It went on forever. Or it went on a few minutes. She could not tell, lost track of time and space and heartbeats. She closed her eyes to all but the sensation. She was straining for something she had only heard whispered about, the bit of her life she had given up on. There was no doubt in her mind that was where she was heading, or that he would wait for her to arrive. She trusted him, with her life and her body.
And so she took her time, focusing on that dancing, tempting, damning sensation.
She thought it would come upon her slowly, but instead it crashed like a rogue wave, knocking her over and hurling her onto shore. She cried out. She must have. Because he captured her lips in his, as if to silence her from the ears of those who might listen through walls. He held her gently, still inside her, pressing hard up against that place where the feelings were still spooling.
“Good girl,” he murmured into her mouth, and that made her open her eyes.
He was staring down at her, his eyes alive with approval and something more. She lifted her chin. “Don’t stop,” she told him.
He obliged, ever the obedient partner. He began to move again, his body hard and taut above her, great sweeps of physical strength that, impossibly, had her reaching for that place again. This time, it was a longer, drawn-out release. Perhaps one could die only once, and thereafter it was an affair to be savored. Or perhaps this remarkable sensation she had only now discovered after twenty-six years was bound to be different every time.
She only knew that it gripped her again. And that he soon followed, his body frozen inside her, his own guttural cry of release echoing in her mouth.
HE LAY IN heaven, scarcely able to believe his good fortune or his pain. If he hadn’t busted a few stitches just now, it would be a miracle. Funny how a body forgot those things, when one held someone he loved.
She lay quiescent in his arms, her skin covered in a faint sheen of perspiration. He knew if he kissed her, he would taste salt. A very satisfied bit of salt. He grinned. There was no doubt in his mind he had brought her to completion, or that it was the first time she had experienced the sensation.
Well, that she remembered, anyway. She had proven a remarkably fast study last night, albeit under the tutelage of his mouth instead of his member.
Through the closed window, the sounds of the band, which had been so steady this past hour, came to a halt. Shots rang out, first one, then another. His body jerked involuntarily, a hazard of his day’s experiences.
Georgette sat upright, her eyes wide. “What was that?”
He sat up too, running a hand gingerly through his hair. “Midnight. They’re not supposed to, but every year some drunkard fires his pistols at midnight.” He shook his head. “Dangerous, that. Cameron’s going to be looking for blood.”
She canted her head toward him, her eyes softening. “Midnight. We’ve known each other more than a day now. It seems much longer, doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t seem nearly long enough,” he told her. “I don’t want a day. I want a lifetime.”
He released her from his arms and stood up beside the bed. His legs felt wobbly, but his mind was clear. Good. This next bit required some clear thinking, in order not to make a fool of himself. His trousers lay in a heap where Georgette had tossed them. He picked them up.
When he turned back toward her, she was staring at him, perplexed. “But . . . you took back your ring,” she said. “I thought . . .”
James shook his head. “We are married, and I am not letting you go.” Her mouth fell open, but he was not through. “And it was your choice. Do not forget that, when you are so mad at me it sends you searching for a chamber pot. You chose me, just now. You’ve no one but yourself to blame.”
Her smile bloomed, slow and easy. Gray eyes, rimmed with tears, peered up at him. He felt his body stirring again. Impossible.
And yet, unmistakable.
“But . . .” Her words fell away, caught up in the catch of her breath.
James pulled the fede ring out of his trouser pocket. Knelt beside the bed and slid it onto her finger. “We just consummated our marriage. It is very nice to meet you, Mrs. MacKenzie.”
Chapter 33
HE PICKED UP her rigid hand and kissed it, intending to breathe life into her.
At her startled gasp, he said, “This was my grandmother’s ring. That was why I asked for my signet ring back. It’s time I started acting like a Kilmartie.”
“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” she told him. The tears he had seen earlier swimming in her eyes fell now, one fat drop at a time, their certain trajectory the end of her nose. “Except, I . . . ah, I accept.”
He chuckled, burying the sound in the skin of her wrist. “ ’Tis too late for that, love. We’ve moved past accepting, I think. There’s not a court in Scotland that would undo this marriage now.”
She smiled, a shy bit of relief.
“I know your home is in England,” he went on, anxious to sort out the pieces now that the important parts were established. “We can move to London, as soon as I earn enough money.”
“Money?” she echoed.
His eye fell on the bedside table and the money purse she had placed there. It was lighter than he wanted, but heavy enough for a start. “It should take six months, a year at the most, for me to make enough money to start a practice in London.” His gaze fell back on her. “Can you wait with me here that long? We could stay with my family, if you want, at Kilmartie Castle. Or rent a small house near town. Either is fine, as long as you are happy.”
