Darling Annie

by Raine Cantrell

  It cost him to let her accommodate the heavy weight of his body on her smaller, infinitely softer one. And Kell lavished praise and attention to her other breast, wondering if he had lied to her.

  She was so hot, wet and silky against him, that he thought he would die if he didn’t sheathe himself inside the incredible heat he called from her.

  Knowing there would be pain, he shifted to his side, sweeping his hand over the restless move of her legs, caressing the swollen, sultry flesh that had known only his touch. He groaned when she did, burning only to find himself needing to know how hot the fire could get, how high the flames would be.

  Caught in a wildfire that consumed her body, Annie heard his savage voice coaxing her from far away. A little death, he had said, born in fire. No one really died from pleasure this intense. Instinctively she moved her hips, slowly rocking as Kell settled himself over her. She wanted to get closer to the male flesh that tantalized her. Annie opened her eyes.

  His were closed and his features revealed both intense pleasure and pain. Without thought, she brought his hand to her mouth, curling her fingers so that his palm was exposed. She circled the tip of her tongue in the center, then gently closed her teeth over the fleshy pad below his thumb.

  Kell surged against her with a long, torn groan, his eyes meeting hers. “Annie. Don’t move. Don’t do anything. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You did that to me and made me feel it deep, deep inside me. That’s how I want you, Kell. Deep. Inside me.”

  He was nearly undone by her trust, total and as honest as it could be, that took him to the edge. He shook with emotions that he couldn’t ever remember feeling, emotions he couldn’t even name. All he knew was that they were more devastating than the desire between them.

  He watched her for signs of fear, settling himself deeper, sensitive to the pain that he couldn’t help. But Annie, closing her eyes, came apart with a long, shivering acceptance at the first gentle probing he made.

  “Pleasure, Annie. Me loving you.”

  “Loving…” Her voice broke. You, Kell. I love you. But the words went no further than her mind as he claimed her mouth, as his body made its first claim on hers. Fever spread and she wanted the scent and heat of him filling her until all she knew was Kell.

  “Sweet. Hot. Perfect,” he whispered, trailing his lips to her ear, gently biting the lobe. He shuddered as his flesh nudged against Annie’s moist, vulnerable core. He ached to taste her, to know every bit of her with a shivering intimacy that he never thought about sharing with another woman. But now, it was too much to ask of her, too damn much to ask of himself.

  As it was, he teased them both, the hungry, hot length of him rubbing over her, stopping at the edge of fully taking her. He barely penetrated her, making her wild, and himself as well for more. Her ragged cry, both demand and plea, shot through him. Her hands gripped the hard muscles of his arms, sliding down to capture his hips, and Kell jerked reflexively, sliding a bit more deeply into her, stopping just short of the instant he would claim her as his woman.

  Annie twisted wildly beneath him, her body too hot, a mist of passion covering them both that intensified the sensitivity of skin rubbing against skin. With a near growl he took her mouth again, pinning her still, letting the shaking wildness wash over them.

  With a cry he wrenched his head up. “Annie, don’t fight me. I want to go slow. I don’t want to hurt you. Later,” he promised, his voice thick and gritty, “later I’ll take you hot and fast, and so deep you won’t be able to tell where you begin and I end. But not now. Now I want to—”

  The words sliced through Annie. She struggled to look at him. “No. Slow is hurting, Kell. I want what you want. Everything. Nothing held back.” She arched helplessly into him, felt him going deeper and shivered as his heat became a part of her. She knew he trembled with the effort to control himself. She couldn’t whisper a sound as fire raced through her.

  The flames went deeper, tearing aside the veil of innocence, tearing free a wild, sweet cry. Kell took her gift, and gave her himself, all restraint gone, filling her and finding that his pleasure wasn’t sated. Hunger couldn’t be leashed. He caught her hips with one arm and arched heavily into her again and again, trying to bury himself in her so deeply that the pleasure exploding through him would never stop.

