The Groom Says Yes

by Cathy Maxwell

  Her thoughts broke off in a panic as his hand captured the back of her neck.

  Her heart leaped in shock that he’d moved with his own volition. Conscious thought vanished from her mind, to be replaced by embarrassment at being caught smacking her lips against his. How could she explain what she had been doing—?

  The weight of his hand brought her lips back to his.

  And this time, there was no simple brush of closed flesh.

  This time, their mouths melded together.

  Sabrina had gasped in surprise, and Mr. Enright had taken advantage of her half-open lips, bringing potency to the kiss. Making it daring.

  She was receiving her first true kiss and perhaps her last.

  A smart woman would take full advantage. She’d missed so many opportunities in her life. She was not going to miss this one.

  Besides, she liked this kiss.

  His hand exerted gentle pressure, urging her to turn her head to just the right angle where they “fit.”

  Oh, yes, they fit.

  For a long moment, Sabrina marveled at how right this felt. It didn’t seem silly at all. Well, perhaps if someone witnessed their lips locked on each other’s, they might think they were amusing . . . but to Sabrina, this felt good. Completely lovely and nice.

  Indeed, her whole body hummed with how lovely and nice it was. The kiss flowed through her, melting resistance until she could think of nothing but the connection between them.

  She didn’t even notice that Mr. Enright had repositioned himself until he drew her down onto the bed alongside him. And she let herself be drawn, even as the bedclothes made it difficult for her skirts to stay down. They gathered at her knees. She didn’t care, she was too busy marveling over the fact their lips had never once parted.

  Of course, Sabrina knew she should stop him. She wasn’t too far gone to not realize this was an impropriety. She even made an attempt to sit up, but he placed a possessive hand on the curve of her hip, and she decided there was no harm in lingering a minute more, especially as the kiss began to change.

  He leaned into her, demonstrating there was more pleasure to be had the closer they were to each other.

  Her eyes closed, and Sabrina allowed herself the pleasure of the moment. She indulged her curiosity.

  As she kissed him, she could imagine she was breathing his soul, and she liked the idea. She was aware of the weight and presence of his body and even the texture of his skin in a way she hadn’t been while tending him.

  Furthermore, he was warm in a comforting way, and she liked the scent of his skin, spicy and manly from the shaving soap and a fragrance unique to him alone. His arm slid around her waist. He gathered her closer, and his tongue intimately touched hers.

  This was more than just a mere kiss. This was an invitation, an intimate one.

  And Sabrina was not repulsed.

  Instead, every fiber of her being came alive. He tasted good. He smelled good. He felt good.

  Her arm had found its way to his waist, her hand pressed against the small of his back. She experienced him not as a patient, but as man, sliding her fingers beneath his shirt. His skin was smooth except for the scar, and she traced the line of it up his side.

  A throbbing need began to build in her. Was this desire? This yearning to open all of herself to him? Especially in the most intimate places?

  He slid his tongue along hers again, and Sabrina wrapped herself—arms, legs, hands—around him.

  And still the kiss deepened. It grew heated. He tasted her, devoured her.

  Dear God, she liked this kiss.

  Now she understood why the poets praised a kiss. There was more to it than she had ever imagined.

  And when Mr. Enright kissed her fully, without any reservations between them, she eagerly welcomed him, wanting more, more, and more.

  Her full breasts flattened against the hard muscles of his chest as he leaned over her. Yes, that chest, the one she had eyed with admiration. His hips fit with hers.

  But what robbed her of all reason, what sent her spirit on fire with delicious anticipation, was his hand upon her breast. Her naked breast. Sabrina had no understanding of how her dress had become unlaced, but she didn’t care. She was undone, and happy for it.

  If she’d had a will to set limits or think rationally, it had vanished.

  She now became a new being. Had she once exercised good sense? How ridiculous of her! She liked this. She was light and laughter . . . and need. Oh, yes, she needed him.

  Capturing Mr. Enright’s jaw with both her hands, she kissed him with all the budding passion inside her, and he responded. He was as hungry as she was. She wallowed in these kisses, reveled in them, and their magic was only heightened when he circled her hardened nipple with his thumb.

  She quivered, just as the poets had claimed she would . . . Her loins were on fire. Yes, she had loins, another one of those poetic terms used to describe lust. She’d never read the word “loins” again without recalling this exquisite heat ignited by his touch.

  Deep within her, a pressure was building. The word desire beat through her veins.

  Yes, she desired him. Right now, she couldn’t live without him. “Please,” she heard herself whisper against his lips. “Please, please, please.”

  He knew what she wanted.

  His leg slid between hers. His hand raised her skirts even higher, so they were gathered around her waist. She was exposed to him, but she didn’t feel vulnerable or afraid.

  For the first time in her life, she felt completely alive.

  Being this close to him, having his body all around her, feeling his hips resting on hers, was better than kissing.

  She could feel his hardness. She wasn’t naïve. She knew the differences between men and women, but she’d never experienced them—and right now Sabrina was caught up in the “experience.”

  His weight felt good. His touch was not gentle but demanding, insistent.