She stared at him, her brow pulled down. “You . . . you do not know?”
He paused over her hand. Suddenly, he felt very naked. Vulnerable. “Know what?”
She smiled at him, sheepishly. “I am wealthy, James.”
His eyebrows jerked upward. “Wealthy?”
She nodded. “Why did you think I offered you two hundred pounds to procure an annulment?”
He leaned back, still wrapping his head around this unexpected twist. “I did not think you could actually do that. I thought you were making that up.”
“Why on earth would I make that up?”
He gripped her hand more tightly. “People being dragged to the lockup often can’t be trusted.”
She leaned back, smiling more broadly now. “Why did you think Randolph was so desperate to marry me, with or without my consent?”
“You’re a beautiful woman,” he choked out. “Any man would want you.”
She shook her head. “He was after my fortune, James.”
He swallowed, his pride shrinking from her words and her offer. “How much?” he whispered.
“Enough that Randolph Burton was willing to kill you to have a chance with me.”
James expelled a violent breath. This was not something he had planned for. Not something he wanted. He shook his head, uncertainty shouldering its way to the front of his mind. Things had seemed simpler when it was just about love. “I do not want your money, Georgette.”
She leaned forward. One naked breast brushed temptingly against his chest. “I know,” she whispered. “That is precisely why I want to share it.”
He let her rest against him while alternate possibilities snaked their way through his head. The band started up again outside, to a hearty chorus of cheers. He cocked his head toward the noise, his mind settling on what he wanted. “I want to earn my own way,” he told her. “We will put your money in trust, so it is yours and always will be.”
She sighed against him, a sound of exasperation but not regret. “But I can spend it?” she asked, her voice muffled against him. “In any manner I choose?”
“Of course.”
She pulled back. “Well then, I want to purchase a house for us. After all, I need a place to put my maid.” Her smile grew broader. “And my kitten. Mr. MacRory will insist upon it, I’m afraid.” She li
fted a hand to her temple, her eyes going wide. “Oh, and a dog. I have acquired a dog today. You may not have known that.”
James felt the tension leave his body, one long strand at a time. “You’ve been busy, Mrs. MacKenzie.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll do whatever you want. As long as we are together, I care not where or how we live.”
She regarded him with a salacious gleam in her eye. He knew, in all the years ahead of them, he would never get tired of seeing this woman’s personality shift from prim to predatory.
She brushed a none-too-prudish hand over the length of him. “If you can see fit to hold this thought another hour or so, I’ve a keen desire to dance with my new husband.”
As if in agreement, the band outside swung into a Highland jig.
James helped her to her feet. Laced her into the corset and buttoned her bodice over it with the lightest of fingers. He found he didn’t mind covering her, now that he knew it would be his privilege to unwrap her later, one decadent layer at a time.
Finally, she was standing beside him, dressed. She reached up on her toes for a kiss. He was happy to oblige. It occurred to him, as his lips met hers, that this pretty little scene came very close to the ending they should have had this morning.
Only, thank God for chamber pots. Without it, he suspected it might never have come to this.
THE CROWD SHOWED no signs of stopping. The rowdy hints of Bealltainn that had reached Georgette’s ears through the window could not compare with the intensity of the street-level celebration. The heat from the bonfire was immense, winding its way into every pore and flushing her body from the outside in.
Everywhere she looked, couples were dancing. Embracing. Kissing.
And for once, she felt right at home among them.
She gripped James’s hand tightly as they threaded their way through the mob. And then they were stepping up on the wooden platform and he was facing her, bowing from the waist.
“Mrs. MacKenzie,” he said, his eyes already dancing. “Would you honor your husband with a waltz?”
James MacKenzie proved less brilliant at dancing than he did at the rougher, more intimate pursuits he had recently introduced her to. Perhaps it was because he favored his leg, or because his head injury left him off-balance. Or perhaps—and this seemed more likely—it was because she made a less than ideal partner, stumbling over the fast strains of the music that were more primal and quick than the graceful dances she was used to in London. She clung to the man in her arms, letting the world spin around her, counting the moments until she could get him back to the little room above the Blue Gander.
A shout penetrated the wild pace of the music. “Glad to see you found your wife, MacKenzie!”
“Tie her up next time, save yourself the trouble!”
“Show her how a Highlander does it!”
“Kiss the woman, why don’t you?” The last bit was delivered more solemnly, and at closer range. Georgette turned her head to see the smiling face of William MacKenzie. He clapped James on the back. “Glad you worked it out, Jamie-boy.”
