The Trouble with Anna

Chapter 39

CHAPTER 39

J ULIAN HAD ANNA UP ON her horse and clattering out onto the cobblestones of Mayfair before she could blink.

Yes .

Yes to marriage.

Yes to much more.

Tonight.

Oh god, what have I done?

Yes had seemed like such a good answer—the only answer—when Julian’s hands were around her waist, his mouth achingly close to hers, and all his heat drawing her in. But now, with the dark and cold nipping at her, Anna had questions.

What, exactly, was he going to do to her?

Or was it with her?

Anna frowned. She was pretty sure she was supposed to participate, although what she was meant to do, exactly…

She gave a hiss of frustration. You know what to do! For heaven’s sake, you breed horses! Her mind flashed to Decimus, his hooves slicing into the mares beneath him, the great chunks he bit out of their necks.

Stop it! Julian’s not going to eat you!

Although Charlotte had once mentioned something about—

Anna choked, like a cat expelling a hairball.

Julian turned toward her, his eyes liquid heat, his voice a dark rumble. “We’re almost there.”

She nodded weakly.

The mouth of an alley gaped ahead of them and they drew up beside it. A massive limestone wall loomed over them and the flames of the distant streetlights hitting against it cast the alley into even greater gloom.

“Where are we?”

“Ramsay House. Our house.”

“Oh.”

Of course it was Ramsay House. The blasted thing took up half the square and one would have to be blind to miss it. Still, nothing could prepare Anna for its sheer hulking menace at night.

Ramsay House. Her soon-to-be house.

Julian reached over and adjusted Anna’s hood, making sure her face was concealed. “That’s better.”

Anna gave a strangled laugh. “Hiding me? Is that the way things are normally done?” Her face went scarlet. “Not that it’s my business how you normally… who you normally… Oh, never mind!”

Julian caught her eyes, held them. “Nothing is normal for me tonight. I’ve never brought my Countess home before.”

He slid down off his mount, his hands warm around her waist as he lifted her down from the saddle. Oh god, the expression in his eyes. As if she were a glass of whiskey and he intended to drink down every drop.

He lowered his head, kissed her.

It tasted like an ache.

She felt like one of the opium eaters she’d read about. How the drug kept them in such a sweet haze they barely knew how to ask for anything, except more .

The side gate opened with a click and he drew her through a vast garden and then to a rear door, making sure to block it with the width of his shoulders so she was concealed behind him.

Inside, someone clattered to their feet and called, “Who’s there?”

Anna flattened herself against Julian’s back.

“Ramsay,” he replied. “See to the horses and inform Evans I don’t require him.”

Only after the servant’s footsteps faded did Julian pull Anna through the door.

“I can’t remember when I last had to sneak in.” He tossed her a grin, couldn’t seem to stop grinning. “Next time, I’ll bring you through the front door, but tonight—”

Her hand shook slightly in his as he led her silently up the back stairs and down a long hallway to his chambers, where he closed the heavy door behind them.

Julian gave her hand a tug, and Anna fell awkwardly toward him. Her breath caught and she held it.

Julian lifted his hand to cup her face. “You’re trembling.”

She made a strangled attempt at a smile. “I suppose I’m nervous, wondering when you might pounce.”

“Hmm. Like a wolf?”

The amount of pure masculine pleasure in his voice made Anna’s hackles rise.

He knew what was going to happen, but she didn’t. Not fully.

Was she meant to take off her clothes? Good heavens. All of her clothes?

His large hand reached around her waist and pulled her against the firm wall of his chest.

“Not like a wolf,” she said. “Like a jackal!” It was a sad little joke and it came out all mangled.

The teasing in his eyes fell away, replaced by a frown. He ran the back of his hand gently down her cheek. “What is it?”

She gave a little shrug, stared at the floor.

He tilted her face toward his, trying to catch her eyes. “Anna, what’s wrong?”

“It’s just… I’m sure it’s all meant to be very nice…”

“Nice?” he said incredulously.

“I don’t think I can do this!”

His body went iron. “You can’t marry me?”

“Not that! Tonight. This… staying with you.”

The tension drained out of him and his eyes began to shine again. “?‘Staying with me’? Lightning, I have a few new phrases to teach you.”

Anna pulled her hands away and wrapped her arms around her waist, curling in on herself. “I don’t know what to call it, and I don’t want to do it!”

The bed, massive and dreadfully masculine, seemed to leer at her. Julian urged her toward it and she tensed.

“Just to sit.” His voice was soft as a feather. “Nothing more.”

Anna perched on the farthest edge.

