Chapter Forty-Eight
Dustin was bent over the basin when there was a loud rapping at her door.
She told whoever it was to go away, but Marcus announced himself and she had no choice but to respond.
She did not want him to see the contents of her stomach on display in the basin, so she put it in the wardrobe to hide it from him.
Quickly brushing her hair, she straightened her surcoat and went to open the door.
Marcus raised an eyebrow at her. “What? Are you hiding a lover in here?”
She stood back as he entered the room, trying not to look suspect. “Can I at least put a surcoat on before you come barging in here?” she snapped.
He looked at her, ignoring her tone. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What do you mean?” she lowered her gaze and moved away from him.
“I mean, Iris says you have been sick ever since you got here,” he said, concerned. “What’s wrong, honey? Isn’t the food settling on your stomach?”
Dustin pursed her lips with frustration. “And what else does Iris tell you about me? Damnation, that woman knows everything that happens to me two seconds after it happens. This castle is a damn rumor mill. I hate it.”
“Calm, lady.” He put up his hands soothingly. “They do not mean to be that way, but it is a close knit group. They are not trying to be malicious, just concerned.”
“I do not need their concern,” she shot back. “I do not need them nosing into my business, or going through my trunks, or worrying about me in any way.”
“Going through your trunks?” he repeated. “What are you talking about?”
She waved irritably at him. “Just that. Someone went through the belongings I left in my trunks. Marcus, I swear I am ready to take my fist to these people.”
“Did they steal anything?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “But that is not the point. They seem determined to allow me no privacy, and with everything that happens, they go running to you.”
He was calm as he watched her pace. “It is because they know I care about you and I want to know when something is wrong.”
“I shall tell you myself if something is wrong,” she said forcefully. “I do not need the tattlers to do it for me.”
He sighed and went over to the bed, sitting heavily on the pretty coverlets. “Come here.”
“Nay,” she spat, pacing in front of him.
He reached out and grabbed her, pulling her onto his lap.
She struggled for a moment, but relaxed when she realized how comforting it was to have him close.
With these weeks she had spent with him, her wall had come further and further down and it was becoming easier to respond to his affections.
And she so desperately craved affection at times it made her cry.
She reasoned that if she could not have Christopher, then Marcus was the next best.
His dark blue eyes met her gray orbs tenderly. “Would you please tell me what’s wrong?” he asked softly. “Are you ill?”
She shook her head. “Nay,” she replied, not wanting to tell him of her secret, increasingly concerned as to how he was going to react to know she carried her dead husband’s child.
She knew Marcus loved her, but every man had his limit.
What would the people of his keep think if they learned Marcus was in love with a woman pregnant with the child of a dead man?
It would make him look like a fool. She did not want to do that to him.
To save his honor, to do him this one favor when he had done so many for her, she knew what she had to do.
Dustin remembered the time long ago when they had made love.
She remembered it had been powerful and lusty, but she felt as if she were betraying Christopher all over again by contemplating taking Marcus into her bed.
Still, her pregnancy was early enough that she would be able to tell Marcus the child was his.
But they would have to consummate their relationship soon.
Christopher was gone and she was being faithful to a memory.
She loved him so much that she could not help it.
Yet Marcus was here and he was real and she had grown to become very fond of him over the past several weeks.
As hard as it was for her, she knew for her best interests, she needed to do what was necessary to perhaps save them both.
Marcus jolted her out of her train of thought. “Then what, Dustin?” he pressed gently. “What is it?”
She looked at him and felt the pull again. It wasn’t love, but more a sheer animal magnetism. For once in her life, she gave into the pull.
“I….Oh, Marcus!” She threw her arms around his neck in resignation. After a moment, she kissed his ear hotly. “I am glad you brought me here.” Half lie, half truth.
Marcus was pleasantly surprised. Dustin’s hot breath sent chills up his spine and the fire of desire kindling in his loins, but he banked himself. He was becoming used to banking himself where she was concerned.
“As I am, honey,” he replied. “Do you feel like going downstairs? Dud told me of a whole field of wildflowers in bloom. We can bring Christin and….”
