Chapter 15 #2
How should she greet him?
What would she say?
There was no time to consider it.
He entered the marquee and stopped short. His gaze raked over her, his tongue skimming his lower lip. “Who do I need to kill? Charlotte or Daphne? That nightgown deserves a place in the King’s armoury. I doubt there’s a man alive who could protect himself against it.”
She resisted the urge to cross her arms over her breasts. “Let me fetch a fur.”
“Don’t.”
The single word held more heat than the brazier.
She felt the burn of it between her thighs.
She smoothed one hand over the sheer material.
He took a step towards her. “Do you mean to kill me tonight?”
“I’ve left my pistol at home.”
“Your mouth was always the more dangerous weapon.”
“You’ve experienced it more than most.”
“I’ll make damn sure it stays that way.”
She turned to the table, needing a moment to breathe. “Shall I pour you some wine? It might keep the cold at bay.”
“The back of that nightgown is as flimsy as the front. I’m in no danger of catching a chill.”
“Perhaps you should remove a few layers.”
He drew a sharp breath. “Put down that glass and come here.”
She swallowed hard before facing him. His brown eyes were almost black now, fixed on her as if she stood bare.
“Tired of looking at my nightgown from a distance?”
“The image of you is seared into my memory.”
She padded towards him. She needn’t have concerned herself with the bed. They both knew she would sleep close to him tonight. “You look like a man returned from the Crusades.”
“Then be useful, squire, and undress me.”
She would strip him of his armour piece by piece.
“Where shall I begin?”
“With my greatcoat.”
But as soon as she was close enough to touch, he threaded his fingers into her hair and kissed her. There were no gentle brushes or slow strokes, only the hard angle of his mouth, the pressure of his hand at her nape, the silken sweep of his tongue.
Hugh.
He broke away on a ragged breath, though the fire in his eyes said he was far from finished. “This is where you call me a devil.” His hand curled around her hip, gathering the muslin. “And insist I sleep in the stables.”
She pushed the greatcoat off his shoulders. “Why, when you want to sleep with me?”
“With you is not the same as beside you, Emma.”
“You’d prefer I was more precise?”
“If my heart can take it.”
“Make love to me, Hugh. Sleep with me, beside me, beneath me. Nothing matters tonight but being with you.”
His breath caught.
Hers did too.
She drew the greatcoat down his arms and let it fall at their feet. The open letter from Lord Howden lay at the bottom of her reticule, discarded. She had made her choice long before breaking the seal.
He captured her chin, drew her mouth so close to his she could feel every breath. “This marquee, the furs, the brazier—it might seem like a fantasy, a night to take what we want without—”
She pressed a silencing finger to his lips. She would take this night with him not as a fantasy, but as the only honest thing left between them.
“I’m tired of hiding from it.” She reached up and touched her lips to his. “If you don’t want this, you need to push me away.”
“If I touch you now, I won’t be noble. I won’t stop at kisses. And I won’t survive you calling this a mistake come morning.”
How could following her heart be a mistake?
She knew exactly what she felt for him. It had been there for days, hidden in every argument and every breathless touch.
She was in love with him.
Not for his name. Not for any future he had promised her. She would not trade this night with him for the cold comfort of a title.
She reached for Hugh’s cravat. “Then you must remember one thing in the morning. I chose you.”
His mouth parted. His eyes softened as he looked at her. If only it would last a lifetime.
His hand closed over hers, holding her there as though the words had struck somewhere vital.
“Then get me out of these clothes.”
She pulled the knot loose, watching his throat work as the silk slid free. “You smell like leather, rain and cold air.” She breathed him in, wanting this scent in her memory. “It’s as potent as your cologne.”
“You smell like nothing I know.”
His gaze moved over her face as she worked the coat free, drinking her in with quiet reverence.
She set her hands on his shoulders, needing something solid to hold onto, but the breadth of him stole the thought from her head.
He was all hard muscle beneath fine linen, tension held in his upper arms, in the rigid line of his back. Yet when she reached for the buttons of his waistcoat, he went still.
She swallowed past the tightness in her throat.
Her fingers slipped, but he caught them. “Don’t stop.”
“You’re certain?”
His mouth quirked. “I’m not concerned for myself.”
“So you do want this?”
He took her hand and guided it down the placket of his trousers. “More than you know.”
Her fingers curled instinctively, testing the shape of him through the fabric. He was long and hard, pulsing against every tentative stroke.
His jaw tightened. “Careful. I’m holding on by a thread.”
“Then we wouldn’t want it to snap just yet.”
Not when this memory might have to last forever.
He unbuttoned his waistcoat himself, fingers steadier than hers had been, and dragged his shirt over his head. Firelight caught the hard planes of his chest, his lean waist, the dark trail of hair disappearing beneath his waistband. Every careful argument she’d built against this abandoned her.
Then his hands moved lower.
His eyes never left hers as his fingers settled at the fall of his trousers. “You drive me half mad with need. And still, that’s the least dangerous part.”
“What is the most dangerous?”
“You make me want things. Impossible things.”
“Such as?”
He didn’t answer. Not in words.
He caught the hem of her nightgown and drew it slowly upwards. The muslin whispered over her skin, over her thighs and hips, over the quick rise and fall of her breasts, until she lifted her arms and let him pull it free.
His gaze moved over her with such fierce attention she felt desired, not exposed. Then he saw the bruise on her arm, the fading blue mark from the shove in the street.
“When I find out who did that, he’s a dead man.”
“I’d like to thank him. How else would I have known you watched me from the window?”
His mouth curved. “I couldn’t tear my gaze away even then. Now looking isn’t enough.” He touched her shoulder, then the line of her collarbone, his fingers warm against her. “I thought I knew desire.”
“And now?”
“I was mistaken.”
Her breath faltered as his hand moved lower, skimming the outline of her breast. “You’re touching me as if I might break.”
He looked at her. “No. As if I might.”
She took his hand and drew it over her breast. Her nipple tightened beneath the roughness of his palm. “I need your hands all over me.”
Hugh didn’t argue.
His hand closed over her, no longer careful but certain, his thumb passing over the tight peak until her knees threatened to give way. His other arm came around her waist, drawing her hard against him.
Don’t ever let me go.
The words filled her heart and her head. He was right. Heaven help her, he was. There was nothing more dangerous than this strange mix of love and lust, this need to slip under his skin and stay there.
What if it was just this once?
And want would be a wound that never healed.
“Hugh. Take me to bed.”
He heard her but couldn’t stop kissing her breasts, her shoulder, her neck. His hands slid to her bottom, grasping hard as he lifted her.
“Wrap your legs around me.”
She gripped his shoulders, but was in no danger of falling. He held her tight to him, her sex pressing against the thick length in his trousers. Every step towards the bed sent pleasure jolting through her.
But he didn’t set her down.