She freed him of the long bands, then tugged him to a position where the candlelight played over his side. He shifted his left arm out of her way as she poked and prodded, swiftly scanning down.
“Good.” She straightened. “It’s good.” She met his gaze. “It’ll be some days yet before the stitches can come out, but you can do away with the bandages, at least for tonight.”
Her hands had come to rest at his waist. Eyes locking on his, she slipped the buttons there free.
He sucked in a shallow breath and took a step back. “Boots.” He took two more steps back and sat on the end of the bed.
Eyes narrowing, she followed, her navy skirts flicking about her legs, her stride reminding him of a stalking cat.
“All right.” Hands going to her hips, she watched him ease off the tight boots. “Just hurry. I want you naked on my bed—now.”
He nearly laughed. She thought he’d argue? But … he glanced up at her. “What about you? Are you going to take off your clothes, too?”
She frowned, obviously not having worked out her scenario to that extent. “Possibly. Probably.”
After a moment’s cogitation, during which he tossed first one boot, then the other, to the floor, she stepped between his knees and turned, giving him her back. “Help me with these laces.”
He did, swiftly undoing the laces at her back. By then she’d undone the ones at the side of her waist.
She stepped away. Waved a hand at him. “Now strip and lie on the bed.”
Pulling her gown up and over her head, she moved away.
Watching the show, he rose and unhurriedly complied with her orders. Settling—naked as requested—on his back in the middle of her bed, his head and shoulders on the mound of pillows, he crossed his arms behind his head and watched her pull off her warm shift, lay it aside with her gown, then roll down her stockings, removing her garters and slippers, too.
Finally, in just her chemise, the cotton so fine it was translucent, she returned to the bed, came to stand at its end. She looked at him, surveyed him with a proprietorial air guaranteed to have him standing at full attention, then she smiled and climbed onto the bed.
Crawled up it to his side. The candlelight struck through her chemise, revealing every svelte line, every luscious curve, every tantalizing hollow.
She stretched out, propping on one elbow and hip beside him. She resurveyed his body, then lifted her gaze to his eyes. “I want you to lie there, your hands where they are, and let me … satisfy my curiosity.”
He studied her face, read the not-so-subtle challenge in her green eyes, nodded. “All right. I will. But first …”
In one smooth surge, he had her flat on her back, his chest held over hers. “Before we get started, there’s a few matters I’d like to get clear.”
Once she commenced her game, he’d be in no state to discuss anything, and she would be in even less state to hear.
Her brows had flown high, her gaze coolly haughty. But she inclined her head slightly. “Very well. I’m listening.”
He had to smile, but the expression faded as he looked into her eyes. As he marshaled his arguments. “I’m not married.” That was his first point. “But I can’t offer to share my life with you until I know I’ll have a life to share.” Point two, his only hesitation. “The mission I’m involved in is deadly dangerous. Those opposing me would be happy to see me dead—as my wound so eloquently illustrates. And as you rightly foretold, I have an outstanding commitment, one I can’t break, to see the mission through to a successful end—or die trying.” The reason behind his hesitation.
“But”—he held her gaze—”my commitment to completing this mission is the only commitment of any sort I have. Once the mission is over, assuming I survive, I’ll be coming back here. To claim you.”
He saw her lips tighten, saw not refusal of the prospect but refusal to believe cloud her eyes. His own lips thinned. “I can see that for some reason—which I don’t comprehend—you don’t believe I’ll return. But one thing I can and I will swear to you: If once this mission is over I still have a life worth sharing, I’ll be coming back here to lay it at your feet.”
She blinked once, twice. She studied his eyes, then an unusually gentle smile curved her lips. Raising a hand, she laid it along his cheek, but the disbelief didn’t leave her eyes. “I value your words—don’t think I don’t. But I’ve been me, myself, for too long not to face reality, and my reality is that no matter what you say, in the end, you won’t be back.”
