Chapter 27 #2
This marriage had been a gift. A present, perhaps, from a suddenly beneficent Almighty.
Remember that time on the Nile when you nearly drowned in the floods?
Or the bite from the spider in the Africa savannah?
Do you recall when you were certain you’d lose a toe or two from frostbite in the Alps?
And when you were robbed by pirates in the Caribbean?
For all those adventures, for all your suffering, I’m granting you a boon, a precious one at that.
Here, into your keeping, is the daughter of a duke, a sweet lass with eyes the color of fog and a nature just as impenetrable.
She’s a beauty, she is, but she’s also her own woman.
She’ll not take lightly to being given as a gift.
You’ll have to woo her until you’ve won her.
She’d been dressed for seduction, and he’d been frozen by his pride.
Just what sort of idiot was he?
“Open the door, Sarah.”
She stood in front of the door and stared at the pane. He sounded angry.
“Sarah.”
“I think we should both retire for the night,” she said.
“Exactly my thoughts. Open the door.”
She jerked it open, but the words she was about to say vanished when she saw him. He only wore a shirt, nothing more, and the shirt was left unbuttoned.
“Come in,” she said, throwing open the door. “Quickly, before any of the staff sees you.”
“I’ve worn my shirt,” he said, beginning to smile.
“Yes, but your derriere is quite visible, Douglas, not to mention…”
“Other parts?”
She frowned at him, but that didn’t dim his smile.
Pulling her wrapper closed, she turned around and walked in the opposite direction. The terrace was as good a place as any to retreat, and she did so, waiting for him to join her. He didn’t.
Finally, she returned to the bedroom to find that he had dispensed with the shirt and was standing there as unadorned as one of the statues in the Greek Garden.
Oh, he was fascinating, and so much better constructed. His body was warm and alive, and tanned in places that shouldn’t be tanned.
“Douglas, you really have to start wearing clothes more often.”
“Really?”
He allowed her to stare for several moments, his only response a growing smile and something else growing as well.
“Come here, Sarah,” he said gently.
She shook her head. It was better if she was on the other side of the room.
He began to walk toward her, and she would have been wiser if she’d gone back out to the terrace and closed the door between them. But he was so beautiful and she was so transfixed by that hard and jutting part of him.
“How can you think I’d want to dissolve our marriage?”
She looked up at him. “I thought you didn’t want to couple with me anymore. That what happened in Scotland wouldn’t happen at Chavensworth.”
“Where in hell did you get that idea? I want you every hour of every day, Sarah.”
Her eyes widened.
“Shall I show you what I learned as an adventurer?”
“From all your women?” She frowned at him.
“From the pleasure palaces,” he said. “From books and drawings.”
A wiser woman would have held up her hand to forestall him, or left the room, perhaps. But a wiser woman would have had to be blind not to be captivated by the sight of Douglas, naked. Douglas, with what made him male rigid and reddened, and altogether fascinating.
She turned again, forced herself to breathe deeply.
He moved to stand behind her, so close that she could feel his instrument against the curve of her bottom. His hands slid around her waist and pressed against her stomach, pulling her back against him as if he wanted to impale her.
He bent his head and whispered in her ear. “My mouth could bring you indescribable delight, Lady Sarah.”
She shivered.
“Shall I show you?”
“You already have,” she said.
“I don’t mean on your beautiful breasts,” he said, stroking his thumb against a nipple, barely covered by the sheer fabric of her nightgown.
“Douglas.”
“It’s all right, Sarah. Passion isn’t forbidden.”
She sighed. She’d never be able to explain. Even if it had been forbidden, she wouldn’t have been able to prevent it. Being around him was magic. She trembled inside. She quaked with it.
She turned and reached up, pulled his head down for a kiss.
When she pulled away, she was breathless, and delighted to see that Douglas was as well.
She walked toward her bed, dropping her wrapper on the floor.
She’d never had the freedom to be as naked as he.
She’d never had the confidence or the courage.
Tonight, with the lamplight spreading through the room with a golden glow, she would simply have to be brave.
She grabbed her nightgown with both hands and pulled it over her head.
He didn’t say a word as his gaze traveled over her body. She straightened her shoulders, kept her hands flat against her thighs, then without a word, turned and climbed onto her bed.
He was suddenly there beside her.
She laughed, excitement racing through her blood.
They were tumbling among the sheets, tangled in heat and desperation. Turning, hands sliding over skin, palms curving over shoulders, elbows, buttocks, knees. Her fingernails gently trailed across the skin of his back, and he responded by curving over her.
She was the one to deepen their next kiss, tasting the contours of his lips, rubbing her palms over the bristles on his cheeks.
His skin was hot, and she warmed herself on it, exposing herself to the air when her own heat threatened to engulf her.
She rose onto her knees, brushing her hair back from her shoulders, swooping down on him like a siren of need and want, nipping at his chest, the muscles of his arms, hearing his laughter and knowing it was in praise of her boldness.
She was mad for him.
She sat astride him, pressing both hands against his instrument, holding it possessively against her palms, She loved the feel of it, soft, and hot and hard. Her fingers measured its length, burrowed in the nest of hair at its base, and palmed the sac there.
Even when he rose and strained against her, even when he made a low, groaning sound in the back of his throat, she wouldn’t let him inside.
Instead, she placed both hands on the mattress behind her and arched back, exposing herself to the cooling air, to his hands, to his glittering gaze.
He touched her everywhere, fingers trailing along her neck, thumbs brushing against her nipples, and there, where he sought out her swollen folds, playing amid the dampness, causing delight with his talented fingers.
She reached for him again, needing the touch of his manhood like it was a lodestone for her hands.
The head at the end of this magical instrument wept for her, and when she circled it with tender, fascinated fingers, he emitted a low, mirthless chuckle.
Raising himself again, he offered himself to her.
A pagan sacrifice, and one that she received with exultation.
He was hers.
He would not leave her. He couldn’t. She’d lost her mother, and possibly her identity. She wouldn’t lose him as well.
Suddenly, she was on her back and he was atop her, his knee at the apex of her thighs. She widened her legs in invitation, and he smiled at her, the lamplight giving him the appearance of a reiver, a Scottish invader.
She placed one hand on his cheek and the other behind his neck, pulling his head down for a kiss.
She hurt for him, a pulse beating deep in her core that could only be satisfied by him. Her body was damp, swollen. She needed him in her.
Her fingers trembled, her breath was too tight, and her heart raced. She gripped him, but instead of being reticent and ladylike, instead of being restrained, she gripped his shoulders and pulled him to her.
“Douglas,” she whispered, in a voice too demanding, too harsh.
Now.
He was suddenly in her, blocking out every thought but how he felt, how he moved.
She held him by his hips, setting him in motion, the rhythm hard, strong, and fluid.
He pulled one of her hands free, then the other, holding them clasped with each of his so that they were joined in all ways, in all places.
She was making little sounds, but she didn’t care.
He slid in and out of her, increasing his pace, pushing against the mattress as if to bury himself in her.
She held on, wrapped her feet around his calves, shuddering when the pleasure overwhelmed her.
A moment, an instant, a lifetime later, she watched as his head tilted back, his eyes closed, and the muscles of his throat pulled taut.
His face, that wonderfully handsome face of his, stiffened and held, then relaxed in lines of pleasure.
How had she lived without passion? How had she ever lived without him?