He smiled up at her. “Why compare it? I had a hard life, that is a factual truth. But I always knew who I was. And I made sure everyone else did, too. Not being separated out as an individual must have been trying. No wonder you ran. No wonder you looked for someone who saw you.”
“Pretended to see me,” she whispered. “Ellis only pretended to see me.”
His brow furrowed and he threaded his fingers between hers, stroking the length of them with his own, gliding his thumb across her palm and inside her wrist as her body screamed with fire and anticipation.
His gaze found hers again. “I see you.”
Those three words hit her so hard in the stomach that it felt like the air went out of her. This man she had never expected gave her the gift she’d always wanted. Easily. Genuinely. And so many other gifts too. It made the feelings that rose up whenever she looked at him so much harder to tamp down.
“I know you do.” She cleared her throat, needing distance from those feelings even more. “You said you would ask me a question tonight. And you are driving me mad doing that.”
He laughed. “Doing what?”
“You know what,” she gasped as he let the nail of his thumb abrade the sensitive skin of her palm again. “Doing that with my hand.”
He lifted that same hand again, pressing another kiss to the palm and then the wrist. She caught her breath. How could he do something so simple and have it feel so powerful?
He kissed her wrist again and said, “I’m not sure you’d want me to ask the question. We’re so close to Gretna Green now. You might want to go home and forget you ever kissed me. Or that I kissed you. There…” He motioned to her mouth. “Or anywhere else.”
She swallowed hard at the reminder of his dark head between her trembling legs. Of the magnificent pleasure that was echoed now as he just barely touched her hand.
“If you might go away, if I might never see you again,” she whispered. “It makes me want you to ask the question even more. I have few chances left to answer it.”
There was a moment when pain came over his expression. As if touching her and wanting her were the same torture for him as they were for her. Then he nodded.
“You told me you wanted me to ruin you,” he whispered, focusing so fully on her that the rest of the room seemed to disappear. “To take your innocence and let you feel the kind of pleasure you’ve never dared dream about.”
“I did.” Her voice cracked.
“Have you thought about the consequences, Anne, of giving such a gift to a man like me? A man you know isn’t meant for you. A man with a dark past that a woman like yourself should never even know exists. Do you want to open your legs to a man like me?”
She couldn’t breathe as he spoke all those words, asked all those questions, tried to warn her off and instead drew her further and further in. She lifted the hand he wasn’t holding and guided it toward him. She stroked her fingers along his jawline, letting her thumb glide along his full lower lip.
And then she whispered, “I want that so much, Constantine. I want you so very much.”
He didn’t move for a moment, didn’t react at all. She wasn’t certain if it was because he didn’t like the answer. Or because she’d used his real name again. Or because he didn’t want her despite the show he was making.
But then he pushed his chair back with a screech that brought the attention of the room to them for a brief moment. He tugged her to her feet and nodded.
“Then let’s go upstairs,” he growled. “Now.”
He held her hand as they weaved through the crowded dining hall toward the narrow, smoky stairwell in the back corner of the room. Up one flight of steps, two, and they were at the top of the small building, in the row of cheaper rooms where their chamber for the night was located.
The hall was empty and he shifted her in front of him, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her back flush against him as they moved together awkwardly. She could see the room ahead of them, just ten paces, though it felt like a lifetime when he’d begun kissing the side of her neck gently.
She groaned as they both reached for the door handle, fumbling to get the key in the lock, turning it together, their fingers interlacing as they staggered into the tiny room that just had a narrow bed wide enough for two and a fire that warmed and brightened the space.
He turned her as he pushed the door shut, wedging her there as his mouth came down to claim hers.
He’d last kissed her just twenty-four hours earlier and yet Anne felt starved for it. She glided her fingers into his short hair, pulling him closer, urging the moment to go on and on as he tasted every inch of her mouth. His hands began to rove over her. He cupped her breast and she gasped as she thought of his mouth on her like it had been last night. He let his fingers continue down her sides and to her hips, tugging her close enough that she could feel the hard ridge of his erection against her belly.
She arched against it, rubbing until he broke the kiss with a moan. “You are a minx,” he growled as he spun her around and backed her across the room toward the low bed. She bumped it with her calves in a few steps and smiled up at him.
“You like a minx, I think,” she said softly. “You’d be bored if I didn’t challenge you.”
“That’s probably true,” he said as he reached around her back and flicked her buttons open without any effort. Her dress gaped forward, and he tugged it down and off in a smooth motion. “But no one could get bored with you.”
Tears stung her eyes at that statement. She knew she could be difficult. But he liked her anyway. Maybe even because she wasn’t easy. That was the gift as much as the bedding tonight.
She cupped his cheeks and kissed him, pouring all her need into him, all her heart, all the things she felt for him and had tried to deny until this moment when it washed over her in a wave. She was too afraid to name those emotions but she gave them all to him with her lips and vowed to give them all to him with her body.
