hair and slid her hands to the sides of her breasts, trapping his face between them as his fingers jutted within her. He panted, barely able to think. She was everything. He suckled one erect nipple, then the other. As his fingers continued to thrust and to stroke her, he dragged the length of his cheek across both breasts, allowing the roughness of his jaw to graze both nipples before he pulled them back into his mouth one at a time.
Her answering gasp pleased him to his core. His body burned for her. He lifted his mouth from her nipples to suckle her tongue, to devour her with kisses, until she cried out as the walls of her womb spasmed against his fingers.
When the last of the contractions ceased, he eased his fingers from inside her as he slowly pressed a line of heated kisses down the side of her neck, down the valley between her breasts, down the flat expanse of her belly, down to her—
“No,” she rasped, tugging him upward before he could pleasure her as he’d done before. “This time, I wantyou.”
When he hesitated, she yanked him to her, pressing her mouth to his as her deft hands made quick work of his fall. He gasped against her mouth. Freed from his breeches, his cock reveled in the sensation of her soft fingers closing tight around the shaft. Stroking, tugging, working him until blood rushed his ears and cleared his head of all conscious thought. He had dreamed of her touch, imagined every detail, but nothing, nothing could compare to having her truly before him. He kissed her again, nearly trembling with restrained desire.
