The Passionate Prude

by Elizabeth Thornton

  Resistance was useless. The press of his weight hindered every movement, and to draw each shaky breath became a struggle. Her head thrashed on the pillows and silent sobs of fury choked in her throat. He shifted his weight slightly, and Deirdre drew a steadying breath. Then his mouth, open and hot, closed over one nipple through the fabric of her gown, and Deirdre bucked madly against him. He reacted swiftly to her rejection. One arm fell heavily across her chest, pinioning her shoulders to the mattress. He ignored her soft whimper of distress and bent his head to suckle deeply. Her breasts seemed to swell, becoming heavier, straining against the silk of her bodice. She gritted her teeth and willed her body to feel nothing, but when his deft hands stripped her to the waist, freeing her sensitive nipples from the compressing tightness of her stays, an involuntary moan of something close to relief escaped her lips. That one faint sound of surrender stoked her receding anger to boiling point.

  She wrenched violently away and succeeded in freeing one hand. Her nails found a target and she raked his shoulder, flaying him remorselessly. She took grim pleasure in his growl of pain before her wrist was slapped away by a stinging blow from the back of his hand. His body covered hers, pressing her deeper into the soft feather mattress and his hands went round her throat, his thumbs pressing lightly against her pulse points. It was an unspoken threat of how easily he could subdue her if he tired of her resistance.

  He took her lips slowly, flicking them sensually with his tongue until she opened them under his demanding pressure. Her mouth was filled with him, and his tongue surged and receded in a feverish assault, each rhythmic plunge sending her senses higher until they began to reel.

  One hand trailed to her waist and in a slow, sweeping motion he pushed her garments to her hips. His hand slid between her tightened thighs, pushing to the core of her femininity. She shied away from him. He stayed her frantic movements with one leg, and brought the flat of his hand to her abdomen, tracing the muscles that strained taut and hard against him. He kneaded slowly, increasing the pressure, kissing her deeply again and again, smothering her soft whimpered protests until she lay trembling beneath him. He parted her thighs and she made no move to halt him. His fingers found her and lingered, sliding and probing with slow sensuality, deliberately heightening her awareness of the pleasure that would follow with his body. Deirdre turned her head into his shoulder in a telling gesture. Rathbourne drew a ragged breath.

  He pushed to an upright position and he released her completely. Deirdre made no move to escape him. He breathed deeply and touched his hand to her hair. He was shaking! He quickly stripped her of her garments and divested himself of his breeches, then he lay full length beside her, propped on one arm.

  “Take down your hair for me, Deirdre,” he breathed against her mouth. He waited, willing her to obey this simple request. It wasn’t enough that she should accept him passively, like a whipped cur terrified of its master. He wanted her vibrant and responsive in his arms. He wondered what she had been taught about the intimacy of the marriage bed. It was irrelevant. He would be her teacher now and bring her alive with a passion to match his own. “Deirdre…” he said hoarsely.

  She raised herself on one elbow and he breathed his relief when she took the pins from her hair. He helped her unbraid the heavy strands and he ran his fingers through the soft, blond swathe, fanning it out behind her as he pushed her back on the pillows. His eyes dropped and he drank in the tantalizing perfection of every feminine hollow and contour. His hands shook as they moved upon her, taking slow possession of what she had so long denied him. He had robbed her of the will to resist. The thought brought the blood thundering to his brain.

  Her eyes swept up and his gaze locked with hers. Her eyes were soft and languorous with the passion he had kindled, but he detected a hint of reproach in their emerald depths.

  “There was no other way,” he said simply.

  He thought that she shook her head in slight negation, but he could not be certain. Then he gave up all thought as he sought the delirium of her honeyed lips. The taste of desire was in her mouth and it fanned the flames of his passion to a conflagration. He burned for her.

