Riding the euphoria of her declaration, he thrust deeply, crying out with pleasure as he buried himself to the hilt. She gasped and stiffened beneath him, shoving at his chest as he braced himself above her, his arms trembling with the effort of holding back.
He dipped his head and kissed away her tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispered over and over. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right,” she murmured, relaxing as she adjusted to his invasion. “I just didn’t realize it would be like this. You fill me so completely.”
He took one of her hands and placed it over his thundering heart. “You fill me, too. Here.” The words weren’t nearly enough. What he felt for her was too new, too immense to name, but she bit her lip and more tears welled in her eyes, and he knew she understood.
It was impossible to hold back any longer. He drew his hips back in a long, slow slide and then drove home again. Kate winced a bit, but nodded, encouraging him.
“Let go. Take me, Kate. Take all of me.” “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
Her acceptance pushed him beyond coherent thought. He closed his eyes and filled her again and again, losing himself in the wonder of it, the rightness of making love to this woman. She was everything he’d ever wanted, and for this brief, shining moment, she was his.
All his plans to ensure her pleasure evaporated because his own came too quickly, ripping through him with the force of a hurricane. He shuddered and moaned her name, spilling his seed deep within her, holding her tightly against his chest as tremors of completion racked his body.
* * * * *
Kate lay in Talon’s arms, listening to the steady beat of his heart.
The lean strength of his big, warm body pressed along her back and one of his elegant hands fanned her bare hip.
She felt the strangest urge to laugh. Here she was, a proper, pampered lady all her life, lying in her lover’s arms in glorious abandon while her husband slept unknowingly in the room next door.
There was none of the guilt she’d expected to feel. For the first time in her life, she’d followed her heart instead of her head. She’d thrown consequence to the wind and lived for the moment.
Strange as it seemed, she thought Daniel would approve.
She’d been made for this, made to love a man like Talon. It wasn’t fair that fate had stuck her in a loveless, passionless marriage with a man like Daniel, someone who would never show her the physical side of love.
She forced the pointless thoughts away and concentrated instead on absorbing every nuance of this moment for later reference. She wanted to remember the feel of Talon’s breath on her skin, the hair-roughened tangle of his legs with hers. Who knew if she’d ever have an opportunity like this again?
They’d reach America in another few days, and she had no idea of Talon’s plans once he’d seen them to Holyoke. There had been no talk of the future, and he hadn’t claimed to love her, although she thought perhaps he did.
Another thought occurred out of the blue, striking icy fear into her heart. What if the night she’d passed with Talon resulted in a child?
The panic dissipated as quickly as it had come.Lord, what if it did?
If she had a child, they could return to England. Daniel would probably be ecstatic. She wouldn’t even have to feel guilty about her son inheriting the earldom, because he would still be of Sutcliffe’s blood.
A baby at last. After all these lonely months of heartache and disappointment, the thought of it was enough to bring pure joy to her heart. She wanted Talon’s baby. She could shower the child with all the love she wanted to give to Talon, all the love he’d never allow himself to know.
“Good morning.” Talon hugged her and pressed a tender kiss behind her ear. “Having second thoughts?”
She closed her eyes and tried to control her racing heart. She couldn’t let him know what she was thinking. He would assume she’d used him to get her pregnant and escape the fate Sutcliffe had planned for her.
To distract them both, she turned to face him. “I’m past second thoughts. I’ve already moved on to third and fourth ones.”
He chuckled and kissed her, long and sweet. “It’s nice to wake up with you. I’ve never known the luxury of spending the night in a lady’s bed. My life has never been this soft, this sweet.”
She ran her fingertips over his poor, bruised cheekbone. “Tell me what your life has been like. I want to know everything about you.” Reality would intrude soon enough. She’d already committed the sin; it couldn’t hurt to wring every moment of pleasure she could from the experience.
He sighed and stretched, the muscles of his big, lean body rippling against her. “You don’t want to know. It’s an ugly tale.”
She tried to contain her disappointment. It wasn’t as though he’d made her any promises, after all. She had no right to expect him to give her his heart or his trust. He’d offered nothing but his body.
Her attention was caught by a soft sound in the adjoining cabin. Her husband was awake. She bit her lip. “Do you think Daniel knows?”
Talon nodded. He hugged her tighter for a moment and then released her. “Yes, he knows.” There was a strange, angry note in his voice she was hesitant to identify. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I’ll take care of Daniel.”