He opened his mouth—
Placing her fingers over his lips, Linnet silenced him. Stopped him from saying anything more to wring her heart even more than he already had. She spoke as strongly, as decisively, as she could. “No—this is our last night together here, and I don’t want to waste it arguing.”
Lowering her gaze to his lips, she drew her hand away, then boldly raised her eyes again to his. “I want to spend tonight loving you. I want you to lie back and let me.”
One hand on his shoulder, she pushed.
Openly exasperated, he held her gaze for an instant longer, then sighed through gritted teeth and rolled back to lie as he had before.
Letting her come up on her elbow and hip alongside.
His dark eyes glittered as he crossed his arms behind his head. “So what now?”
She looked down over his large body, over the expanse of delectable male flesh, solid muscle, heavy bone, taut skin. Crisp, crinkly, black-as-night hair scattered across his chest, arrowing down to his groin. Where he was still fully erect.
She smiled, raised her gaze to his eyes. “Now you lie there, and let me feast.”
He obeyed. She had to give him that. Even when she pressed him to the very brink of breaking, he fought to remain supine and let her have her way.
Let her caress him, first with her hands, spreading them wide to sweep over his shoulders, over the bunched muscles of his upper arms, then down over the contours of his chest, lovingly outlining the broad swath before heading lower, over the rippling strength of his abdomen, over the concave hollow of his waist, over his flat belly to the rock-hard mucles of his cavalry officer’s thighs, the solid length of his calves, and his large feet, before returning, sweeping up his body again to take his member between her hands and caress, fondle, stroke.
Examine, weigh, assess.
She continued to touch him there, where he was most sensitive, where he most liked to be touched, while she rose up, over his chest, found his lips with hers, and kissed, long, lingeringly, as openly possessive as he was with her, before drawing back and sending her lips to trace the path her hands had already forged.
Outside, the storm that had been threatening all day finally rushed in. It rattled the windows, lashed at the house, pelted rain in drumming fury on the glass. She heard it, but distantly, too wrapped in the warmth, in the pleasure as, finally, she rose up on her knees and straddled him, and, with his help, his direction, took him in.
Her head fell back on a gasp at the sensation of him filling her. Excitement skated over her skin as she realized that this time, all—everything she felt—was under her control.
That this time he’d ceded the reins to her and was letting her drive them both.
Her breath tight in her chest, she opened her eyes and looked down at him. His face showed the strain—the battle he waged not to seize control—as, his hands clamped about her hips, he urged her up, showed her how.
How to ride him.
How to pleasure him and please herself.
“Your chemise—take it off.”
The guttural words cut across her concentration, her inward focus on all she could feel. She considered them. Eyes closed, she rose up, sank down, down, down again, then reached for the chemise’s hem.
Opening her eyes, she drew it off over her head, flung it away.
Smiled down at him as she used her thighs and rose up yet again. Closed her eyes as she slid down.
Felt his hands caress, then claim, he
r breasts, felt his long fingers close about her nipples.
She rode and he paid homage. There was no other word for the way his hands moved over her body, reverent and sure.
Too soon, she was panting, flushed and heated, her hair a mane of living fire writhing about her shoulders, lashing, her sensitized skin, sending sensation lancing through her, flashing down to where the exquisite friction built and built between her thighs.
Eyes open yet near blind, she rode on in increasing desperation, searching, wanting. The peak was so close, but not yet within her reach.
Beneath her, he shifted, then drove upward into her, timing his thrusts to her downward slides so she felt him higher than before, sparking a furnace deep inside.
One hard hand captured one of her breasts, gripped and framed the swollen flesh. She glanced down, through her lashes saw him prop himself on one elbow and bring his mouth to her breast.
He licked, laved, then he took the ruched aureola and nipple into the hot wetness of his mouth. The sensation of scalding heat closing about the excruciatingly tight peak had her gasping.
Then he suckled and she screamed.
He suckled harder and she shattered. Flew apart in a long agony of bliss that went on and on and on. His mouth feasting at her breast, his hips pumping beneath her, he drove her through it, through the raging fire, over the precipice, and into ecstasy’s waiting arms.