  If there was pain, Annie didn’t feel it. Piercing emotion filled her as Kell became a part of her. She loved him, loved him as she had never loved another man. The dying came with a savage burning that was another pleasure in itself. Hearing her name torn from him time and again brought her to ecstasy that stripped everything away but Kell and the deep, endless wildness that destroyed and created. Hot. Untamed. Sweetly violent as the cries that echoed the pulses of his release.

  In the shivering aftermath, there were no sounds but that of broken, gradually slowing breathing. Annie held Kell tight, shaking still, but when he finally stirred and scattered kisses over her face, then moved as if to roll aside, she refused to let him go.

  “I’m too heavy for you,” he murmured.

  “Please, just stay, Kell.”

  He wanted nothing more than to drown in the silken heat surrounding him, but there was a deeper, underlying plea in her voice that brought his head up.

  “Annie, love, look at me.”

  She fought the demand of his words, just as she fought off her mind’s attempt to make her realize the enormity of what she had done. Kell was her lover. But he didn’t love her. He had given and taken pleasure and now he would leave her.

  “Annie, don’t hide from me.” This time he wouldn’t let her hold him; he rolled to his side and slid one arm beneath her, drawing her close to his body. Pressing a kiss to the reddened curve of her mouth, he smoothed back the damp tendrils of hair from her cheek and used one finger to tilt her chin up. “Are you ashamed? Full of guilt and sin? Ready to have the fire and brimstone pour down from heaven?”

  The words weren’t meant to hurt her. She knew that, knew it as surely as she knew she was empty without him. “No hell. And the only fire,” she whispered, turning her face to his hand with a sigh, “is what you bring to me making me come alive, Kell.”

  Annie knew the cost of her admission, and she paid for it with a return to the reality she wished would never return. And she suddenly knew how to stop it. Her eyes opened to find him watching her with a blazing intensity that started a coil of tension escalating with every halting breath she drew.

  “Kell, you promised you’d take me hot and deep and fast. Later, you said. Don’t you want me like that now?”

  “Christ! What the hell did those doves teach you?”

  “Not them. You, Kell. You just taught me about dying and being reborn in fire. Does it happen again? Will you show me?”

  Her eyes, luminous with newly awakened sensuality, beckoned him with a dark passion. The subtle shift of her silken body sent shafts of fresh desire lancing through him. And for the first time, Kell admitted he felt helpless. He couldn’t leash the sudden rise of hunger prowling his body. An elemental hunger that burned through his control. He thought he knew every woman’s game there was, but Annie wrote new rules. Sweet, heated murmurs of approval were whispered over his skin with every stroke, each lovingly tendered caress she offered him. His name was a plea and feminine demand that he couldn’t fight, couldn’t resist.

  But he tried, sensing that if he didn’t, he was going to make her so deep a part of himself he wouldn’t let her go.

  “Where’s all that starch and vinegar, Annie?”

  “Scorched.” Her teeth scraped his pebbled hard nipple and wrung a groan from him.

  Kell caught her hair with one hand, gentle, but still forcing her head back. “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”

  “Seduce you. Make you keep your promise, Kell.” Annie closed her eyes, unable to bear the intensity of his. She had given him all she had of herself, and now added a last bit of honesty. Softly then, she s
aid, “I had an education of sorts from the doves, that’s true. But all their words did was lessen the fear of the unknown. Women, at least the ladies I know, do not talk about what goes on beyond bedroom doors. And I wanted to know how to please you, Kell. Even if I can’t bring myself to call … what we … what you and I—” Annie burrowed against him, unable to continue.

  “Tell me, Annie. You’ve got to know there’s nothing you could say that would shock me. I’ve heard it all. And no one,” he said, kissing her hair as he drew her even closer and rocked his body against hers, “could ever tell you about what we shared. Not even me, Annie.”

  He stroked her back, cupping her buttocks and pressing her against him, unable to stop the need he had for her. She was damp, silken heat welcoming him with a long, shivering sigh that echoed the tremor of her body.

  “Tell me, darlin’,” he coaxed, holding himself still while the tiny convulsions began for her.