He pulled away and looked down at her with concern in his dark eyes. “No desperation,” he whispered, and hooked his fingers beneath her chemise straps. He dropped them down, tugging the silky fabric around her hips, pooling it at her feet with her gown. And she was naked, save for her boots and her stockings. He stepped back, eyeing her from head to toe, like he was memorizing the moment as he stared.
“Take the rest off,” he growled, his voice rough. “Please.”
Chapter 12
Anne sat on the edge of the bed and did exactly as she’d been told, stripping her boots off in a few smooth motions and rolling her stockings down. She didn’t care that she snagged one as she did it, didn’t care that she didn’t exactly know where she threw them. She needed this man and this was the path, so she took it as fast as she could.
When she glanced up, he had stripped himself naked from the waist up, removed his own boots and was working diligently on his trousers. She laughed at the focus on his handsome face as he nearly popped buttons free in his haste.
“How can you be so quick?” she giggled.
He glanced up at her with a fleeting grin. “I am inspired.” The trousers dropped and he kicked them free to stand naked before her.
She stared as she had the night before, but this time she was even more fascinated by the hard thrust of him that curled toward his stomach. He would put that in her. She wanted it very badly. She also feared it, especially considering the rumors she’d heard about pain and duty and everything else.
“May I touch it?” she asked.
“So polite and genteel.” He edged forward so she could reach him. “Aye, my lady. Touch away.”
She glared up at his playfully proper tone but was quickly distracted by the sight of him so much closer. She reached out and traced her finger down the length of him. His skin was satin soft, the muscle beneath hard as stone. Such a dichotomy.
She caught him in her fist next and stroked him from head to base.
“Fuck. Shit,” he growled, surging agai
nst her fingers.
“What happened to propriety, good sir?” she asked as she glanced up at him with a smile despite his bawdy language. “You shall burn my innocent ears.”
“I’ll do something to your innocent something,” he laughed. “Stroke it again.”
She did so, amazed at how the tension was still there, hot as his cock when she stroked him, but there remained an ease between them. He teased her and she was comfortable enough to do the same. The mood was playful and hot, and she wasn’t afraid of what he would do.
He would take care of her. She knew that.
“You licked me,” she whispered, meeting his eyes as she stroked a third time. “Would it feel good for you?”
He let out a low sound from his throat as his eyes came closed. “You are trying to kill me. That’s the only explanation. You were sent on a mission to kill me and this is your method. A devastating assassin.”
She ignored his ramblings and leaned forward. She darted out her tongue and stroked it across the mushroom head of him. His fingers drove down into her hair and he sent the pins scattering. “Anne!” he burst out.
She smiled up at him as she licked him again. “Is that wrong?”
“No, it’s not wrong, but I swear if I teach you how to take me into your mouth, I will not last the night. I won’t last the minute, and that’s not how your first time at this should be. So…”
He caught her armpits and drew her up to her feet. He crushed his mouth to hers, driving his tongue into her with hard and heavy intention. She tilted her face for better access, drowning in his kiss. Drowning in him. So focused that she only realized he was moving her when he laid her head onto the pillows and took a place beside her.
His kiss dipped lower, just as it had the night before. This time she was ready and sighed in surrender as he stroked his rough chin against her throat, licking a trail to her breasts. She arched to him, offering herself. He feasted, licking and plucking her nipples, setting her on fire as he brought her to life. The pleasure ricocheted through her, but it always returned to the pulsing need between her legs. She found herself opening them as he kissed down her stomach, across her hip, against her thigh.
His mouth touched her sex like it had the night before, and she keened with relief and pleasure. He opened her, stroking his tongue across her over and over, leaving her wet and trembling as he edged her gently, carefully toward the orgasm she had dreamed of since the night before.
She felt it coming, that desperate sensation of being on the edge of a cliff she very much wanted to fly from. But he held back, softening his licks. She lifted her head to look at him, to question, and he held her stare as he inserted one finger into her sheath.
She caught her breath at the strange sensation of being invaded, and he stilled so she could grow accustomed to the feeling. He stroked then, once, and she gasped again at how that touch increased her pleasure.
He didn’t speak as he went back to licking her clitoris, now adding the stroke of his fingers to the act. She found herself grinding against his mouth and his finger, reaching for that release even more. When he added the second finger, stretching her even farther, she thrust her head back against the thin pillow with a gasp.
She couldn’t respond further, though. In an instant his mouth was gone, his fingers gone and she felt his mouth returning on the lazy path up her body.
“You are so close,” he murmured as he pushed her legs a little wider. “I want to feel you come around me.”
She reached for him, anxiety mixing with anticipation, for it was clear the moment had come. He would take her. That would be the end of one life and the beginning of another.
But he didn’t. He just looked down into her eyes, examining her face, and whispered, “I want you to say my name while I take you. Say my name, my real name.”
She nodded and gasped as he reached between them to stroke his cock back and forth against her wet entrance. And then he was pushing, pressing into her inch by inch.
“Constantine,” she murmured against his neck, burying her head there. “Constantine,” she repeated as he stretched her and the pain whipped through her in a heated sizzle. “Constantine!” she cried out as he filled her to the hilt and then rested there, letting her adjust to this new sensation.