  His head dipped to tease one rosy nipple and Deirdre cried out her pleasure, lifting herself to him. He parted her legs and she opened for him. He entered her with his fingers and her hips writhed an invitation he instantly recognized. He stilled, feeling his control slip. His breath burned in his lungs and his heart hammered wildly against his ribs. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  He found her hand and put it to his chest. Her fingers fanned out, obedient to his tutoring. He initiated her further, guiding her hand down the length of his hard-muscled abdomen. He felt her restraint when he curled her fingers over the hard swell of his arousal. Her eyes were wide and questioning as he taught her his pleasure.

  “Touch me, love. I have hungered for your touch,” and he thought his heart would burst when she began her own exploration of his body.

  Never in her wildest fantasies about Gareth Cavanaugh, and there had been a few, had Deirdre ever imagined such intimacy. Where his hands touched, she melted. He said a word, and she obeyed. His power over her body should have shamed her. But she was past rational thought. She was dazed with sensations and emotions she had never before experienced. Tomorrow would be time enough for regret. Tonight, his touch made thought incoherent. Tonight, she knew only a mindless need for him. She reached out to him.

  He kneeled between her legs, his arms bracing his powerful torso above her. “Put your arms around me. Kiss me, Deirdre.”

  Deirdre raised her head slightly from the pillow to reach his lips. Her fingers tangled in his hair. She felt him twist and thrust above her and a burning pain seared her loins. Her cry of anguish was smothered as his mouth closed over hers. She shuddered convulsively, shrinking from him, straining against his shoulders as she tried to escape the source of her torment. Her protest went unheeded. He pressed deeper, surely, relentlessly, until he was fully sheathed in her soft woman’s flesh, their bodies locked together, their hearts beating in feverish rhythm.

  “Damn you!” she expelled on a shaky breath.

  He kissed her with infinite tenderness, tasting the salt tears as they coursed into her hair. “No more pain,” he promised as he withdrew and inch by slow inch entered her again. His movement stirred some powerful sensation in the center of Deirdre’s being.

  “Gareth!” she said faintly, but with so much feeling behind the word that his pulse raced out of control.

  His kisses became fierce and hungry; his thrusts, an urgent demand, driving her passion higher. Deirdre felt something build within her, some wanton, mindless craving that he was deliberately fueling, that only he could answer with his driving body. He was compelling her to surrender everything to him. Her muscles tensed and every nerve grew taut against him. Her hands fell away from his neck; she shut her eyes tight and gritted her teeth. He felt her resistance and strained to delay his own release. His hands slid to her hips, lifting them to meet his need. His voice was raw and uneven. “Deirdre, don’t fight me. Deirdre!”

  Some final remnant of pride or self-preservation gave her the will to shut her ears to him. She had little hope that he would accept her passive refusal. Nor did he. His hand slid between their joined bodies in a voluptuous caress. At the exquisite pressure, something seemed to dissolve within her. She surged against him, crying his name. His lips sought hers fiercely, frantically. He pressed deep within her, quickening his rhythm, and wave after wave of pleasure shook her to the very core. His body tensed and he took his own shuddering release, his powerful thrusts possessing her completely. By slow degrees, the tension left him and he relaxed against her.

  His weight was crushing and Deirdre shifted under him. His forehead rested lightly against hers.

  “I ought to beat you,” he said finally.

  Deirdre tensed, but his lips descended in a warm, languid kiss. He rolled from her and pulled her onto her side, keeping her in the
circle of his arm. He continued to stroke her with leisured possessiveness as if he could not believe that she was real and in his bed.

  “Was it so hard to surrender yourself to me? I thought, at the last, that you meant to thwart me.” His head rested on one hand and his smile was faintly mocking.

  “Thwart you?” She drew the coverlet up to hide her nakedness. His smile deepened and he proceeded to draw it down to her waist.

  “You fought me at the end. Why?”

  Her eyes fell away from his compelling gaze. “Self-defense?” she asked lightly.

  He pressed his lips against hers. “I am your defender, now. Remember it.”

  “But who is there to defend me against you?”

  His expression became serious, and the hand stroking her hair stilled. “Am I not forgiven, then?”