  At last, their kiss broke.

  His breath was hot against her ear as he whispered, “I need you.”

  I need you.

  What perfect words.

  In all of Sabrina’s life, only her mother had “needed” her and solely because, as an invalid, she’d had no other choice.

  But this man wasn’t bound to her . . . other than through their kisses.

  His lips brushed her temple. Even that simple contact gave her pleasure—

  The first sweep of his hand against her most intimate parts was shocking. The touch jerked her out of the haze she’d been lulled into.

  “Steady,” he said. His low voice touched a deep chord connecting her body with the stimulation of his knowledgeable hand. He nuzzled her neck, kissed her ear, and she thought she could linger a moment longer. He was trying to make her happy—and succeeding.

  “Sweet angel,” he murmured.

  Sabrina smiled. No one had ever described her as an angel or sweet. He made her feel like one. Certainly, she no longer felt of this earth. And she’d do anything she must to be what he wanted. His lips captured hers once more. Such delicious lips. No wonder she liked kissing them.

  Her hands found their way under his shirt. The buttons of his breeches were undone. She didn’t know how or when that had happened, but she liked it. She now had access to the hard muscles of his abdomen and the curve of his hip. He was long and lean, and his skin felt warm and smooth beneath her palm. The scent of him made her wild with wanting.

  Sabrina was no longer the woman everyone thought her. Look at me now, Dame Agatha. I’m living fully.

  She was who she wanted to be—and if all the women in the parish had tromped into this bedroom behind her father, she could not have stopped herself from relishing the hard planes of his chest and from pressing liquid need against his hardness—

  The thrust, sure, steady, and demanding in its strength, surprised her.

  She’d barely registered the fact that he was inside her, when sharp pain tore through the magic of the moment, do
using it with reality.

  His naked hips were cradled between her thighs. Her stockings had fallen although she still wore her shoes. Her skirts were around her waist.

  His breeches were not around his waist. His hips, his buttocks were muscular and strong. All of him was strong, and she knew because she felt as if he were splitting her in two.

  And there was the problem.

  Sabrina had been so caught up in the wonder of discovery, she now discovered herself no longer a virgin.

  The shock sent her mind reeling. Her first inclination was to run, to escape.

  She started to scramble out from underneath him, but he braced his arms so they formed a wall around her. “No,” he whispered, his voice ragged. “You can’t leave now. Not now.”

  Sabrina shook her head. The pain was ebbing, but her body felt uncomfortably stretched and full of him. “I must leave.”

  “No,” he said, drawing out the word as if cooing to her. “Please, I can’t let you go. The damage is done. Just give yourself a moment.”

  He was right. There was no going back.

  The will to struggle against him left her. It was her fault. She’d kissed him.

  She’d orchestrated her own destruction.

  He frowned as if he was truly seeing her for the first time, a question clear in the brown-gold depths of his eyes, and he said the words that completed her humiliation. “Who are you?”

  She bucked her hips with all her might, attempting to throw him off while she shoved his chest away from her, but her actions brought him into her deeper.

  The penetration no longer hurt. Nor did it feel awkward. Her body had grown accustomed to him.

  “Don’t,” he whispered. “I’d not harm you. Not my angel,” he added, then began speaking to her in Gaelic, gentling her. Irish Gaelic.

  From the cadence of his speech, he was reciting a poem to her, and the language of it was beautiful. Some words she recognized. There were words of praise for her beauty, for her generosity, for the lady he called his love.

  The tension eased inside her.

  His gaze focused on her, his expression somber. He traced the line of her lower lip with the tip of his thumb—and then he kissed her.

  Oh, his deadly kisses.

  Her heart kicked up its beat. Her blood heated, and she opened herself to him. She could not prevent the response, not with him so intimately joined with her. But even then, she was drawn to him.

  And he was right. What was done could not be undone. He began moving, this time with new strength and focused intent. He’d given her a chance to accept him, and now that she had, he was taking full advantage.

  Mr. Enright took her hand that was still pressed against his chest and moved it to the pillow above her head. He laced his fingers with hers, and went deeper—and it felt good.

  Sabrina’s hips rose to meet him. He kissed her brow. He kissed her nose, her eyes, the curve of her cheek. She didn’t fight. She couldn’t.

  This was the great rite of passage for a woman. She could not say that he had cruelly ripped her virtue from her . . . or, strangely, that she regretted giving this to him. At last, she understood the mystery between men and women.

  She also knew she would never forget this moment. She would recall texture of the sheets beneath her and the give of the mattress. She would remember that the air was cool but her skin hot. She would inhale the memory of the scent of them, and would have the vision of his hard, lean body with that wicked scar.

  And, she decided, she would not be sorry she’d done this.

  The pain was gone. In its place was the knowledge of the most incredible intimacy.

  Above her, his eyes had lost their sharpness. They’d darkened with desire.

  She noted that his teeth were white and even, and in spite of his illness, he was a formidable man. She’d chosen well for a lover.

  A lover? Would that be true.