“What’s wrong?” His big body was turned toward her, as if the width of his shoulders were a shield. As if he’d shield her even from himself, if he had to.

Anna’s cheeks burned even hotter and she concentrated on the floor, hoping the carpet had secrets to tell her.

He waited, quietly and patiently. He always gave her what she needed, and today at the track he’d given her even more. She owed him honesty. No , she corrected herself. She wanted to tell him how she felt.

“I’m nervous.” Anna tried for a laugh. “Quite petrified, really.”

“I see,” he said gravely. “Then you’re not ready and we must change our plans.”

Anna’s eyes flew up to his. “Change our plans? How? Why do I suspect a trick?”

Julian kissed her hand solemnly. “You, my darling, always suspect a trick.”

Anna studied him and her frown smoothed away. There were alone together in his bedchamber and Julian had the strangest glow about him, the strangest intensity, as if he couldn’t look away from her if he tried.

A tiny smile tugged at the side of her mouth. Her next thought smothered it.

“I suppose I’d better go?”

Julian’s hand tightened on hers. “Stay. Please. Just be with me for a while.”

Her smile grew and his unfurled to match it. He reached over and scooped her up, lifting her gently back against the pillows. Her head found the most marvelous spot on his chest and his arm curved around her, tucking her up tight against him.

“All right?” Julian asked.

Anna gave the tiniest nod. She had a pillow of warm, firm Julian beneath her, could feel the rise and fall of his breath under her cheek. His scent wrapped around her and she took a quick inhale, tried to sneak a whiff of him before he noticed.

He noticed. He rumbled in satisfaction.

Anna lifted her head to peek up at him. “Are you always so… warm?”

His wolf grin was back. “Do you always sniff people?”

Anna’s face went hot. “It’s not my fault that you smell strange!”

His eyebrow rose. “Strange? Shall I make your complaints known to my valet?”

“It’s not unpleasant, exactly,” she allowed. “Just different. Like…”

Like the smell of earth after a hard rain. Clean, strong, and sustaining.

“Like wet dirt?” she offered.

He laughed and pulled her close. “You smell bright, like lemons, or the shock in the air after lightning. I’m always dreaming of dark corners where I can pull the pins out of your hair and chase your scent.”

His hands curled against the nape of her neck to cradle her head, and a spark of wickedness flared to life in Anna’s belly.

She met his eyes and slowly, deliberately, pulled one of her hairpins loose.

His eyes were like smoke.

She pulled another pin out, cupped it in her palm, and offered it to him.

“Let me.” His voice was strangled. “I’ve been dying to take down your hair.”

She smiled, and he lifted her up to sit facing him on the expanse of the bed, taking to his task with utter concentration, removing her pins one by one until her hair spiraled loose and tumbled down over her shoulder in a dark waterfall.

He swallowed. “Christ.”

Anna dropped her gaze, and Julian caught her chin. “No, please. Look at me. I love how it feels to have your eyes on me.”

Anna sucked in her breath. It was always such a fight not to look at him, not to get greedy and take more than her share.

“See what you do?” His face was flushed, his remarkable eyes glittering and hectic. “The power you have over me?”

Anna swayed toward him, fascinated. “Power?”

He leaned closer as well. “I know the second you enter a room. I can feel it, as if I have an extra sense that turns on just for you. And when you kiss me…”

Anna felt quite drunk. “Yes?”

“When you kiss me, you own me.”

Anna’s breath caught. “Kiss me now.”

Julian went still, as if the smallest movement might send her running.

“Kiss me!” she commanded.

He gave a strangled laugh and lowered his mouth to hers.

He’d kissed her before—quite a lot, actually—but never like this. Never like it was the answer to an urgent question. Never with such reverence, such heat, such oh god, please .

She reached out, dragged the flat of her palm down over the muscles of his chest.

“Will you…?” She ducked her head, too shy to say it.

His voice was gravel. “Anything.”

“I want to see you without your jacket.”

Julian yanked his jacket off, revealing the white expanse of his shirt, the broadness of his chest.

“Your cravat. Take it off.”

He removed it, baring the muscles of his neck to her fascinated inspection.

She lowered her mouth, licked him just above the collarbone, and tasted salt. The groan he made pulsed low in her belly.

“Again?” he asked.

She pressed slow, openmouthed kisses along his neck and felt his body tremble. His hands shot out, one wrapping itself around her waist and one open-palmed and firm against her back. He tilted her down, until her head fell back and her neck was bare to him.

“My turn.”