She was barely aware when he gripped her hips, held her down as he thrust high and hard one last time. He held rigid for a fractured instant. Then on a long-drawn groan, he collapsed back on the pillows.
Boneless, she sprawled atop him.
Logan lay there, his heart thundering, feeling her heart beating against his chest. Waited for both to slow.
Eventually, he raised a hand, brushed back the rich fall of her hair enough to tilt his head and look down at her face. “I meant what I said. You can’t seriously imagine I won’t be back for you.”
She stirred, but didn’t seem able—didn’t seem to have the strength—to lift her head to look at him. “No matter what you say, once you get back to your normal life …”
Weakly, she waved. “You’ll fit in there, and you’ll realize that’s where you belong.” She paused, then went on, “What can I offer you that you won’t have—and have in greater abundance—there?”
He knew the answers—the many answers. A ready-made family, the home of his dreams. A place he belonged. Her. Those many answers burned his tongue, yet he didn’t give them voice. Other than she herself, he couldn’t make a strong case for any of those things meaning as much as they did to him without revealing his birth—his bastard state.
And that he wasn’t yet ready to mention. He would, would have to, but not yet—not until he had set the stage.
Telling the lady you wanted to marry that you’d been born a bastard, albeit a well-born bastard, was something that needed to be handled with care.
Linnet wasn’t surprised by his silence—what answer could he give? She wasn’t the sort to undervalue herself, but in this she was simply stating fact and clinging to reality by her fingernails.
In order to protect her silly, foolish heart.
She couldn’t afford to believe his almost-promises.
Because her silly, foolish heart had already commited that most wayward of acts and fallen in love with him.
But he didn’t love her; he might desire her physically, but she wasn’t wife material, as he would realize once he returned to England. And he would soon be on his way, and that would be the end of this. Of them.
He shifted, reaching for the covers, dragging the sheets and quilts over them, then settling her more comfortably on him. She sensed an instant of hesitation, then he murmured, “No matter what I say, you’re not going to believe I’ll come back, are you?”
“No.” Spreading one hand over the spot beneath which his heart beat strongly, she pillowed her cheek on the thick muscle of his chest. “I’m a realist.”
He sighed. “You’re a bone-stubborn witch, and I’m going to take great delight in proving you wrong.”
December 15, 1822
Mon Coeur, Torteval, Guernsey
“I. Am. Driving.” Linnet glared at Logan, then, the disputed reins in her hand, stepped back and waved him to the wagon’s seat. “You can sit beside me.”
Logan glared back, but as Edgar and John were coming up the path from the cottage beyond the stable to join them in the yard, he reluctantly climbed onto the wagon’s step, hoisted his bag—the one Muriel had given him to carry his few possessions—into the wagon’s tray behind the seat, then turned and held out his hand for the bag Linnet held.
As if suddenly remembering she had it, she huffed and handed it over. Stowing it beside his, he noted the strange sound as the bag connected with the wagon’s bottom. He wondered what had caused it—what she was carrying that sounded like a scabbarded sword.
Edgar and John came up as he swung around and settled on the seat. They grinned at him, tossed bags similar to Linnet’s into the tray, and climbed up to sit in the bed of the wagon, facing rearward, legs dangling over the tray’s edge.
Logan turned to watch Linnet take her leave of Vincent and Bright. They’d already farewelled Muriel, Buttons, and the children in the house. When he’d come downstairs that morning, Linnet had, in a low-voiced aside, asked him not to mention returning to Mon Coeur to anyone else. Given he knew he’d be waltzing with death in the next days, he’d reluctantly complied.
So the rest of the household thought he was leaving for good, but they’d all, each and every one, pressed him to return.
He’d told them the truth, that he would try.
They’d believed him, at least.
So they wouldn’t be surprised when he turned up again—not like the witch who climbed up to the seat, sat beside him, and flicked the reins.
