Chapter 13 #2
Could it be that her normal fears of intimacy had been eased by the kisses they had shared?
he wondered as the minutes flew by and still she did not ask him to leave.
It seemed so. He knew she hadn’t fallen back asleep.
Was it possible, then, that she was hoping he would make some advance toward her?
His desire blazed hotter at the thought, its searing heat coming dangerously close to overwhelming him.
How he longed to claim her, to bury himself inside her and quench the fire that her very nearness had ignited!
But he forced himself to think rationally, to consider her sensibilities and propriety.
He doubted she would surrender fully without first sharing marriage vows. Yet perhaps she might welcome a small taste of the passion they would know on their wedding night. His own pleasure would have to wait, but for now it would be enough to arouse the fiery desire he had glimpsed in her.
Almost enough, Adam amended honestly, the burning tightness in his lower body increasing as he slowly drew his hands along her bare arms, his knuckles skimming the full outer curves of her breasts.
Steeling himself to focus only on her pleasure, he gently nuzzled her neck and slid his palms back down her arms.
A smile curved his mouth when he felt goose bumps pucker her flesh.
Eager to see how responsive she might be to a far more intimate touch, he quickly brought his splayed hands inward, skimming them along her flat abdomen and over her ribs to the soft undersides of her breasts.
As she tensed, gasping in surprise, his thumbs each circled a roused nipple through her silken shift.
“Adam, what…what are you doing?”
“Holding you,” he teased in a husky whisper, enjoying the sensual weight of her firm breasts in his hands.
He had known they would fit his palms perfectly.
He also knew she might offer some protest, if only not to appear too eager to enjoy his caresses.
A little gentle persuasion would silence her feigned opposition easily enough and free that wonderfully wanton side of her nature.
“But you can’t!” Susanna objected, his touch exciting in her the most incredible sensations.
If she was still dazed from her nightmare, Adam’s light squeezing of her breasts brought her sharply back to reality.
She silently cursed her foolishness for being lulled by his comforting presence rather than sending him at once from her room. “We can’t! We’re not married—”
“We will be, my love,” he interrupted her, flicking the ticklish shell of her ear with his tongue. “Very soon.”
Susanna gasped again as he shifted both their weights, gently rolling them over.
The next thing she knew she was lying flat on her back staring up at him, his eyes gleaming and his rugged features appearing all the more handsome in the moonlight.
She also realized for the first time that his powerful shoulders and sleek chest were bare, the warmth of his skin penetrating through her flimsy nightrail.
Believing for a terrible, fleeting instant that he must be naked, she was relieved when her fingers caught on some fabric at his waist.
“You trust me, don’t you, Camille?” he queried, tracing the lush curve of her lips with a warm fingertip.
She wanted to cry out a vehement denial, to rail at him that he had no right to be doing this to her and to get out of her room, but she knew that to do so would threaten the deception she had so painstakingly crafted.
Her heart was beating so hard that she feared it might drown out her tremulous answer. “Yes…I trust you.”
“And you know that I would never do anything to hurt you or cause you shame.”
“Y-yes.”
As he stroked the side of her face, his eyes, stained black in the subtle lighting, held hers captive. “Then let me show you how it can be between us, my love. Let me give you a hint of the pleasure we will find in each other’s arms—”
“But I’m a virgin, Adam!” she cried, her cheeks on fire that she must reveal such a personal detail about herself to a man who had no right to such knowledge.
“And you will remain so until our wedding night.”
“Then what…how?”
Adam lowered his head to hers, his mouth hovering only a hairsbreadth above her own. “Trust me, my love,” he whispered, brushing her parted lips with his tongue until they were slick and wet. “Kiss me.”
As his mouth, tenderly possessive, molded to hers, Susanna thought of protesting further, of using the ploy of tears again…
anything to stop this madness. Then his hand slid beneath her shift to her breast, and she became aware only of the bewildering sensations sweeping her body.
She didn’t know whether she found more pleasure in his deepening kiss, from his tongue dueling passionately with hers, or from his fingers taunting her raised nipples.