She cut him off, pulling back to look at him with a seductive smile that made his heart leap into his throat.
“I do not want to go anywhere,” she used a tone he had never heard before. “I want to stay here. With you.”
His eyes widened and she caught the look of utter surprise. “And?” he wanted to know.
She focused on his lower lip, a masculine, sensuous thing. “I need you. I need you now.”
His jaw hung. “What?”
She ran her finger along his lower lip, feeling the desire in her veins build. What had started out as a fine job of acting was quickly becoming the real thing. He was so astonished that he wasn’t reacting to her, so she stopped her onslaught and suddenly stood up.
“Very well,” she said, rather primly. “I can see that I hold no interest to you.”
He snatched her back to him as quickly as she had risen, pulling her against him firmly. His face was an inch from her own, their eyes devouring each other.
“Are you sure?” he whispered, not even daring to hope.
She kissed his lower lip, only his lower lip, and caught it between her teeth erotically as she pulled away from him. “I am,” she whispered. “Truly, I am.”
Marcus could not believe it. His eyes raked her from her hair to her toes and he was completely at a loss for words. Forgoing the words, his mouth latched onto hers and in a great release of desire and passion, he pulled her back onto the bed with him.
What started out slow and completely sensual quickly grew in strength.
He literally tore her surcoat from her and she let him, encouraging him with passionate words that sent his blood boiling.
His own clothes came off faster than he thought possible and Dustin moaned with pure pleasure when their naked flesh came together for the first time.
It was an explosion of erotic pleasure, comfort beyond imagining as his hands moved the length and breadth of her body.
For Dustin, it was purely therapeutic. She needed to be touched, needed to know that she was loved and that she was not alone.
She tried to close her eyes and pretend it was Christopher, but she could not.
His presence was so different from Marcus’ and she knew him better than she knew herself, and it was nearly impossible to pretend that the man holding her now was her deceased husband.
She was momentarily disappointed, for she had hoped to imagine for just a moment that ’twas Christopher back with her, one more time.
But her disappointment was momentary in that Marcus Burton was a man among men, not inclined to take second to anyone, especially a dead man.
He was rough with her, as she had remembered, but it fired her desire tremendously. His teeth bit at her nipples, already engorged and tender from nursing, but he was skilled enough to know how far he could go without actually hurting her. A little pain was pleasurable.
He sucked her dry on both breasts, giving Dustin so much pleasure that tears filled her eyes.
She tried to make love to him, to run her hands over his massive chest or move to cup his testicles, but he would gently push her back down again and continue his attentions.
Lord, he had wanted her so badly and for so long that she was going to lay there and enjoy everything he did to her, whether or not she wanted to join in.
This experience was so entirely unexpected that it left him giddy.
She tasted so sweet and he sucked and tongued her in every possible place, feeling her warmth against his face Dustin relaxed completely, panting softly with his most intimate touch and giggling when he suckled her toes.
He smiled back, meeting her desire-hazed gaze before quickly flipping her over on her stomach and descending on her bottom with his mouth.
Dustin moaned and writhed underneath him, even blushing when he parted her buttocks and ran his tongue the length of the crack, toying with her anus.
He bought her up to her knees while her face and shoulders were still lowered into the pillow and pressed his mouth into her private center, manipulating her little bud from an entirely new angle.
Dustin immediately started to thrash with passion and he could not wait any longer. Turning her over on her back, he lowered his massive frame onto her and gently kissed her mouth.
“I want to look at your face when I make love to you,” he whispered hotly.
Breathless, she met his eyes and wrapped her pretty legs around his thighs. “Take me, my lord.”
He did. He drove into her wetness with a shout of triumph, rocking the bed with the measured power in his thrusts.
She met his thrusts firmly, clinging to him as he moved within her.
Christopher, Christopher, Christopher! Her mind sang over and over but she had the presence of mind not to voice her thoughts.
This was Marcus now, her future husband, and she would not degrade him by thinking him to be another.
Yet it wasn’t easy, her mind, her body, was geared to Christopher.