The Pursuits of Lord Kit Cavanaugh
Page 32
Then she closed her fingers around the girth and gently squeezed.
Every muscle in his body tensed—as if to some breaking point.
On a muttered curse, he caught her wrist and hauled her hand away. Capturing her other hand as well, he came up in a roll.
Intrigued, she let him roll her to her back. As he settled over her, she wriggled and shifted until his hips lay between her spread thighs. Expectantly, she smiled up at him.
Only to realize he was almost glaring at her. “We’re supposed to be taking this slowly!”
She blinked and stared up at him. “Why?”
Through gritted teeth, he muttered, “In case it’s escaped your notice, you’re a virgin.”
“Yes, I know.” And she wasn’t of a mind to waste time discussing it. “It’s an issue I anticipate rectifying in short order.”
To underscore that intention, she slipped one hand free, caught his head, and hauled his lips back to hers, then seizing the moment, she undulated beneath him, using her breasts, her hips—as much of her as she could—to caress his hard body and urge him on.
He’d been patient, kind—generous. Tonight, she was his reward—and what a thought that was. She wrapped it around her like a safety net and plunged into the moment.
Into the unknown.
Into passion. His and hers.
She poured all her longing, all her passion and desires, into her kiss, let need and that hungry, now-ravenous wanting flare and invest her movements as, with wanton deliberation, she used her body to tempt him to sate them both.
Kit gave up—surrendered. What else could he do? He hadn’t allowed himself to think too much about this night, yet he’d had a vague notion of having to go step by slow step, gently easing her—a virgin—along the path to intimacy.
Instead, he had a commanding, demanding, fiery and passionate female in his arms.
He suddenly realized his error—the stupidity of his assumption. This was her—the real her he’d glimpsed for the first time when she’d stormed into his office weeks ago. The lady he’d been dealing with ever since—strong, confident, fiercely passionate. A lady who knew her own mind.
This was his Sylvia without any guise—exactly as he always wanted her to be when with him.
And she wanted him, valued him, and matched him in this arena as in all others.
He’d thought to claim her, and she patently intended to claim him.
He was already hers.
Releasing the reins he’d tried valiantly yet vainly to hold on to, he let her have her way.
And when her knowledge ran out and her certainty faded, he took over—and as she blatantly wished, he surrendered without reservation to the drumbeat in his veins and in hers, to the heat of the passion-filled flames that threatened to consume them.
Their skins were alive with need, their bodies beyond ready when he settled more deeply between her widespread thighs. The head of his erection sank into the scalding slickness of her entrance. His jaw clenched, his eyes closed as he battled his instincts, he forced himself to grind out, “This might hurt.” She was so tight, and he was distinctly well-endowed. He gritted his teeth and managed, “No, strike that. This will hurt.”
He felt her, hot and heated and panting beneath him, draw breath.
“I don’t care!” The words were almost a wail. “Just do it!”
He did. With one powerful thrust, he sheathed himself in the fiery embrace of her body. He froze, battling to give her a few moments at least to adjust, desperately reining in the instincts that urged him to plunder.
Then he heard a soft “Oh.” A sound of wonder.
Beneath him, she softened, the flaring tension the spike of pain had caused melting away.
Then she raised one arm, looped it about his neck, and drew his head to hers. She captured his lips in an open-mouthed kiss, then drew back just enough to whisper, “Now show me.”
Needing no further invitation, the man inside him leapt to comply.
He showed her how this oldest of dances went—the movements, the rhythm.
She was a quick study. Soon, she was meeting and matching him, fully linked with him as, their desires one, their passions fused, they strove to gain the beckoning pinnacle.
They reached it and flew as ecstasy gripped them.
As their senses overloaded, then shattered in a mind-blinding starburst that sent shards of brilliance lancing down their nerves and white fire scorching through their veins.
In that primal moment cut off from the world, they clung to each other and, exulting, held on, held tight.
Slowly, the glory faded and released its hold on their minds. They returned to earth, to the here and now of the rumpled chaos of the bed.
Uncounted minutes later, still wrapped in the aftermath, still rejoicing in the glory, Sylvia heard Kit utter a soft grunt, then he gently disengaged from her and fell to the bed beside her.
Breathing seemed to be something they both needed to remember how to do.
The night air was cool against their dewed skins. He tugged the coverlet and sheets from beneath them and drew the covers over them. Then he found her hand and raised it to brush a kiss over her fingers. “Thank you, my wife. Not just for this, but for linking your life with mine.”
She turned toward him, and he raised his arm and urged her closer. Settling against him, she smiled into his eyes. “Thank you, husband. Not just for the last hours, but for all you’ve given me and for the promise of a life with you by my side.”
His eyes held hers. “Always by your side, forever and ever.”
He kissed her fingers again, then flattened her hand beneath his on his chest.
She pillowed her head on his shoulder and heard him whisper, “Now sleep.”
Smiling to herself, she did.
* * *
She woke hours later, in the depths of the night, and discovered that she and Kit had shifted in their sleep. She still lay on her side, but her head rested on the pillow. He’d turned onto his stomach. One heavy arm lay draped over her waist, and his face, half buried in the pillow, was turned her way.