  He was taking the utmost care of her. She was no longer afraid, not of him, and when she relaxed, her pleasure escalated until she was drowning once again in this newly learned hunger.

  And hungry she was. She strove with him, without fully understanding where they were going. Instead, she trusted him. He knew what she needed.

  He kissed her, this kiss so deep it seemed to turn her inside out.

  Sabrina shook off his hand holding hers and threw her arms around his neck, needing to be closer to him. She hooked a leg on his hip.

  Their joining took on a new intensity. She suddenly couldn’t wait for him. Something drove her, something intangible.

  The heat between them grew more forceful, his thrusts took on purpose. She was on fire. She could not think; she could only feel—and what she felt was beyond anything she could have ever imagined. She was reaching for what was just beyond her grasp . . .

  And then she discovered it.

  Her body tightened, opened, then seemed to implode with her release. Relentless, intense emotion poured through her.

  Nothing could have prepared her for this experience. It defied all description. It was a world unto itself. It was the universe. She’d never imagined that such vivid, encompassing feelings could exist.

  Mr. Enright buried himself in her, and she felt his release.

  This was what it meant to become one.

  Now, she understood. She relished the experience.

  Her body felt perfectly right. Well used. Happy. Content. Completely, and utterly, satisfied . . . until she realized she knew nothing of this man other than his last name. She’d broken every rule of conduct she’d established for herself. She’d liked it. She’d like to do it again, and again.

  Did that make her a Widow Bossley?

  And what would happen to her if she became with child? Then everyone else would know what she’d done. Everyone. She would be the fodder of gossip for decades to come.

  Sabrina lay on her bed, the one she’d slept on since childhood, her clothing in wanton disarray, her body growing cold and her mind boiling over with a hundred chaotic questions—and she wanted to scream.

  He, on the other, rolled over on his side, threw a possessive arm across her body, and, with a contented sigh, fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.

  Chapter Eight

  Sabrina glared at the man snoozing beside her and had two impulses: one was to run and the other to double her fists and pound him.

  She decided to run.

  His arm was as heavy as a tree branch across her chest. His weight, which she’d easily tolerated moments ago, was now unwieldy. Using both hands, she lifted his arm, then didn’t know how to place it beside his body without its being at an awkward angle. He might wake, and she didn’t want that.

  So, as stealthily as a thief, she eased out from under his arm, landing on her bottom on the floor.

  A sharp glance assured her he had not noticed anything amiss. He slept on as if he hadn’t turned her world inside out.

  Sabrina jumped to her feet, pulling her bodice up over her shoulders and shaking out her skirts to restore her modesty—and found she hated the dress she wore. She’d never wear it again. She couldn’t without recalling this moment in vivid detail.

  That he’d so easily and completely bypassed her good sense and judgment to claim her virtue, then had the audacity to sleep as if he didn’t have a care in the world made her irrationally wish to burn the dress. She tiptoed to her wardrobe, pulled out her forest green day gown, the one she liked to save for doing charity work, and rushed from the room.

  At the foot of the stairs, she stopped to take stock of her situation.

  She was so thankful that Mrs. Patton was not here to witness her humiliation. Then again, if the housekeeper had been here, if her father had not left her alone with this man, well, then, things would not have gone as they had. She would not have dared to shave Mr. Enright, let alone kiss him.

  Even now, her senses were full of him. His scent was on her skin, and in the most intimate places.

  With an angry sound at her own
culpability—because, after all, her vanity had started what had happened—she hurried to the kitchen and stoked the fire. She went outside, her movements determined. She was very conscious of muscles she’d never known had existed in places she couldn’t have imagined. She pumped water into the bucket.

  Rolf came bounding up to her. She threw her arms around him. “I’m such a fool, Rolf.”

  His wagging tail assured her he adored her no matter how far she’d fallen, but Sabrina could not let her failings rest.

  As she marched into the house and put the water over the fire to heat, she flayed herself with the number of times she’d been sharply critical over the behavior of other young women, including her cousin Tara. She’d accused Tara of flaunting herself and quite frankly considered herself superior to her cousin.

  Well, now, Sabrina was guilty of the same offense. She’d thrown herself at Mr. Enright. And he didn’t even know her name.

  She had to keep it that way. Somehow, she must manage to push him out of the house without his being the wiser to whom she was. She’d have Mrs. Patton tell him to leave or send for her father—no, wait, she couldn’t do that. He’d want to know what the man was doing under his roof and one thing would lead to the other and Sabrina would confess all.

  She didn’t even want to think of the worst—that she could bear this man’s child. God could not be that cruel. All she’d wanted was one kiss.

  The family bathed in the kitchen where the fire was always burning. Sabrina pulled the tub from its storage place under the shelves of the pantry. She also kept towels and soaps in a small pail there as well. She shut the kitchen door, pushing the heavy table in front of it since there was no lock. This was a precaution against Mr. Enright’s accidentally meandering around the house.

  As quickly as she could, she prepared her bath. She threw her clothes to the floor, climbed into the tub, and scrubbed herself senseless. If she could wash away the last hour of her life, she would have.