“Does it still hurt?” he whispered, pressing kisses to her neck and her shoulder.
She shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice barely carrying in the quiet dark. “It just feels full. So this is it.”
He laughed against her skin. “Not exactly.” He ground against her, and her body jolted to life like it had with his mouth. “That is it.” He ground again, thrusting gently so she felt every inch of him move inside of her. “That is it.”
He kept saying it, kept moving, and she found herself lifting into him, grinding when their bodies touched, gasping when he pulled his length through her and back inside, over and over and over again. He reached between them, smoothing his thumb against her sensitive clitoris. With a few swipes of his finger and thrusts of his hips, she was on the edge again, gasping and clawing as he took her.
He met her eyes, holding her gaze steady, and just when she thought she might lose her mind, he whispered, “Now. I want to feel you now.”
It was all too much, and the dam of pleasure burst in that moment. He captured her cries as she spasmed, gripping him with her body as he continued to stroke inside of her. His pace increased, she felt the strain as he panted against her mouth.
Then he growled out her name, sucking her tongue hard as he pulled from her body and pumped himself between them. The kiss gentled, his free hand digging into her curls as he rolled to his side and pulled her against his heaving chest. She rested her head in the crook of his shoulder and traced patterns on his chest as their breathing slowed, her heart rate returned to normal and a sleepy contentedness washed over her.
She had done it. Ruined herself in truth as well as rumor. And she didn’t regret it. Now that it was done, it didn’t even feel like ruin. It felt right. And she would always have a night with this man to remember when he was gone and she was alone.
That was worth it all. That was worth everything.
“Sleep,” he whispered as he pressed a kiss to her temple and drew her against him closer. “Sleep now.”
So she closed her eyes and let sleep come.
* * *
Rook hadn’t slept. How could he? This was very likely his one and only night with Anne, and he knew that fact painfully clearly. He wanted to lie there, savoring the way her body felt in his arms. Savoring the soft sound of her breathing, feeling it on his chest. He wanted to experience every moment he held her.
Because he loved her.
He didn’t want to love her. But that wasn’t how the heart worked and he knew it. The heart set fire when it set fire, and Anne Shelley had been striking flint against the icy barriers he’d erected for a long while now. The facts were clear and they told him that he loved her.
It didn’t change a damned thing, except how miserable he would be once they were parted.
The filtered light of dawn edged around the dark curtains at the window and he cursed its appearance. In a few hours, they would be off. They’d reach Gretna Green, and the bigger town with all its visitors would offer Anne opportunities to speed her way home. Away from him.
She moved against his chest, her fingers clenching against his skin gently as she murmured in her sleep.
When she moved against him, his body woke of its own accord. But then again, he’d been on edge from the moment he came. He wanted more. He wanted all of her until they both forgot everything they had to lose.
He let his fingers travel the length of her bare back, memorizing the feel of her smooth skin. She wiggled against him again, this time with a soft sigh of pleasure.
Her eyes came open and she gazed up at him sleepily. He waited for her to start or stare at him with some kind of betrayal or a hint of regret for what she’d given to him.
&nbs
p; She didn’t. She wound her hand up around his neck and lowered his mouth to hers. They kissed, gentle and lazy in the quiet morning and the warmth of the bed.
He felt her pulse quicken and it matched his own. Slowly he cupped her hips, kneading the flesh there as he shifted her over him. Her legs opened as she straddled him and her hair came down around him as she continued to probe his mouth with her tongue.
She shifted, rubbing her wet sex against his hard cock. Saying nothing, she reached between them and positioned it, taking him inside of her with a shuddering sigh.
“Does it still hurt?” he asked, trying to keep his senses when she flexed tight heat around him that was as close to heaven as he’d ever be allowed to go.
She shook her head. “It never hurt much at all,” she said before she began to move. “Not as much as it felt good, at any rate.”
She was a natural despite her lack of experience. She rolled over him like waves against the shore of his island, reaching for her pleasure and naturally giving his in the process. As she straightened up a little to change the angle of their bodies, he leaned up and caught her breasts, licking from one to the other, sucking her nipples as she mewled out growing pleasure with every grind of her hips.
When she came, he hesitated, watching her face contract with wordless pleasure, feeling her body pulse around him, milk him as she rose harder and faster. She collapsed down against him with a panting groan. He took the lead then, lifting into her from beneath, holding her steady as he stroked and stroked. His balls grew heavy, tight against his body as his seed began to move.
How he wanted to come inside of her. Mark her in a new way. Maybe create a life that would never let her forget this moment. But to do so would be cruel. She would hate him for keeping her from any kind of good future. He would hate himself for hurting her and the child they could create in this heated moment.
So he slid her forward, off his cock, and came in intense spurts as she continued to rock over him. He kissed her, drinking in every inch of her before she adjusted herself to lie across his body, their legs tangled, her head resting against his chest as she looked up at him with a smile.
A Reckless Runaway Page 13
