She pulled back to look into his eyes. “Patience was never one of my virtues.”
A wicked grin crossed Evan’s face. He pulled back, and for one devastating moment, Prudence thought he might send her away. Her stomach flipped when he scooped her into his arms.
“Oof,” he said, giving her that lopsided grin she had come to love so much. “Just as solid as ever, I see.”
Prudence threw her arms around his neck and hid her smile in his chest as he carried her to his bed.
Evan laid her down on the coverlet, and she shivered when he pulled away. He glanced toward the fire. The flames had died down till only burning embers remained.
“You’re cold,” he said.
“No, I’m fine.” She wanted him lying next to her, warming her body with the heat from his own, not off in the far corner of the room stoking the fire.
“No, I wouldn’t want you to take ill, or me either for that matter. It would be a poor start to a marriage, and I don’t think we should press our luck.”
He strode to the hearth. Squatting on his haunches, he added several logs to the remains of the dying fire. He jabbed at the embers with the poker, while Prudence willed them to light. Flames roared in the hearth before Evan seemed satisfied.
“There, that’s better.” He glanced at Prudence. “Sure I can’t get you a glass of brandy?”
“No.” Prudence propped herself up on her elbows and shook her head.
“Madeira?” A teasing light shone in his eyes, and a smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“No,” she said, with more emphasis.
“Would you like anything?”
“Yes. You.” Spoken as though she were lord of the manor instead of him, it was too late to soften the request.
Evan came to stand beside the bed. Instead of looking irritated at her demands, his face showed a certain manly pride, as though she could demand all she liked, he knew who remained in control of the situation.
“Patience, my wife.”
“I am trying.” Prudence reached a hand up to him, and he clasped it, entwining her fingers in his. “But it seems I am a slow learner.”
Setting one knee on the side of the bed, he leaned over and brushed a kiss against her lips. “Don’t worry. I am an excellent teacher, and I’ll stick with you for however long it takes.”
She quivered beneath his touch. If one small brush of his lips caused such a reaction, how would she survive their lovemaking?
“I want to see you.”
She had done it again. Said the first thing that popped into her head. Would he think her too forward? Too demanding? It was in her nature to be straightforward, but perhaps there were times when she could at least try to be more demure.
“I’m right here.”
His grin told her he was being deliberately obtuse. At least he didn’t sound offended. Or repulsed.
“All of you,” she said, emboldened by his apparent acceptance of her forwardness.
How accommodating would he be if she gave in to her sudden urge to explore the sharp angles of his face, the dark curls at the nape of his neck, or the hard planes of his chest? Even the firm roundness of his backside that had heretofore been hidden beneath his coats made her palms tingle with anticipation.
“Ah, well, I aim to please.” He stood and pulled his shirt from the waistband of his breeches then drew it over his head.
Prudence held her breath. At the academy, she had become something of an expert in the male anatomy, at least from the waist up. Her schoolmates had taken every opportunity to offend her by removing their coats and shirts in her presence. But they had been boys. She could see that now. Her husband was a man.
His tanned skin glowed in the firelight, shadows licked around the hard angles and curves of his chest. A smattering of dark curls crossed the geometric planes, then thinned to a narrow line that ran into the waistband of his breeches.
He lacked the paunch of the country gentleman, that doughy roll, acquired from a life of indolence and indulgence. They tried in vain to hide it behind waistcoats and too-high breeches, but like dough punched down in its bowl, it rose again, flowing over the sides in ever-growing proportions.
Evan, in contrast, had the body of a working man. Lean and hard. She reached up to touch him, running her fingertips down the washboard pattern of muscle, almost relieved to find warmth instead of cold, hard granite.
Evan closed his eyes and lifted his chin as though focusing on her exploration. Then, without warning, his lids flew open, and he stepped deftly out of her reach.
She curled her hand and let it fall back to the bed.
“Patience, my love.” He grinned, a look of satisfaction, like a cat with a bowl of warm cream.
My love. Prudence’s heart sang, her disappointment forgotten. It might only be an expression, one said in the heat of the moment. But in the privacy of his bedroom, with the ephemeral shadows created by the soft glow of the firelight, it was easy to believe in love. For tonight, she would.
Keeping his gaze on her face, Evan undid the buttons of his breeches, taking more care with them then Prudence thought they were worth. She cursed the buttons that held the fall front, then more down the middle, as well as the laces that held them tight below the knees. She had always thought a lady’s gown to be ridiculous in its intricacies, but a man’s breeches weren’t much better.
Freed from the restraints, Evan shimmied out of his breeches and small clothes. She recalled a sketch of Michelangelo’s David one of her classmates had shown her, intending to shock her with the image. Prudence had been secretly fascinated with the beautiful Greek figure, male, yet elegant and almost feminine in the way the artist captured the smooth flowing lines of the young man’s legs. And as for his more private anatomy, well, clearly the subject the artist had in mind had been no more than a boy.
Evan reminded her more of DaVinci’s anatomy drawings, skin stretched taut over muscles that stood out in stark relief.
