Chapter Twelve #2
While the footmen arranged everything, Anne wandered over to a curio cabinet and inspected the contents. Most of the bric-a-brac had come from his days in France; some he admired daily, some he couldn’t look upon without the pieces dredging up horrible memories.
When the footmen departed, he turned to her. “Are you hungry? From the delectable aromas I’m thinking my cook has made roast quail with chestnut stuffing. Among other things.” It was one of his favorites.
“Um, not really.” She faced him, found his gaze with hers. “At least not for food.” Her eyes were dark with desire, and that only fired his own.
“Right.” Then a thought popped into his brain. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a twinkling.”
“But I—”
Quickly darting out of the room, Dante made his way along the corridor.
At his room, he went directly to a strong box he kept hidden beneath a floorboard in the corner.
After withdrawing a flat jewelry coffin, he put the box back in the hidden hole and replaced the board.
There was a queer sort of lightness to his heart as he went back into the parlor.
“I have something for you.”
“Oh?” Surprise flitted over her features. “Why?”
“Why not? You are my wife.” Once he closed the door, he crossed the room to her location. “Here.” He presented the coffin to her and nodded in encouragement so she’d take it.
A gasp left her throat the second she opened the container. “Good heavens, Broderick. These are lovely.”
The ruby parure glittered in the candlelight. “This is the collection your ring came from. I thought at one point you might enjoy having the set… if we got on well enough.”
She let her fingertips drift over some of the stones in the necklace. “Why rubies?”
“They are like fire, like blood, a reminder of what I’ve done, what I should do, what I can never forget.”
“This is too much,” she whispered in a barely audible tone.
“I rather think it’s not enough for what you’ve been consigned to.”
She bounced her gaze between the jewelry and his face.
Then, resting the jewelry coffin on a small, rose-inlaid table, Anne closed the distance between them, rested a palm against his cheek.
“Not consigned. Given, as an opportunity. To work with, to form a partnership with the man who is my husband.”
His chest tightened. “Do you truly believe that?”
“I am coming around to the idea that we will walk a path together for the foreseeable future regardless of what we’re personally fighting, so we’d best enjoy the scenery along the way, hmm?” One of her eyebrows rose in challenge. “Is that beyond your ken, Mr. Cunningham?”
“Hell, no.” With a soft growl of possession, he took her into his embrace and kissed her so forcefully they crashed against the wall with her snugly trapped between him and it.
And damn if she didn't feel good—right—in his arms, as if she alone could prove the balm he’d needed for quite some time.
He couldn’t have enough.
Of her.
Dante kissed her, drank from her again and again, dragged his lips along the silky side of her throat while she clung to his shoulders.
Too far gone to give thought to anything beyond what he needed in that moment or why he wanted it—her—he yanked down her bodice, and when the perfect globes of her breasts were bared, he took one in hand while bringing the nipple of the other into his mouth.
“Oh.” A shuddering sigh escaped her. She arched her back, putting herself more securely into his care. “Dante, I…” Her words were lost to a moan as he pleasured those pebbled tips with tongue and teeth and fingers.
The feelings gained from that were like the sweetest prayer, the softest calm.
“I need more of you,” he whispered against the crook of her shoulder as he slid a hand down her side and then gathered handfuls of her skirting.
“I haven’t tried to beg off yet,” she responded in an equally soft and smoky voice as she fussed with the folds of his cravat.
He growled and kissed her again, shared breath with her, wanted to show his possession so she’d bond with him…
and stay. When he’d bunched a good bulk of her skirts between them, he eased his hands beneath the fabric to clutch the rounded curves of her buttocks.
A surprised squeal came from her, and the sound made him grin.
He desperately needed her. “Tell me you want me, Anne, for I won’t have you crying foul that I took you against your will.” Already, his prick pulsed with pain-tipped pleasure. He’d explode soon, but he didn’t care. She was his.
“Don’t you think we’re well past that now?
” The damned woman looked up at him with passion-drugged eyes and kiss-swollen lips, and he knew.
The same need that was etched upon her features fired through his blood.
“I want you, Dante. Right now, in this moment, show me that you want me to, for no other reason than I’m your wife. ”
“Gladly, but I want you for far more than the fact that we’re married.” He fumbled at the buttons of his frontfalls. She was short enough that he picked her up and leveraged her against him, holding her thighs while letting the tip of his hardened shaft brush against her center. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. You and I are a team, Broderick. Perhaps we are better together than apart, so let’s try that for a bit.
” She looped her arms around his shoulders.
“Because why shouldn’t we both succeed when everyone assumes we’ll fail?
” Her fingers at his nape encouraged him with slight pressure, and she sought his lips, lightly nipping the bottom one.