  “Loving,” Annie whispered long moments later, her voice muffled against his chest. And she told him between lingering kisses, all the names she had learned, until Kell had to bury his laughter as she crossly added, “Honestly, Kell, sliding carrots up the board, pickling, and having hot pudding for supper only make me wonder how anyone manages to get to bed. Everything they called this had to do with the kitchen.”

  He thought about answering her truthfully, and settled for a compromise that wouldn’t shock her out of his arms. “You’re suppose to think about hot and steamy and … Annie, love, give me your too shy little tongue.”

  When the kiss ended, Annie laced her fingers through the long, thick length of his hair and held his head still above her. “I want you to know that you have most admirably made your point. I’m hot and steamed like a Christmas pudding.”

  “Hold that thought,” he whispered, setting her aside and rising from the bed. Within moments he was back with a damp cloth.

  Mortified when she surmised his intent, Annie tried to scramble to the other side of the bed. Kell had a charming way of enticing her back. And when he had finished his tender ministrations to sore flesh, thoroughly arousing her in the process, he tossed the cloth aside.

  “There’s more, Annie. And someday you’ll do the same for me. Now,” he whispered, ignoring her flush of embarrassment, “we were discussing the kitchen. You taste like honey to me.”

  He savored her generous mouth as he rolled to his back and lifted her above him. He wanted Annie in a way that had nothing to do with the desire that was a savage, unsated pleasure inside him. He wanted her laughter, her prim and proper ways that drove him both crazy and to inspiring lengths to dispel. He needed her trust, and every bit of generously given pleasure she offered to him. And only to him.

  “Sweet. Golden honey. And I want to see how hot it gets, Annie. Melt for me again.” He licked her lips, then raised her up so he could claim sweeter flesh. He ignored her shocked cry and decided he had been a very patient lover. He wasn’t being selfish. He simply couldn’t stop the craving he had to share with Annie what he never wanted with another woman.

  He was at his best tumbling every objection she voiced, and when the shocked little murmurs had turned to the infinitely sweet, heated sounds of a contented lover, Kell knew he had been right to demand this intimacy from her.

  When she lay spent and boneless beneath him again, Kell thought there was heaven to be had in her arms. He couldn’t lavish enough praise on her. Then Annie offered him a last surprise.

  She curled tight against him like a sleepy kitten, just about purring as she asked, “Still think eating green fruit will give you an Irish toothache?”

  “Annie!”

  “Well, do you think I can’t cure your Irish toothache?”

  “Cure it?” he whispered, bending to her smiling lips. “Oh, my darlin’, darlin’ Annie, I think you just killed it.”

  Chapter 19

  It was Dewberry’s cold nose nudging her cheek that woke Annie. She smiled and gathered the heavy cat’s body close.

  “I am a corrupt, fallen woman, cat,” she sleepily murmured and closed her eyes to the sunlight that seemed to bounce off the virginal white surfaces of her room. Stroking Dewberry, she nestled her cheek against the pillow that still held the enticing male scent of Kell. The slight move of her body brought an instant awareness of the sensual aches that allowed her to call herself a woman this morning.

  “Love is wonderful, Dewberry.” His soft purr only made her smile as she remembered Kell leaving her before dawn, her lips still carrying the lingering kiss he pressed there.

  Caught between the half-world of dreams and waking, Annie fought off her mind’s determination to remind her of the import of what she had done. The cat stretched his neck, a plaintive meow telling her he wanted scratching. Annie obliged him and whispered, “Kellian is my lover.” The cat’s louder rumble made her laugh as he wiggled over on his back, offering her his stomach to scratch. “You old softie. You’re every bit as demanding for attention as he is.”

  Her smile deepened when she remembered every lover’s praise that Kell had whispered through the night. She wanted to shout out her love for him. But it was a secret only the cat could share now.

  Annie’s hand stilled and she ignored Dewberry’s batting paws that took exception. Kell did not want to hear about love. He had no intent of making any promises of forever.