A muscle just above his right kneecap quivered, reminding her that this was no artist’s rendering she so openly admired, but a flesh and blood man. Her husband. Hers, as the parson had said during the wedding ceremony, to obey, serve, love, honor, etcetera, etcetera. Prudence had trouble recalling the exact words of the promise, but one thing she did remember clearly. While her pledge started with a vow to obey her husband, his started with the pledge to love her. If she could hold up her end of the bargain, could he hold up his?
Prudence reached out again, intending to pull him closer.
Evan stepped back. “It’s not fair that I stand here shivering while you’re still fully dressed. I think I’ll just warm myself by the fire for a while.”
“I’m hardly fully dressed, but if you insist.” Surprising herself with her boldness, Prudence yanked her nightdress over her head and tossed it into the corner. Despite the warmth in the room, her nipples puckered from the sudden rush of air, and from anticipation as well. “Now, we’re on equal terms.”
“As it should be.” Evan stood by the side of the bed, his height forcing her to lean back so she could look up at him. “As it always will be.”
He smiled at her, his slightly crooked tooth winking in the light of the fire. Through a fog of wanting, it occurred to her that beauty truly was in the eye of the beholder. Somewhere between their first meeting in the stables and this moment, she had grown to love his crooked smile. It gave him a warmth, a vulnerability he might have lacked otherwise. The ordinary nature of the thought, the sheer absurdity of having it while he was towering over her, both of them naked, made her want to laugh out loud.
“Something in my countenance amuses you?” he asked, his grin growing wider.
“Not at all.” Prudence barely managed to choke back the laughter in her words. “I was just remembering how arrogant I found you when we first met.”
He slid down beside her, one foot still resting on the floor, the other tucked beneath him. “And have you changed your mind?”
; Although he had lowered himself to her level, his face still held nothing but male self-possession and pride.
“Not one bit,” she said.
“Good.” He leaned over to claim her mouth with his.
She let him explore but gave equal measure with lips, teeth, and tongue. Though they were just inches from each other, with no clothing to separate them, naught but their mouths touched. Prudence could feel the heat from him radiating against her breasts, and she longed to close the distance.
As though he could read her thoughts, Evan raised one hand to cradle her cheek in his palm. He slid the other hand between her shoulder blades to support her as he used the pressure from his kiss to lower her onto her back.
His knee wedged between her thighs, he still kept his distance. Prudence placed her hands against his chest, ran them over his broad shoulders and around his back. She tugged at him, intending to pull him down on top of her.
Evan didn’t budge. His lips still occupied with hers, he didn’t laugh so much as rumble.
Prudence tilted her chin, pulling her mouth from his so she could suggest that perhaps this wasn’t the best time for a lesson in patience. Her words died when Evan’s lips ran a path from her cheek, across her jawbone to a spot just below her ear. Whatever she had intended to say melted into in a languid sigh.
Since he was being so uncooperative, Prudence let her hands do a little exploring of their own. She marveled at his shoulders. Round and firm, she couldn’t even fit one of them into the palm of her hand. From there, her hands traveled down the hard ridges of his back. Every now and then, her fingertips ran into tiny little lines that felt almost like the seams of a dress. Were they scars? From the number of them, she gathered his tales about the sisters hadn’t been exaggerated.
Anger surged within her. No matter what sort of little devil he had been, no child warranted such abuse.
Evan mumbled something unintelligible against her neck, and Prudence sensed that her intrusion into his past wasn’t something he welcomed. Someday he would trust her with the details. Someday she would show him he could.
She ran her hands around the curve of muscles at his sides to trail them back up his chest. Her palms brushed against his nipples. She stopped to thumb them, wonder filling her at the way they tightened at her slightest touch. She knew men had them. She had seen them on the boys at school. She just never knew they were as sensitive as her own.
“Turn about is fair play,” Evan said, his breath warming her neck.
She had only a moment to consider what he meant before his mouth covered the tip of one of her breasts.
Prudence gasped and arched her back. She had been wrong. There was no way Evan’s nipples were as sensitive as hers. His mouth on her breasts had her writhing beneath him, her will lost to his touch.
“Evan,” she breathed. His name was a plea, although she didn’t quite know for what.
“Do you like that?”
It wasn’t really a question. She could tell he already knew the answer from the self-satisfied arrogance in his voice. Infernal man knew exactly how to touch her to make her lose what little control she possessed.
“Yes,” she gasped.
Evan suckled harder.
“Evan,” Prudence said again. She had thought it would take forever to get used to using his Christian name. It was another thing she had been wrong about. She loved his name. She could have said it over and over again. Evan. Evan. Evan.
“Yes, my sweet?” Evan said.
“Evan.” She savored the sound on her tongue as she spoke his name aloud. She needed to be closer, to hold his body against hers. But how could she say the words when she could barely think?
Evan leaned his body into hers, giving her exactly what she craved even though she hadn’t asked.
“Am I crushing you?” he asked.
“No.” Her answer sounded a little strained, but she hoped he hadn’t noticed. His weight against her felt so strong, so solid, so comforting.
