His actions did not help her cause, she thought, and she was already rueing the rash impulse that had brought her here.
“What is it?” he asked her. The room was dim, his voice was husky. Strange, but the lack of brightness did not bother her here. She felt safety, knowing that he was near. No…she felt very alive, knowing that he was near. She dared not admit that it had been easy, easy to come here.
The damage was done! she cried inwardly. It had been done last night. And if this ever ended well, then she would be his wife in all truth, and she would make it up to him, God help her!
She stepped closer. “I…”
“What?” He came out of the bed. She remembered briefly from the fleet seconds in which she had seen them bare that his shoulders were broad and fine and his skin bronzed and sleek. She remembered his touch, and the strength and demand of it, and she wondered briefly if she hadn’t discovered him to be very fine, and if she hadn’t lost a corner of her heart to his raw demand and vehement, sometimes tender care. Perhaps she had. In the dim light she found that she had no voice, and she could not think of the words she wanted to say.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured.
It was not without some astonishment that he said the words, for he was amazed that she should be there.
He had been a fool to touch her last night. He should keep a far greater distance than he did. But when she had lain so close to him, and when his hands had found her nakedness in the night and her soft moan had been his response, he had cast caution to the wind. He had never meant to take her. Her distress this morning had struck deep into his heart, and he had never felt more the knave.
But now she was here.
Fresh from her bath. Her eyes wide and luminous and nearly teal in their glazed color. Her features so fine and delicate and so hauntingly feminine that the sight of her trembling lips brought a rush of heat stabbing into his groin. Desire rose,and pulsed hard against his breeches, and still she stood there, silent.
He strode around the bed to the side table where he had brought a bottle of Mattie’s best dark rum. He poured out a portion and came before her, bringing the glass to her lips. She swallowed, and winced slightly as the fire of the rum rode through her.
“I…”
“Yes?”
“If it is truly your desire…”
He waited, but her voice had trailed away. “Yes?” he prompted softly.
She took another sip of the rum, moistening her lips. Her hair spilled all about her, touched by candlelight. It glowed with the red fury of fire, it cascaded like sunlight. He longed to thread his fingers through the length and mass of it. He longed to feel the fiery tendrils fall softly over his naked shoulders and chest.…
“Yes?” he repeated.
“You have been very kind.”
“Have I?”
She was still faltering. “I appreciate all that you have done for me.”
“You are my wife,” he said softly, standing back to watch her curiously. The length of him had come alive. The pulse and need rushed to fill his limbs, and his heart, and his soul. Warnings called out to him, and he ignored them. Let her speak! Let her come to him, or run, for he could not bear to keep his hands from her a moment longer. He wanted to rip away the towel and drink the sweet scent of rose dust from her flesh.
“That’s what I’m trying to say.”
“What?” he demanded sharply.
“I’ve been trying to say that…if it is your desire despite all that has happened…if you wish to have me for your wife, then, milord, I am yours.”
Her words hung softly upon the air for long moments as he tried to believe them. This sweet wild thing, this creature of temper and beauty and tempest, was coming to him.
She lifted her arms and dropped the towel that covered her. She stepped from it and stood before him in naked perfection, her flesh so gently kissed by the glow of the candlelight that touched the room. She was exquisite. Her hair did not touch his shoulders, but streamed over her own. Her breasts rose with coral peaks, full and tantalizing, beneath the caress of her swirling gold locks. Strands of red and gold cascaded all the way to her waist, and curled over the curve of her hips and buttocks.
He caught his breath. For one long moment he was unable to move.
Then he cried out hoarsely, casting the rum glass into the fireplace and sweeping her into his arms. He carried her swiftly to the bed and laid her upon it. The candles glowed on the table. He looked down at her and her eyes were passionate slits, teal and shadowed by the lush fringe of her lashes. Her lips were damp and parted as if they awaited his. As if they invited his touch…
But he did not bring his mouth to hers. Not then.
His lay low against her, fascinated to touch her. His hands curved over her breasts while his tongue teased the taut skin of her abdomen. Slight sounds escaped her, and he continued to touch. He rose against her to bring her breast deep into his mouth, and he withdrew to watch the nipple harden and the color deepen. He stroked the length of her, and felt the surge of her body, and still he did not touch her lips. She reached for him, but he eluded her, and buried his face against the sweetness of her body again. He moved lower and lower again, taking all of her with his sweeping caress. He parted her thighs and heard a startled sob escape, but he gave her no quarter that night; he longed to seek from her all that she had to give. He watched her for a moment, and her eyes were closed. They opened slowly, and when they met his, he lowered himself between her legs. He teased her inner thigh and stroked her flesh with the searing heat of his tongue. She gasped, writhing to escape so great an intimacy, but she was his, and he knew it. He touched her with that sweet stroke where and how he would, and her fingers curled into his hair while a breathless series of whispers and sobs and incoherent words tore from her lips. He brought her to the very brink of passion and then cast her over the edge, savoring the constriction of her beautiful form, and at long last, coming to her lips, there to swallow down the cries of pleasure that rose.