Fireflies danced in her belly. He found it every time, the exact spot where the curve of her neck met her collarbone. She inhaled, wanting more of his scent, his warmth, the way his muscles curved up to meet her, like a cat leaning into her hand.

He laid her back gently against the bed, his big hand broad against her back. His mouth came down to hover over her nipple, his breath hot through the fabric of her dress.

“Please!” she gasped.

He bared his teeth and raked them slowly closed around the ache. Her hands fisted into the scarlet coverlet and she arched higher into his mouth.

He reached for the ribbons at her spine that laced her bodice, and tugged gently, just as his teeth tugged. His mouth was hot against her breast. “I want to see you.”

“Your shirt first.” She swallowed, amazed at her own daring, and pulled it from his trousers.

His eyes were burnt, his hands returning to make short work of the ribbons at her back. They gave, and he pulled one shoulder of her dress loose as she reached up and drew the thin linen of his shirt over his head.

Oh god.

Thick slabs of muscle, a furnace of heat, smooth planes, and rough hair that arrowed down into his breeches. Anna wanted to throw back her head and howl.

He pulled the other shoulder of her gown off, slipping the bodice down over her chest. The fabric dragged over her nipples and they pouted up at him.

Julian growled and came down on his elbows, hovering just above her so she could feel him against her bareness. She made a little noise, and his eyes flared in response. He dipped his body to slide roughly against her, the gorgeous naked length of his chest against hers. She was greedy for his skin.

He pulled back, his forehead against hers, his breathing ragged. “We’ve got to stop.”

“Stop? No! Why?” She wrapped herself around him, dragged him back to her.

“Damn it, Anna.” He looked agonized. “You said not tonight.”

“I was wrong! I changed my mind! Tonight, please. Right now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, for god’s sake, I’m sure!”

Anna didn’t realize how tightly Julian had held himself until the tension fell away, like a fist unclenching. As if he had opened his hands to reveal what he wanted most in all the world.

As if what he wanted most was her.

“Thank Christ,” he said.

He grinned again and pressed a quick, hot kiss against her lips. It wasn’t enough, so he kissed her everywhere, a rain of grateful kisses over her face, her forehead, her hair, her shoulders, until Anna collapsed with laughter.

He tugged at her gown, and it came shimmying down over her stomach, down over her thighs, which caused him to pause and mutter something like a filthy prayer. Down over her toes and then off, tossed over his shoulder and onto the floor. He lifted one of her feet to plant a kiss on the dip of her ankle, and rolled down to settle between her legs.

Anna’s eyes went wide and she gasped. He gave a growl of satisfaction.

“You’re so heavy.” She rocked against him.

That wiped the smirk right off his face.

“You’re so perfect,” he said, and it was her turn to smirk.

“I thought this would be scary.” She suddenly felt unbearably smug. “I didn’t know it would be… my god, this is fun.”

He gave her a swift kiss of approval.

“I’m not going to scare you. I’m going to adore you. With my hands, and my lips, and my body, and my cock. And if anything doesn’t feel right—if it doesn’t feel perfect—then you will tell me and I’ll adore you in a different way, until you can’t think of anything but what you want, how you want it, how I’m going to give it to you, over and over again.”

Anna blinked. “But what do you want?”

His eyes flared. “You. Now. All over me.”

“Yes, please.” She wanted to wind herself around him like a mink.

He unbuttoned the falls of his breeches, swallowing with relief as they opened.

Anna’s eyes went huge. “Let me see.”

He pushed back from the bed, shoved his breeches over his hips, and stood proud and naked in front of her.

His stomach was a flat plane, his cock hard and heavy. It both drew her eyes and sent them skittering away.

“Oh,” she said. It was all she could manage. Her bones had gone soft, her body was liquid.

Julian joined her on the bed and lowered himself toward her, pulling her arm up around his shoulder, shuddering with pleasure as her bare skin touched his.

Anna traced his muscles, her fingertips betraying her. They whispered to him, worshiped him, spoke all the little words that were too dangerous to say out loud.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Her legs said it as they twined around his, adoring the rough rasp of his hair. Her teeth said it with a thousand frantic nips. Her heart, pounding in her chest, drummed out the words. Her lips kissed it into his neck, against his mouth, against the line of his jaw.

He pulled her drawers down and she lifted her hips, too focused on the heavy pull of his mouth on her breast, the slow rasp of his chin against her skin, to notice she was fully naked now.

But Julian noticed. He pushed back onto his elbow and stared.