  He hadn’t made many promises last night. Only those about their lovemaking. He had kept every one of them, too, she reminded herself, wincing when she tried to stretch and bury herself deeper beneath the quilt.

  Dewberry rolled over, climbing up on her chest, nuzzling her chin. Annie absently petted him, waiting for feelings of sin and guilt to surface. She had known the temptation Kell offered from the first, even admitted he was a test of her moral fiber and beliefs, one she had failed. But there was a happiness inside her that refused to allow guilt or feelings of sin to rise. She was a soiled dove, truly fallen from grace. But she didn’t feel wanton, there wasn’t any shame for what she had done. Kell had teased her about it, only to encourage her to show him how bold and brazen she could be. The memory stilled her hand and sent a flush of heat covering her body.

  With a gentle nudge, Annie pushed Dewberry back on the bed and struggled to sit up. Kell had said something about saints and sinners. Frowning, she stared at the cat, who watched her with unblinking eyes.

  “He was afraid, Dewberry, that I would turn him into a saint.” Gently catching hold of his ears in each hand, she rubbed them, to his delight, her soft laughter spilling into the sunlit room. “I couldn’t get angry with him. If you had seen his wicked grin and the blaze of passion in his eyes—well, it wouldn’t have been right for you to see it—but I can tell you, cat, that Kell was very vocal and quite creative in expressing his pleasure that I’m as much of a sinner as he is.”

  The cat’s purrs deepened to a steady rumble. He stretched out his body, paws and back legs extended as if he were getting settled for a long chat.

  Annie watched him, thinking he was the only one she could confide in. Perhaps if the world would never intrude, she might have time to cope with this change between Kell and herself. Change? “Oh, Dewberry, what do I call us?” Then, crossly, “I should have expected you would close your eyes and wash your paws of the matter. You’re no help, cat.”

  What would Kell expect from her now? No demands, of that much she was sure.

  A light rap at her door, broken then repeated, warned her that Fawn had been sent to fetch her. Realizing how late it was, Annie called out that she would be down directly. She couldn’t invite Fawn into her room, she wasn’t ready to face anyone yet.

  “Time is what I need to sort this out, Dewberry. And time is what I haven’t got.” With a great deal of care, she moved to the edge of the bed and swung her legs down. “Oh, good Lord, I forgot about the sermon for this morning!”

  It was her belief that she could do anything once she set her mind to it that he
lped Annie stand up. But even her own belief couldn’t make her move quickly. A new respect for the marriage state of every women she knew added a great deal of strength. How could they go about their daily chores with legs that still trembled and desire still brimming so that their insides felt like a fire burned?

  “But then,” she whispered, “how many do I know that even hinted of finding the pleasure I knew with Kell?”

  Concern for any telltale signs that she had left her spinster state behind sent Annie to the mirror for a minute inspection.

  “Dewberry, do you think anyone will notice this over-bright glow in my eyes? Maybe if they ask I could say that I feel a cold coming on? After all, Emmaline was sick. I could have caught something from her.” Her fingertips traced the still swollen, reddened shape of her mouth. Instead of concern, all Annie could feel was the heated imprint of Kell’s lips on hers, his taste as much a part of her that desire blazed to life to have him near, kissing her senseless once more.

  “Your mistress is a shameless hussy, cat. And that is all she can say about herself.” Annie couldn’t help but shoot the rumbling ball of fur a look of denunciation. “You don’t have to be so agreeable.”

  Gathering up clothing, Annie chose a high-necked pale-blue shirtwaist, satisfied that it would cover the two small marks that proved what a demanding lover Kell was. She didn’t have time to linger, but she wanted to touch them, wanted to remember the passion that had exploded between them and left its mark on her. Not only these visible ones, but those inside as well.

  She didn’t attempt her corset, hearing the opening and closing of the door below and the greetings that followed. She hurried to tie the tapes of freshly starched petticoats and slipped into her dark blue skirt. With the last pin holding her hair in a loose topknot in place, Annie grabbed up the discarded clothing littering the floor and heaped it on the chair.