He slid back inside her, giving them both what they wanted.
“What else?” she managed to breathe.
He pulled her bodice and shift down over her breasts and sucked on one of her nipples until it made a hard point. “Ooh,” she called out, cradling his head against her.
“That’s another one,” he said, his thrusts rhythmic,slow. His panting breaths kept pace with the dance of their bodies, his hands anchored on either side of her head.
“Any others?” she somehow managed as her hips writhed beneath him.
“My favorite.” His hand slipped down between their bodies, to the place where she was aching with pleasure and slick with need. She caught her breath, every muscle tightening in anticipation of his touch against the most sensitive part of her… and it came, intent, unerring, torturously slow. He gently explored her folds and found what would make her gasp and jerk, and then he didn’t stop, even when she was all but begging for more. He rubbed her in tiny, maddening circles, too tiny, too slow, but oh, so sweet, over and over, until her skin was damp with the exertion of chasing her climax, her hair tangled on the pillow and clinging to her temples. When she actually did beg, when she lifted her lashes to find him grinning just a little, he quickened his caress at last and thrust firmly inside her at the same time. Once, twice, giving her all she wanted and more, until she cried out his name loud enough that he cupped a hand over her mouth and leaned down to whisper wickedly in her ear, “That one.”
While her body still thrashed beneath him in ecstasy, he rose up and drove into her, his grin fading into fierce determination as he raced to meet her climax with his own.
“Nicole—” he cried, and with one last thrust, spilled himself inside her, while his body quaked against her, beautifully helpless in ecstasy.
***
Moments passed in the quiet darkness before Nicole ventured to move. Her body was thoroughly exhausted and she was blissful. She stretched her arms above her head and turned on her side to face him. She couldn’t help but repeat in her mind the words he’d said. “I’ve dreamed about the sounds you make while we’re making love.” Did he mean it? Or had he merely spoken in the heat of the moment? She couldn’t ask him. It would open wounds she wanted to pretend she could keep healed. Better if they kept their time in bed separate from everything else.
“Did you ever think about me? Over the last ten years?” His voice held a note of vulnerability that both thrilled and frightened her.Hewas going to ask the difficult questions apparently.
She swallowed. “Yes,” she answered honestly. “From time to time.” Every day. “Did you think about me?” God help her, she couldn’t keep the question in.
“I did,” he answered simply. “Yes, I did.” Mark’s fingers filtered through her hair and he hugged her tightly against him.
***
The harsh crack of the whip against his back would have sent him to his knees had Mark not been strung up between two poles, thick ropes eating into his wrists and causing sores upon the sores that were already there from his last beating.
“Where are your compatriots?” the French commandant asked in his native language before he drew back his arm to send the whip flying toward Mark’s already scarred back again.
“What compatriots?” Mark replied in fluent French.He knew it bothered the commandant to hear an Englishman speak his language. It bothered him even more to know Mark had no accent.
The whip slashed through the air and seared Mark’s back again, making his vision go dark, the pain nearly unbearable. It usually ended when he passed out. Or at least he assumed it ended then.
“I grow tired of your games, Lieutenant. Tell me where they are camped or I shall kill you.”
Mark clenched his jaw. “You have it wrong,mon ami.I am a lieutenant general, not merely a lieutenant.”
The whip sliced through the air again and Mark’s sharp groan cut through the silence.
“I do not care if you’re a field marshal! You can be sure your dead body will be stripped of rank,” the Frenchman gritted out, his voice growing angrier with each word.
“Go to hell,” Mark managed through clenched teeth, bracing himself for the amount of pain that would surely bring darkness.
The whip cracked again and again, the Frenchman taking out his pent-up rage on Mark’s back. Three, four, five more cracks. Blood dripped down his back and pooled near his dirty bare feet. Mark counted ten before his vision blurred and for only a moment the image of a gorgeous face framed with fiery red hair floated in his mind’s eye, then the world went black.
He awoke in his dirty cramped cell, the pain in his back so intense he couldn’t move. His dry, cracked lips opened, his breathing labored and hoarse. They would eventually toss in a crust of stale bread and a filthy cup half-full of water. It might already be near the door, buthe’d have to be able to crawl over and get it. At the moment he couldn’t crawl.
They wanted to know the location of his camp, the one he’d shared with the elite group of spies he’d been working with in France. He’d sacrificed himself for the others, leading the French away when they’d come too close. They’d eventually captured him. Perhaps that was what Nicole had meant when she called him reckless. Well, then, he was reckless because he’d die in a heap on the vermin-infested floor before he would give away the location of his countrymen, the allies who depended on him.
Wincing and nearly passing out again from the pain, he pulled himself up on his forearms, exhausted from that effort alone. His breath came in short, hard pants. He couldn’t turn his head. He focused on the facts. They served to distract him. France. He was in France and so was Nicole. But Nicole was in Paris and he was on the outskirts of the city in a camp along the river.
Would he ever see Nicole again? Or would she merely receive a note, informing her that her husband had died? She’d probably never know how he died. The fact that he was a prisoner was a secret and might remain that way. Cade would tell her. Cavendish would find her and tell her the truth. Would she even care?
Mark still loved her. He always would. He would love her until his dying day… which just might be today.
***