  “I’m not scratching your eyes out.” Some demon compelled her to add, “Perhaps it was time I took a lover.”

  “No, it was time you became my wife.” He bounded from the bed and in a moment was back with two crystal goblets filled with ruby red liquid. Deirdre hauled herself to a sitting position and accepted the glass he held out to her. She saw the smug smile on his face broaden into a grin.

  “You look awful,” he told her baldly. She stiffened and his grin widened. “Was all that paint on your face really necessary for the harlot’s disguise?”

  He set his goblet on the bedside table and went to the washstand. In a moment he was back with a basin of cold water and a washcloth. Deirdre submitted to his ministrations in silence, but when he moved the coverlet so that he might wash between her thighs, she grasped his wrist.

  “No, please!” she said in a mortified tone.

  He brushed her hand aside. “My privilege! The proof of your virginity, and my virility—you will be much more comfortable when the evidence of our…joining has been removed.”

  She looked down at her naked thighs and saw the streaks of blood and something else. She could not meet his eyes and was furious at the slow flush that suffused her cheeks. His amusement at her expense was intolerable.

  He washed her in spite of her strangled protests. “My shy little innocent,” he teased unmercifully.

  Deirdre took a gulp of wine. “An observation that I cannot reciprocate,” she said with an edge to her voice. “I, on the other hand, was tutored by an expert.”

  He shrugged carelessly and dried her with a towel. “You have benefited from my experience. You should be grateful.”

  “How so?”

  Again that wicked grin creased his face, giving his features an attractive, boyish aspect. His hand reached out to lift her chin. “My gift to you was the ultimate in pleasure a woman can experience. I was not…happy that at the last you would try to reject my offer.”

  Her eyelashes flickered down to conceal her expression. “You didn’t offer, you compelled, my lord, whether I would or no.”

  The basin and towel were laid aside with deliberation. Again he grasped her chin. “Deirdre, look at me!” he commanded.

  Her eyes swept up and she could not conceal the spark of defiance that lurked in their depths.

  There was a disbelieving edge to his voice. “You think you can prevent me bringing you to pleasure anytime I wish?”

  “It won’t happen again,” she promised, stung to a reckless anger by his show of male arrogance.

  His eyes were stormy. “That fiction we shall lay to rest for all time.”

  His hand slid between her legs, forcing them apart, and his fingers entered her easily. Deirdre jumped, spilling the wine from her goblet over her breasts, belly, and thighs. He dashed the goblet in her hand to the floor.

  “You taste headier than any wine,” he murmured, and his mouth began a slow descent of her body, licking and savoring the droplets of burgundy. Deirdre whimpered and tried to raise herself, but she was pushed firmly back into the pillows.

  She tried to slow her breathing but it was beyond her power. Her body had a new awareness of its purpose, and responded to his lightest touch, trembling in anticipation of the next rapturous caress.

  His hands kneaded her gently and she writhed. She was beyond pride. She opened to him and lifted herself to his fuller possession.

  “Gareth, please!” she cried softly.

  “Soon, love, soon,” he promised, understanding her need perfectly.

  She wanted him to fill her, to bring her the release her woman’s body craved. She shook with the ache in her loins. She held her breath. Her hands clenched into fists and her head thrashed from side to side. “Ga…r…eth!” Her cry, low and keening, filled the room and he swiftly put an end to her agony with his own driving body.

  They lay entwined for a long time afterward, saying nothing. Presently, Deirdre sighed and tried to push out of his arms.

  “Why so pensive?” he asked in an amused tone, but he did not release her.

  “Why not?” she said, making no attempt to conceal the rancor in her tone.

  He was over her in an instant, arms braced on either side of her shoulders. “You’re a poor loser,” he murmured, and took her lips in a slow, proprietary kiss. “Admit that I am master of your body.”

  Green eyes flashed fire at him. He saw her defiance and a sigh of exasperation escaped his lips.

  “Don’t you realize yet, Deirdre, how much power you wield over me?” He brought her hand to his arousal. “See what you do to me?” His voice held a thread of self-mockery.