The four donkeys between the shafts pricked up their ears, then started to trot.
He’d never been in a donkey-drawn vehicle before. Sitting back, he folded his arms and took in the scenery as they rattled along.
They joined the main road that Linnet had told him ran along the island’s south coast, eventually turning north to St. Peter Port. The journey, apparently, would take three hours or more.
A mile or so later, she murmured, “We’re just crossing out of the estate.”
Considering that, he felt a curious tug—both back and ahead at the same time. Now he’d left Mon Coeur, he was impatient to get on and finish his mission so he could return. The compulsion was real, a palpable force inside him.
He glanced at Linnet as she sat alongside, her thick wool cloak wrapped about a dark red gown, kid gloves covering the hands that held the reins, competent and confident as she lightly wielded a whip and kept her donkeys trotting along. He was tempted to ask what she was carrying in her bag, but after that scene in the stable yard, she’d probably bite off his nose before telling him he had no right to pry.
An assertion he might well respond to, yet she did have the reins in her hands. Along with a whip.
Edgar and John wouldn’t appreciate ending in a ditch. The donkeys probably wouldn’t, either.
Aside from all else, he had to mind his tongue because he needed her help to get to Plymouth. That was the principal reason he’d quashed the impulse to filch the reins from her back in the stable yard. He needed her to introduce him to this captain who would, she insisted, be willing to take him to Plymouth, apparently just on her say-so.
He didn’t know that much about oceangoing vessels, yet it seemed odd that such a ship would simply be standing by, her captain amenable to what would almost certainly be a rough Channel crossing for no other reason than to oblige a friend.
But he had to get to Plymouth as soon as possible. Shifting, he looked at Linnet. “If the captain you mentioned, can’t put out immediately, what are the chances of finding another ship?”
She glanced at him, then her lips curved. “Stop worrying. The Esperance will t
ake you—I can guarantee that. But it won’t be tonight.”
Before he could say anything, she tipped her head back and called to the two in the rear, “Edgar, John—I’m thinking the tides will be right for the Esperance to leave harbor tomorrow morning. About eight o’clock?”
“Aye,” John called back. “Eight o’clock’d be about right.”
Linnet glanced at Logan again. “Even if a ship beat out of harbor under oars, the coast is such that she would have to remain under oars, driving against both wind and tide, until she rounded the north tip of the island, and that’s simply too far. So you won’t be able to get out of the harbor, not on any vessel, until tomorrow morning.”
Logan pulled a face. He couldn’t argue with wind and tide.
He did, however, wonder what it was that Linnet was so carefully not telling him.
They reached St. Peter Port a little after noon. The town faced east, overlooking a roughly horseshoe-shaped bay delimited by slender, rocky headlands. A castle and associated buildings lined the right shore, with gun emplacements guarding the narrow channel linking the bay to the sea.
“Castle Cornet,” Linnet informed him. “It’s still garrisoned.”
Logan nodded. Looking down the precipitous, narrow cobbled streets leading to the wharves built below the town, he understood why there was such great demand for donkeys in St. Peter Port.
Yet instead of driving her four beasts and the wagon further down, Linnet turned into the yard of an inn on the high ground above the town proper.
Sticking his head out to see who had arrived, the innkeeper immediately beamed and came to welcome her.
Logan watched while Linnet exchanged greetings, then, turned to include Edgar and John, who had hopped down from the wagon’s tail. Unsure what was planned, Logan listened. When Linnet made arrangements to stable the wagon and donkeys for a few days, he climbed down and hefted both his bag and hers from the tray. He stepped back as three ostlers, summoned by the innkeeper’s bellow, came rushing to take the wagon; once it was pulled from between them, he walked across to join Linnet and the innkeeper just as Edgar and John touched their caps to Linnet and, bags swinging, headed down into the town. Inwardly frowning, Logan watched them go.
The Untamed Bride Plus Black Cobra 02-03 and Special Excerpt Page 94