“It wrecks me to see you like this. I won’t ever be the same.” His teeth tugged gently at the lobe of her ear. “If you could see the way you’re looking at me. I can see every thought, every feeling—no, don’t look away. I can’t bear to miss a thing.” His arms were like iron around her. “I’ve wanted you here for so long. I thought I’d ruined it, but you’re here. You’re here now .”

He licked her nipple and she gasped, the sound encouraging him to lick down farther, along the middle of her stomach, twisting her to nuzzle against the sensitive skin of her sides and feather his breath over the flare of her hips.

Each place he touched lit up in response, a million little fires that fed the aching flame inside and made her rock and stretch to press against him.

Her body was begging. She panted and gasped, and his mouth curved at every sound.

He opened her legs, dipped his head, and licked her slow and rough.

Anna bucked off the bed.

“Julian!”

“Yes?” The scoundrel. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Anna collapsed against the pillow. “Carry on.”

He laughed, lowered his head—his breath a terrible, feather-light tease—and started to suck. Anna’s toes curled, but the honey ache only got stronger. Her body felt unbearably sweet, liquid and swollen, and she shivered and curled under the wave of glowing heat he built with his tongue.

“You taste so damn perfect,” he muttered roughly. He couldn’t seem to get enough.

The ache inside started to contract and pulse, like a light brightening and intensifying. Molten gold shivered down from her swollen lips, along her neck, over her breasts to shimmer deep in her belly.

“Julian!?!” she cried.

His tongue dragged once more against her and she exploded. Stars burst under her skin, gold rivers rushed through her. She was glowing, wrecked, radiant.

His.

Anna pulled Julian up to her, buried her face in his neck, nipping it over and over as the last quivers ran through her.

“What did you do to me?” she whispered into his neck.

“What I have wanted to do for fucking ages.”

The answer was so pleasing that Anna peeked up at him, and what she saw pleased her even more.

He wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.

Julian thought his jaw might shatter. His cock throbbed and it was all he could do not to come right there on the pale stretch of her stomach. He sucked in a breath, held it, tried to will his rushing blood to calm.

Mine , he thought. The word roared through him.

He wanted to mark every part of her, rub his cheek along her flesh and imprint his scent on her, warn other marauders away.

Her skin was glowing. His bites had left little red marks on her breasts, hips, and thighs, and the sight of them made his muscles clench.

Mine. Forever, fucking mine.

Anna traced her fingertips over the line of his shoulder, her eyes following every dip, her brows little fascinated slants.

“Julian?” she said.

He shook his head, fought for words. “Give me a minute.”

His strangled response pleased her, he saw the quicksilver flash of it in her eyes.

“Is something wrong?” Her voice was cream, her fingers trailed up and down his arm. Teasing him, the little wretch.

“Watch yourself,” he growled.

“I’d rather watch you.” She stretched under him, so unbearably silky it was all he could do to hold on.

Kissing Anna was dangerous, he knew that. It had flipped his life on end. Kissing Anna naked in his bed, all pink and pouting, was quickly proving fatal. He bit her bottom lip and sank into her mouth. She gasped, and he wanted her to gasp again. Wanted her delirious, panting.

His hands began to move despite himself. They gorged on each slight curve. Her mouth, usually such a stubborn line, was lush and swollen from their kisses. The thin whip of her body moved and dipped, ready for him, and she gave herself over to the touch of his hands completely. Her body felt like a secret she wanted to tell him.

Julian broke off the kiss and she whimpered in protest.

“No! Christ, Anna, I’ve got to get it under control.” He rested his forehead against hers as he fought for control. “I’ve got to make it perfect for you.”

“It is perfect. Please! I feel so… empty.”

His heart contracted, cramping like a muscle overworked. Death. Soon. She was definitely going to kill him.

“May I… touch you?” Her shy hand stuttered down his side, leaving fire in its wake.

“God yes.” Julian hissed and clenched his muscles.

Her hand hesitated, lingering briefly beneath the flat of his stomach, before she reached lower, wrapping gently around him.

The breath rushed out of him entirely.

“Oh.” The wonder in her voice made his cock leap. “It feels so…”

Her fingers ran up the length of it, unbearably light, and he fought not to lose it. He pulled her hand away, lifted it over her head for safety. Took a deep, steadying breath into the cloud of her hair.

But she tensed. Just the slightest hitch, but he felt it.

“You didn’t like that.” Her face was carefully blank.

His heart turned over. “I liked it. Too much.”

His lips skimmed over her neck, down into the dip of her throat, murmuring little words of praise and reassurance, and his heart only began to beat again when she began to loosen and bend once more. He struggled for control. “Christ, Anna, if you knew how much I need you.”

She swallowed. “I need you too.”