She arched beneath his hand when he flicked the tingling nub lightly with his fingernails, and she moaned against his lips.
“That’s what I want to hear from you, my love,” he murmured, tearing his mouth from hers. “Sounds of your passion. Cries of delight. Teach me what you like, Camille. Let me know when I please you.”
She shivered when he slipped her nightrail from her body, baring her skin to the balmy breezes stirring the curtains and swirling around them, but her flesh soon grew warm and flushed beneath the seductive weight of his hands.
He stroked and savored every inch of her.
His palms slid worshipfully down her slim arms, drawn high above her head, over her taut, puckered nipples, her tightening belly, the curve of her hips and her sensitive inner thighs to the delicate arches of her feet, until she could not stop sighing from pleasure.
“That’s it, my beautiful, exquisite love, tell me what you like,” he urged her, kissing the ticklish hollow beneath her arm before forging a fiery path to her breasts.
A ragged moan broke from her throat when he captured a nipple between his lips and drew upon it hungrily, but she almost screamed when he slipped his hand between her legs, his fingers dipping into that moist, quivering region that had never before felt a man’s touch.
She jerked in surprise as a jolt of the most incredible sensation shot from some secret, mysterious point and radiated through every fiber of her body.
Stunned, she wondered through her passionate haze if anything was wrong with her, and she cried out almost fearfully, “Adam?”
“Shhh, love, you were meant to feel such pleasure,” he murmured soothingly, lifting his dark head from her breast to look deeply into her eyes.
“Enjoy it, revel in it, but remember, this is only a hint of the ecstasy we will know together.” His hips moved emphatically against her outer thigh, a swollen hardness pressing there, and he groaned.
“Oh, God, Camille. To think I must wait even another day, another hour to claim you…such agony…”
His mouth seized hers, his fingers delving again and again into the hot softness of her body until she was writhing beneath him.
Each time his fingertips circled and slid over that tingling nether point, she felt as if she was being thrust ever closer to the edge of some lofty precipice, until she was panting for breath, her limbs shaking uncontrollably.
He spread her legs wider, applying a little more pressure, and suddenly she was flung over the side, hurtling through shimmering space…
“Oh, Adam! Adam.”
She couldn’t say how long it was before her heavy eyelids fluttered open.
Time had lost all meaning for her in the cloud of contentment that blanketed her.
All she knew was that she felt warm and safe and protected, and disinclined to leave the strong, solid embrace of the man who held her so tightly.
“How I love you, Camille,” came a husky murmur close to her ear. “Love you.”
Those were the last words she heard as exhaustion overcame her, her sense of satiation like a potent drug. She slept, not sure if he had spoken the words or if she had merely imagined them.
“Lordy, Miss Camille. I always figured Mr. Thornton was a right powerful man, but just look at this door. I’ll bet the carpenters will have to make a new one from the way this whole side is busted up.”
“I know, Corliss. I’ve seen it,” Susanna said, trying not to think about what had happened last night. She had awakened at sunrise to find herself thankfully alone in her bed. Now she hastily pulled on her traveling gloves. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes, I am, but I don’t see what the hurry is. It’s not even eight o’clock in the morning yet.”
Susanna tried to keep her voice calm, although she was wracked by nervousness.
She had learned from Ertha, who was the earliest riser among the servants, that Adam had left for the fields well before dawn.
She didn’t expect him back until that evening, but there was always the chance that he might return to the house for some reason and discover that she was leaving.
He would insist on accompanying her, and she couldn’t have that.
This clandestine journey was part of the urgent plan she had devised after her unsettling exchanges with him yesterday.
“Corliss, I already told you that I want to complete our trip before nightfall. It’s a good distance to Raven’s Point—”
“Raven’s Point, Miss Camille?” Corliss blurted, a smile flashing. “Is that where we’re going?”
“Yes,” Susanna admitted, not sure she could trust her talkative waiting-maid with such potentially troublesome information.
Yet she didn’t have much choice. Propriety demanded a chaperone.
“We have to start early if I’m going to have enough time for a good visit with Mr. Spencer and then return before it begins to grow dark.
We don’t want to be out on the roads at night, do we? ”