“You need not fear this night, Rose.”
In other words, he would make it quick. She nodded her comprehension. Her next words, though faintly uttered, conveyed resolve. “I understand.”
She would do what she thought was expected of her. She wanted to feel no shame this night. Not tonight when this was supposed to be her wedding night. It mattered little that there were people who listened, even watched from the alcove behind the walls. She would not let that fact intrude. She had the power to block them from her mind. She had power.
Turning away from him, she began removing her robe, bending her head to pluck at the ties.
Ruark came to stand at her back. She felt a tingling awareness of him along her spine as he placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her slowly to face him.
She finished untying the ribbon laces, then lowered her arms and let the robe fall in a pool around her bare feet. Her night dress, though thin, was not sheer, but it revealed the soft peaks and curves of her breasts and hips.
“We are of the same bent to see this night over and done with, Ruark.”
She pushed to the balls of her feet and tried to kiss him, but he stopped her. He raised his palms to her face, touched his thumbs to the rise of her cheeks, but not so far that she did not feel his breath on her lips.
For a moment, she lost herself in his gaze. And ’twas not difficult to find pleasure in his touch as he brought his mouth down on hers. It was not a scorching kiss.Yet, by its very gentleness, possessed and burned just the same.
The backs of his hands whispered down her arms and, twining his fingers through hers, he raised them to his shoulders.
She was hardly aware of his palms on her waist.
Hardly aware that he spoke her name as he shifted and closed the distance between them until his hips aligned with hers. He scored the soft underside of her breasts, rekindling more than the spark inside her. In the glimmering candlelight, he became like the solitary flame that burned in the room. She resisted her feelings for only as long as it took to draw in her first breath.
And then she was aware of nothing at all. His touch was liquid, and it was suddenly simpler to abandon herself to him.
She threaded her fingers into his hair, loosening the queue, and letting the action define her desire.
She wanted him to touch her as much as she wanted to be touched by him. She wrapped herself in the fragrance and heat of him. She held him and was held in return.
Only when he pulled away did she remember they were not alone. But as if sensing the thorn in her thoughts, he whispered soothingly, telling her to look at him. To feel only him, know only him.
He gently and persistently kissed the fear away, turning her head so that her mouth shaped more firmly to his, increasing the unrelenting pressure of his lips, compelling in their promise. Then he reached around her and blew out the single candle in the room, descending the room into a colorless shadow realm revealed only by the burning coals in the brazier.
She became like the whisper of his voice, ethereal andotherworldly, yet there was not a part of her flesh that did not feel alive.
She drew in a deep uneven breath. His mouth grazed hers. “Come.”
She opened heavily lidded eyes as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed, where he laid her atop the covers. She watched as he undressed.
Unlike her, he stripped down to flesh and muscle. Then he dragged an eiderdown from the settee and climbed beside her, tantalizingly warm as he brought his mouth back to her lips. She cradled his face, taking the weight of him against her body as he moved atop her, but not inside her, though she felt his member heavy against her thigh. It was as if he, too, recognized this moment for what it would mean to their future, and that her elemental desire came as much from her need for him as her need to trust him.
He drew back, his expression one of tender desire, controlled yet not completely restrained. He would not hurt her, nor see her hurt. “Keep the eiderdown over our heads,” he said.
“But then no one will know ...”
She felt his chuckle. “They will know.”
Then he raised up on one elbow and looked down her body, his hand pulling up the nightdress. She adjusted her body, helping him as he pushed the gown higher and over her head, letting it flutter to the ground beside the bed. His lips closed on the tip of her breast. He kissed her then suckled first one rigid peak then the other, taking his ease with each as he laved her with his tongue. Lower still, he moved, across the underside of one breast, his lips fluttering hotly down her stomach, pausing over her naval to dip his tongue and taste.
Wrapped in an eiderdown cocoon, she wanted to touchhim, but could not and still hold the blanket over them. The quandary frustrated her. Her restless mewling came as much from frustration as bliss, and drew him back to her mouth, where he explored deeply, swirling his tongue around hers and wresting another cry from her.
His kiss was as intoxicating as it was unrelenting and anchored her to him in the humid darkness beneath the covers. “Shh, love.”
With no warning, he shifted his body. His hair brushed her chin. His lips her breast. He moved lower. His tongue a fluttering caress.
He drew on her flesh and gently kissed her naval. “Ruark ...”
Her tone questioned his actions. While her body wanted to know more. Tension heightened her tactile senses.