The words might as well have been a cudgel. They broke him for good, cracked his last armor into pieces, his heart leaping all over the wreckage. There was nothing to do but hand his heart over to her, place it gently in her small, callused hands.

I love you. I love you. I love you. The words were alive on his lips, his body frantic to show her. He bit them into her shoulder, breathed them into her hair, nuzzled them into first one breast and then the other. He couldn’t quite bear to tell her, but he could print it onto her skin.

Each little gasp and sigh he drew from her pushed him harder, until he felt the need to be inside her like pain. He hooked her leg around his hip, anchoring her to him even as he opened her wider and slid his cock against her.

“Julian!”

What it did to him to see her face as she raced toward pleasure. Reckless, headlong, the way she raced on the track.

He let himself slide again, slow and rough, and her breath hissed out. Her thigh under his splayed hand was a column of supple muscle.

The flat of his thumb found her clit and he stroked it, rolling it as he rolled his hips. Her leg tightened and she bowed up, so the broad head of his cock strained at her entrance. It hurt, how much he craved the grip of her body.

“Sweetheart, are you sure?”

She nodded frantically.

He dragged himself away, reached near his bed for something that he slipped over his cock. “This is a French letter. Do you know what it is?”

Her eyes were wide and glazed. She shook her head, barely listening as he came back down to her.

“It will stop us from making a child, so we can choose when—”

Her eyes widened still further. She put her hands up to his cheeks. “All right.”

God, she was so wet and swollen. He clenched his teeth, allowed himself the slightest move forward.

Her body went still. Her mouth was a wide, wicked O.

“Am I hurting you?”

Anna shook her head furiously and stretched up to meet him. The slight movement was too much for him. He cupped her ass in his hands, gritted his teeth at each tight, hot inch.

“Anna?” Julian willed himself to focus even as his body tried to pull him under. She was somewhere far away, somewhere dreamy, but she tried to answer. Just as her lips began to move, he couldn’t help himself and his hips flexed. Her face blanked.

He dipped his head, tugged her bottom lip with his teeth. Whispered desperately, “Lightning, are you with me?”

She surfaced just long enough to answer. “Yes! Yes! Shut up and do that again.”

Which was why he was laughing as he started to move, rolling his hips as the world rolled with them. He buried himself in her heat, half-mad with the feel of it. Every noise she made, every wondering expression that lit her face, each time she took him in long, rough, and slow, drove him closer to the edge. His muscles locked as he fought to hold on until she lost her grip, to shatter her the way she was breaking him.

“Please,” he groaned. “Anna, love, I can’t hold on—”

She arched off the bed and into the roaring deep. He had no choice but to follow, tumbling, drowning, dumb with his pleasure and her own. Waves crashed down over and over, and when the storm broke at last, there she was. Gripped tight in his arms and trembling.

Julian rolled onto his back and hauled her across him, one hand buried in her tangled hair as she burrowed into his chest, one hand making little soothing strokes up and down the curve of her spine. Her foot curled around his calf, soothing him back.

He needed it.

Anna was a goddamned hurricane.

His goddamned hurricane.

His .

She squirmed deeper into his chest, burying her face in it.

“Hiding from me?”

“No!”

He smiled into her hair. “I’ll wait you out. You’ll need to breathe at some point.”

She laughed and shook her head.

“Ah! You intend to stay like this?” He pulled her closer. “Very sensible. I’ll give up my jackets and wear you.”

She bit him, and he could feel her smile when he yelped. His hand played gently in her hair as he gave himself over to thinking. She clearly needed shackles, in the form of a large and glaring ring. She was devious and needed watching, so he’d move her into Ramsay House as soon as possible. In fact, he’d move her straight into his room and make her pay all night long and twice in the mornings.

She made an odd little squeak. “Was that… how it’s meant to go?”

His smile broadened. He hadn’t thought it could. “Lightning, I love your euphemisms. The blandest words for the most cataclysmic events.”

Her hand fisted against his side. “Don’t tease! Not about this.”

Real distress. He gathered up her hair in a rope and pulled on it gently, insistently, until her head came slowly off his chest and she was forced to look at him.

“I’m not teasing,” Julian said solemnly. “I’m dumb with happiness, and grateful. So goddamned grateful.”

It sounded like a prayer.

Anna searched his face, and whatever she saw made her look quite pleased. “I suppose I will accept grateful.”

“Goddamned grateful,” he corrected.

“Blasphemous gratitude,” she agreed primly.

Julian rolled her up in his arms as he laughed.

She was his, at least until dawn.

And then forever, as fast as he could manage it.