  His hand guided hers to touch and caress him so that she could not mistake his need.

  “You cannot mean…you cannot want…”

  “Oh, but I do mean and I do want,” he said with gentle malice. “The other was for you. This time, you will pleasure me.”

  He pushed himself to a sitting position, his back hard against the headboard and drew her to kneel over him. His hands splayed out over her hips. He lowered her gently until he was completely buried inside her. “For me, Deirdre,” he coaxed hoarsely, and arched her back so that her breasts were thrust out to his descending mouth.

  But he lied. His pleasure had become of secondary importance. He wanted to drown her senses with the feel and taste of him so that one touch would be enough to evoke the passion they had shared. He wanted to kindle a fire in her that would never be put out.

  His tongue licked round one tender nipple, and he smiled as it hardened under his caress. Deirdre tensed.

  “Ride me gently, love,” he said, his voice thickening, and he beat back the wave of desire that brought the blood surging to his temples. He controlled her rhythm with his hands on her hips, stilling her from time to time as he felt himself losing control. He would not take his release until he had brought her to the ultimate peak.

  When he heard her breath rasping, deep in her throat, he rolled her onto her back.

  “No!” Her cry was a wail of protest, but at his soothing entry, she subsided.

  “Until you are more used to my body…” but he never finished the sentence. He felt her tense beneath him, and he surged against her, burying himself deep as he took her over the edge. Her cries of pleasure filled his ears and he groaned harshly in his throat. She was his, completely and irrevocably, and he would never let her forget it.

  The return to Portman Square was made in the coach Armand had procured for the evening. Rathbourne had every hope that no one would notice, in the hour just before dawn, that the gentleman who escorted Deirdre home from the night’s revelries was not the one who had called for her earlier.

  Deirdre did not care. She dozed, curled in his lap, murmuring unheeded protests as he plied her with warm kisses and pressed his hands on every part of her person. He whispered a lewd suggestion in her ear, his hand lifting the hem of her skirt. Deirdre slapped it away, and he laughed.

  He wakened her as the coach turned into Park Street, and admonished her to tidy herself. Deirdre could scarce keep her eyes open, and allowed him to arrange her Voluminous hooded wrap into a semblance of order. The ostrich feather which h
ad adorned her coiffure was gone forever—no one knew where, and the wig itself had been thrown away by the Earl with an unmentionable comment.

  As the carriage drew to a shuddering halt, Deirdre stifled a yawn and tried to focus her thoughts on what Rathbourne was saying.

  “That will give you a day’s grace in which to inform your relations or anyone else you care to.”

  “What will?” she asked stupidly.

  He smiled patiently and touched one gentle finger to trace her lips, rosy and swollen from his passionate kisses. “For God’s sake, don’t let anyone see you like this,” he said, laughter lingering in his voice. “The announcement of our betrothal—it will be in the Gazette and The Times on Friday, I think.”

  His words banished the vestiges of sleep from Deirdre’s mind. “No!” she said quickly—too quickly. His hands tensed on her shoulders. “It isn’t necessary, was all I meant,” she amended, searching frantically in her mind for some plausible excuse to cover her reluctance. “I need time, Gareth, to persuade my relations to this marriage. And then there is Marcliff. I must go home to put my affairs in order. What need is there of a betrothal announcement? The news of our nuptials will be in the papers. That should suffice.”

  He studied her for a long, considering moment.

  “Please!” She laid a hand on his sleeve. “I must go home to Henley. There is much I must see to. Surely you see that I am in the right?” In her eyes was the film of tears and faint regret as she looked steadily at him.

  His kiss was gentle but his words were unyielding. “Deirdre, you are mine. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  She shook her head dumbly.

  “You gave me your promise. We exchanged rings.” He brought her hand to his lips and gently touched them to the Rathbourne ruby and pearl betrothal ring which encircled her third finger. On his own hand was Deirdre’s emerald. “We pledged our troth with our bodies. I will hold you to that pledge, come what may. Now do you understand?”