He nudged his other knee between her thighs widening them until he could settle himself between them. She could feel his arousal against her, hot and hard. She had seen him naked and aroused, yet she didn’t feel afraid. She wanted to feel him inside her. She needed him inside her.
“Evan, please.”
“Not yet, sweetheart.” He breathed against her neck. “This is your first time. You need to be ready.”
“I am ready.” Her voice held a note of impatience.
“Trust me, my love. I don’t think you want to rush this.”
She did trust him. More than she had ever trusted anybody. More than she thought she ever would.
While his mouth claimed her lips in a kiss that left her breathless, he reached down between her legs to touch her in places so intimate she could barely name them.
Though inexperienced, she wasn’t completely naïve to the workings of her own body. Riding astride had taught her much about the small nub of flesh that could bring both pleasure and pain when it came into contact with friction from her clothing. But she never dreamed it could be the source of such heated sensation in the hands of her husband.
Evan dipped his thumb into the dampness between her folds and brought it back to the source of that pleasure, stroking Prudence until she arched her back against the bed and gave a cry that sounded suspiciously like a sob.
The stroking stopped and just when she thought she might be able to breathe again, Evan parted her folds with his fingers and inserted one into the dampness. He stroked her, applying a pressure that left her dizzy with need.
It was like jumping off a cliff.
The thought came to Prudence through the fog of her desire. When she was about eight, a neighbor boy had dared her to jump off one of the cliffs. Prudence could barely remember which one—which boy or which cliff. She did remember that it had seemed impossibly high, even though it was probably one of the shorter cliffs between the bays where the rocks were fewer and the water deeper.
Eager to prove herself, she had stripped down to her chemise, took a running start toward the edge, closed her eyes, and jumped. She remembered having the oddest feeling of not being certain whether she were falling or flying.
She felt much the same way now.
Evan withdrew and settled himself between her thighs. She opened her legs wider, in clear invitation. He entered her slowly, tentatively at first.
Prudence wanted more. Instinct drove her hands to his hips. Her nails dug into his buttocks as she pulled him forward and arched her hips up until he had buried himself deep within her.
Evan didn’t move. He seemed to be waiting for something.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind she could remember hearing something about the first time being painful and that a woman would bleed. Although she could feel Evan stretching her, it didn’t seem particularly painful. More of a gratifying fullness. It would probably be even more pleasing if he would just move.
“I’m fine,” she said, touched by his concern, but not sure how to let him know what she wanted from him.
Slowly, Evan withdrew and thrust forward again. Prudence could feel his control in the taut muscles of his back. He was holding back. She wanted to fly again, and he was restraining her.
Prudence ground her hips up to meet his when he thrust forward. For heaven’s sake! What did she have to do to get the man to lose control?
Evan thrust again, and again, faster now, and Prudence forgot her frustration. Instinctively, she moved in time to his rhythm, not knowing which one of them set the pace.
She ran her hands up and down the sides of his back, grasping, urging him on. His muscles rippled beneath his sweat slick skin. He no longer held back but seemed to be driving forward, straining for something just out of reach.
Then she felt it. It started with a slight tingling as sweat broke out on her own brow, then the heat spread, across her cheeks, down her neck, and through her belly to where she and Eva
n were joined.
Prudence writhed with her own sense of urgency, but she lost control of her movements. Her thrusts turned jerky and out of time with Evan’s. With a growl, Evan grabbed her hips and steadied her as he brought her rhythm to his. For once, Prudence was glad to let him take the lead.
She retained just enough presence of mind to feel him swell inside her moments before he gave one last powerful thrust and spilled his seed. She held onto him, letting the sensation of falling, or floating, or soaring slowly fade.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Prudence awoke to the brush of something warm and soft against her forehead.
“I hate to start out our new arrangement this way, but I must abandon you for a while.”
It was a man’s voice.
She sat up, eyelids fluttering, and glanced about at unfamiliar surroundings. It wasn’t her bedroom. Nor her bed. She blinked. A man sat on the edge of it.
A wash of cool air and a flood of memories made her clasp a blanket to her naked breast.
She was a married woman now. A really married woman. They had sealed their bargain, just as Evan promised they would. The room swayed.
“How long will you be gone?”
The mundane reality of the question helped slow the room’s motion.
“A day or two.” Evan rose and buttoned his waistcoat. “I’m headed for Boston. If the weather stays fair, I’ll sail this afternoon, have the ship unloaded tonight, and be back in your arms tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? He must think her a simpleton. Even the sailing to Boston harbor would take at least a day to round the cape. The unloading of the cargo, perhaps another day. Then there was the trip back. Three days at least.
“What is the cargo?” She tried not to let her suspicion show.
“Just household goods.” He studied his neck cloth in the mirror. In the reflection, his gaze lighted on her then darted away like a startled sparrow.
“Will you be taking your new ship?”
He wasn’t telling her something. Not that she had known him for long, but he had never refused to meet her gaze.
“The Cythraul?” He shook out his coat. “No. It will be some time before she’s ready for her maiden voyage. In the meantime, I’ll use one of the Ashcroft vessels.”
Willing Love Page 19
