She turned her back on him again.He snaked his arm around her again.She laced her fingers with his, effectively stopping them from doing anything.
And then shedidgo to sleep.
WHAT FELTlike five minutes later (but might have been an hour), Trick nuzzled her neck.“I have an idea,” he whispered warm in her ear.
“Hmm?”
“The ducal carriage is very plush…”
“I just fell asleep.”She blinked herself half-awake.“The coach house is across two courtyards.And it’s freezing out there.”
“It could be hailing cannonballs, for all I care.”She felt him roll to sit, then rise.She heard him walk to the door and open it, admitting a little light from the common room’s fireplace.In the faint glow, she watched him jerk his robe’s sash tighter.“I’ll be right back,” he whispered.
She closed her eyes and willed herself back to sleep.Or at least shetriedto will herself back to sleep.Butterflies in her stomach seemed to be keeping her awake, not to mention a new yet persistent tingling between her legs.
He returned with shoes for her, boots for himself, and their two cloaks.“We could have used these cloaks for the floor,” he murmured with some measure of disgust at himself.“What was I thinking?”
“You weren’t.Neither of us were.And the carriage will be more comfortable anyway,” she added, warming to the idea as her body anticipated what would happen in that carriage.
Out in the common room, they donned their footwear and wrapped themselves in their cloaks.Trick lit a torch from the fireplace.They crept from the cottage as quietly as possible, then ran for it, crossing the two snowy courtyards in record time.
They banged into the coach house and shoved the giant doors shut behind them before dissolving into uncontrollable laughter.Kendra felt like a sixteen-year-old sneaking out to attend a forbidden ball.
Until Trick grabbed her with one arm, still holding the torch with the other, and met her lips for a desperate kiss.
Then she felt like a long-married woman.
Adeprivedlong-married woman.
She wound her arms around his neck and pressed herself close.With calculated skill, he kissed her breathless.When he broke the kiss, she stared at him helplessly.Her lips tingled.She fought to catch her breath, making white puffs in the coach house’s chilly air.
Without a word between them, they made their way to the ducal carriage.Trick leaned inside to light both lamps, then secured the torch to the coach house wall while she climbed up and dropped bonelessly to one of the wide, plush seats.
He sat himself across from her, pulling the door closed to hold in their warmth.They tugged off their shoes and shucked off their cloaks.Then they just gazed at each other for a long, tension-filled moment, until he offered a hand to draw her over to him.
Facing him, she straddled his legs.His lips went to hers immediately, the kiss deepening while he reached beneath her nightgown to arrange her knees on the soft, thickly padded bench, then tucked the carriage’s velvet pillows around them.
Her heart beat double-time in the cushioned stillness.His fingers were warm, and so was his breath, flavored with the faintest trace of the mulled wine he’d sipped earlier.A dizzying cloud of his sandalwood scent surrounded her.She found herself stunned by how much she’d missed him.
By how much she’d missedthis.
When he broke the kiss, she burrowed into his neck.“I forbid you to ever leave me again,” she murmured against his skin.
“God forbid I ever have to.”He took her face between his hands.“I wanted you every day,leannan, every hour, sometimes every minute.”
He kissed her again, gently, strengthening the stirrings in her belly that had begun in the twins’ room.As she strained closer, a low hum of satisfaction vibrated from his throat and spread all through her.The kiss turned hot and needy, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, meeting hers with a thrilling urgency.She ran her own tongue across the tiny chipped corner of his front tooth.Craving his solid warmth, she fought with the tie on his robe until she managed to open it and slip her hands inside, reveling in the feel of his skin and hard muscles against her questing palms.
When at last they came up for air, she leaned back in his embrace, gazing up into his seductive amber eyes.The faint golden stubble on his chin glistened in the lamplight.She rested her hands against his chest.Beneath her fingertips, the beat of his heart matched hers.
He was the center of her world.The only man she had ever loved.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and threaded her fingers in his silky, straight hair.He leaned closer to plant little kisses on her cheeks, her nose, her forehead, the sensitive hollow of her neck.He lingered there, suckling gently while his hands went to work lifting her nightgown.He yanked it over her head, releasing a frustrated laugh when her arms tangled in the full-blown sleeves.
Finally it was gone, and she plastered herself against him, skin to skin.Closing her eyes, she threw back her head and surrendered herself to the sensations.Ah, the give and the take, the heat and the scent, the pure pleasure of his bareness touching hers.She’d missed this.
She’dsomissed this.
Her senses were spinning, and an urgency was building deep inside her, more swiftly than ever before in her memory.Her eyes still shut, she inched closer, feeling a hot stab of desire where her body nearly met his.