She drank in the sight of him sleeping. Let her eyes trace the features she could see. And felt her heart swell with the emotion that had been growing inside her ever since she’d started interacting with him—the businessman rather than the ton lord.
They were one and the same—she understood that now; both were facets of this man who had stolen her heart when she’d thought that organ forever unassailable.
Ironic that he—the rakehell she’d long ago fallen in lust with from a distance, and against whose allure she’d built walls of cold stone to protect herself and her heart—had proved to be the right man to take her hand and make her life complete.
Just as, in the months and years and decades to come, she would work to make his life complete.
Her eyes dwelled lovingly on his face as she savored the sense of closeness, born of their recent activities, that hadn’t faded entirely but persisted, real and almost tangible, a golden thread linking them—one that, she suspected, would only grow stronger with the years.
He made a soft sound. His lashes lifted just enough for him to squint at her. “You’re thinking awfully hard. What about?”
She smiled, reached out, and brushed a heavy lock of hair off his forehead. Pleasure was still a faint thrum in her veins, a lingering warmth beneath her skin. “If you must know, I was thinking that, in my opinion at least, every second of the experience was worth the wait.”
Kit searched her eyes, confirming her smug delight, then grunted and turned over. “I would have to agree.” Who could have guessed that enforced abstention would result in such an earthshaking result?
Then again, this was her—his Sylvia—and she was very definitely in a different, more meaningful category than all who had gone before.
Staring at the canopy, he looked inside. In gifting him with her body and linking her life to his, she’d given him more than he’d ever dreamt he might have. He found her hand, drew it to his lips, and gently bussed her knuckles. “Thank you.” He let the murmured words fall into the warm dimness. “For giving me something I thought I would never have—the chance of a real marriage blessed with true and abiding love.”
There was no doubt in his heart that love of that caliber had grown between them.
She turned toward him; he felt her puzzled gaze trace his profile. “Why had you thought such a thing was not for you?”
She’d given him her secrets. It was time for him to give her his.
He drew in a deeper breath, then haltingly picked his way through a condensed version of his mother’s life, omitting nothing, yet not dwelling overlong on the more shocking aspects. “My father...tried. Although theirs was a marriage of convenience, he was prepared to accord her all due respect, to give her his trust and even his affection. But she...” He shook his head. “That wasn’t what she wanted—that wasn’t why she’d accepted him.” He paused, then more quietly admitted, “Given all I saw of her actions, her self-serving manipulations and machinations, I really didn’t think I would ever overcome my consequent distrust of ladies. To give my heart to one, I would have to trust her implicitly, and I truly doubted I could ever do that.”
He turned his head and met her eyes. “Until I met you at the wedding, and you and your attitude got under my skin like a burr. Then you—the real you—erupted into my life here in Bristol, and”—his lips twisted wryly—“I couldn’t look away, much less stay away.” He turned toward her and cupped her face in his palm. “You drew me from the first, as if, even then, I recognized that you could be my salvation.” Holding her gaze, he smiled into her eyes and said, “And so you’ve proved to be. By marrying me, you’ve saved me from a lonely fate, from hiding away from love forever, deeming it too dangerous to risk.
“You convinced me loving you was worth any risk. You, Sylvia Amelia Cavanaugh, have opened my eyes to all the joys and benefits of sharing a life, and you are now the central and most vital element in mine. Without you, I would have drifted through life, restless and unsatisfied. Now you’re here by my side, I can look forward to a long and happy life loving you and basking in the warmth of your love for me.”
He smiled. “From where I lie, our shared future looks well-nigh perfect.”
Sylvia finally understood what had been behind the occasional hesitations she’d sensed in his early dealings with her.
Unbeknown to her, he’d been battling demons she hadn’t known existed. Yet with quiet courage, he’d trusted in her and stepped over his inner hurdle and offered her his heart.
She’d understood that she could trust him within days of meeting the real him. Until now, she hadn’t appreciated how very much he had trusted her.
Although he hadn’t asked for it or for any other reassurance, she held his gaze and stated, “I don’t have any of the...inclinations it seems your mother had.”
“I know.” His lips twisted in a fleeting grimace. “I suspect that, in reality, few women truly do. Thank heaven.”
He continued to hold her gaze, then said, “I feel as if in loving you and marrying you, I’ve passed out of the shadow my mother cast and shed her malignant influence once and for all.”
“Good. Because I’m not of a mind to share my influence over you with anyone.”
That elicited a deep chuckle, and Sylvia smiled. She raised one hand and ran her fingers through the tousled locks of his hair, then she met his eyes and confessed, “For me, the single greatest discovery in falling in love with and marrying you is that, in confirmation of my recent assessments, it is, indeed, possible for a forbidden fantasy lord to live up to expectations—indeed, even to exceed them.”
Lord Kit Cavanaugh—her husband—laughed and reached for her. “And I plan to devote myself to exceeding your expectations”—he smiled into her eyes—“for as long as we both shall live.”
THE END
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Other Titles from Stephanie Laurens
Cynster Novels
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A Rake’s Vow
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A Rogue’s Proposal
A Secret Love
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2