“Oh, God.” That little gesture nearly sent him over, but it was her words that energized him, filled him with hope, and that was something he hadn’t had in far too long.
With one flex of his hips, he penetrated her body, buried his shaft deep in her warmth.
And it was fucking heaven. “Bloody hell, Anne,” he whispered against her lips.
“You feel so good, and you make me think that I can finally leave my past behind.”
“You can. I believe that.” She wriggled her hips to better accommodate his girth, and that movement nearly became his ruination. “I will always crave this moment, for as long as I’ll live.”
Dante lost a piece of his heart to her in that moment. “I rather think this will go far too quickly.”
She chuckled, and the sound went straight to his shaft. “When doesn’t it? After all, we are newlyweds.” With a wink, she nipped his chin. “There will be other times for slow and steady.”
Then there were no more words, for he couldn’t spare the energy. He dug his fingers into the soft flesh of her thighs, and as need raced down his spine and tingled through his stones, he pulled out merely for the heady rush that thrusting into her honeyed heat brought.
Over and over, he stroked into her body, taking, claiming, fusing—joining. There was no doubt that he was lost in the glory that was Anne, the woman who’d wished to kill him, his wife. The deeper he went, the more frantic and intense his thrusts became.
Her eyes shuttered. Twin spots of high color stained her cheeks.
A few tendrils of hair tumbled from their pins.
She burrowed her fingernails into his shoulders, and he welcomed the prick of pain, for it kept him as focused as he could be while losing himself in her bliss.
When she locked her ankles and her heels dug into his backside, his hold on control snapped.
How the hell had he ever thought she was plain? For truthfully, she was so beautiful that she stole his breath, made him want to throw himself onto his knees and beg her for… everything.
He pushed with ever more fervor. The need to claim her became a mantra.
Merely knowing that he was her husband made him smug and entirely too cock-sure, but at least she’d not forget him, and damn it all, he wanted to shout it to all of London that she was his.
“Tell me you’re close.” His words were raw, ragged, propelled into being by emotions he refused to acknowledge, for he’d been thwarted in love before.
Shit, love? Again? Was this what he was starting to feel?
“Close enough, but I’ll ask that you pleasure me better and longer later tonight.” Her answer shattered her thoughts as she restlessly tossed her head. Yet her inner muscles fluttered around his shaft, ushering in the beginning of the end.
Nearly gone, Dante clenched his jaw, held back the urge to finish to slide a hand between their bodies. “I’ll start that now, but you have my promise.” When he found the slippery, swollen button at her center, he rubbed his fingers over it with varying degrees of friction.
Anne’s eyes rolled back in her head. She bucked her hips, which buried him ever deeper, and he hissed out a warning. “I… I… Oh!”
As she fell into the release, he renewed his hold on her and gave himself over to fucking the hell out of his wife.
His strokes were frantic and hard, and all too soon hot sensation raced through his stones and shaft.
He pumped for all he was worth, hoping she’d reach bliss, and when her body stiffened slightly and she clutched at him with a moan, he grinned and claimed her mouth, taking her cry into himself.
Release crashed over him, through him, roaring along every nerve ending like a voracious beast—changing him.
But God, it was more than that. She was changing him, because he wanted that as well.
For her. For them. Again and again, he pumped into her contracting passage even as his prick pulsed.
For long seconds, he lost himself to the act of spending; once his body had ceased the mad torment, he held her close, keeping her safe between himself and the wall.
God, never had he felt this… content with life.
As his heartbeat returned to a normal pace and his breathing evened, he pulled slightly back from her to peer into her face. A pink flush had overtaken her chest and cheeks, and when he would have spoken, she tugged him impossibly close and brushed her lips over his.
“Can I assume you are satisfied?”
“For now, but I’m quite curious about a few other things, and I have a feeling you’re exactly the man to teach me about them.”
Was there ever a more endearing woman? He kissed her with absolutely no heat behind the gesture, and it felt as if they’d come through some odd sort of storm that had begun last night.
There was a calm in the air usually present after a summer rain in the country.
Finally, he set her on her feet, waiting until she’d steadied herself before releasing her. “What now?”
“Well, first, there is tea. I’m famished.” With a wink, Anne led him over to the low sofa and table where the meal had been laid out. “After that? Who can say?”
“Right.” Perhaps he’d become a man who read poetry to a woman, or interesting bits from the newspaper, or perhaps he’d merely take her upstairs and put her through her paces as many times as she would let him, but it didn’t matter. He just wanted to spend time with her.
She smiled at him as he sat on the sofa next to her, and his heart squeezed anew. Was he in danger of going tip over tail for her? Time would tell, but for the moment, this was enough.