And then he disappeared, lost in the couples swinging about in a mad rush. She twisted, trying to see where he had gone. Instead, she saw Mr. MacRory dancing with a stout, fair-haired woman who very much looked as if she appreciated a man who could provide all the beef she wanted. Elsie and Joseph Rothven spun by, locked so tightly, hip-to-hip, that Georgette had no doubt the youth was in for another momentous first experience by the end of the night.
Feet pounded on the wooden platform. Hearts raced in time with the music, sawing its way toward a spectacular conclusion. She stepped closer into her husband’s arms.
“Do you regret your choice, now that you have seen my dancing skills?” His words brushed the top of her head.
She shook her head. She had made her choice. And she would never regret it.
His fingers stole up to tip up her chin. Their feet came to a stop, though the music plowed on. “Remember, Mrs. MacKenzie. Kissing is part of Bealltainn.”
She closed her eyes as his mouth descended on hers. He might not know how to dance, but he knew how to kiss, James MacKenzie did. Knew how to use his tongue to part a woman’s lips and delve into her secrets. She spilled them all, opening her mouth and meeting his tongue’s inquiry with her own.
The heat of the fire, the shaking of the wooden platform, the exuberant shouts of the townsfolk, all fell away as her mind coalesced on a series of unshakable thoughts.
She still didn’t like brandy, although she found herself more than a little curious about James’s recommended use. She was not fond of waiting, although she could allow that a delay might build up a delicious degree of anticipation. She was reconsidering her position on nudity, a point she had already aptly demonstrated.
But husbands . . . now, on that matter she found herself a complete and total convert.
And she could not wait to prove it.
Keep reading for an excerpt from
BRIGHTON IS FOR LOVERS,
another thrilling historical romance
by Jennifer McQuiston
Coming soon from Avon Books
DAVID CAMERON STOPPED dead in his tracks and let memory knife him in the gut.
One moment he was walking that ever-changing line between land and ocean, focused on the act of not remembering. It had taken him an hour to hike here today, and much of that walk had sorely tested his athleticism, with sharp rocks and narrow footholds where the ocean encroached on the white chalk cliffs. He had not recalled traipsing such a grueling footpath eleven years ago, but then again, he had barely been walking at the time, and his thoughts had been focused on things more difficult than the landscape.
The next moment he spied her, and those denied memories split open and threatened to swallow him whole. Their only prior meeting had been a chance encounter more than a decade earlier, but there was no denying his Brighton mermaid still haunted the same section of beach he had narrowly escaped with his life.
And apparently his savior, whom he had more than once suspected of being nothing more than a drunken mirage, had been real.
He discerned the exact moment she recognized him too. Her limbs arrested, as if she were suspended in time and place. She stood frozen, leaving it to him to close the distance between them.
David’s heart kicked over as she grew larger and more animated in his eyes. Time had a way of taking a remembrance and turning it into a still miniature in one’s head, to be tucked away and brought out only on special occasions. When he thought of her at all, it was always as the child who had pulled his sorry arse from the surf eleven years ago.
This was not that child.
Oh, she had the same freckles and brown tresses, although this time her hair was dry and ruthlessly pulled back from her face. She possessed the same sharp nose, the same flat chest. Christ, she had on the same girlish frock, some unfashionably plain thing that came down only to her calves and looked to have seen one too many summers.
But she was far taller now. Lanky, he would have called her, had she been a horse he was contemplating at auction. Her shoulders seemed ill-contained by her clothing, and strained against the seams of her dress. Her expression was different, too. The girl he remembered—although, admittedly, it was a memory distorted by grief and whiskey—had been extraordinary. Full of life, leaking emotion.
The woman seemed better contained.
“Miss Tolbertson, isn’t it?” he asked as he drew up in front of her, because really, under the peculiar circumstances, what else could he say?
Her mouth seemed to work around the words she wanted to say. “You remember my name, Lieutenant?”
“A man retains certain facts regarding near death experiences. The name of his rescuer tends to be one of them.” He looked down at her, and realized he did not have to look very far. Her nose came nigh up to his chin, a s
ingular experience when one considered he was six-foot-two in stocking feet. “And it’s no longer Lieutenant. I sold my commission last year. Please, call me David.”
Her eyes widened. “I hardly think . . . I mean . . . I do not know you.”
“You’ve known me for eleven years. You rescued me from this very spot, when I should have drowned. Formality seems a little pointless, under the circumstances.”
She drew in a deep, audible breath, and then her mouth found a smile that reached her eyes. He recalled that now, too, how one had to search their mind to identify whether her eyes were green or brown or somewhere in between.
“Then you must call me Caroline.” She sent a furtive look in two directions before her gaze came back to rest on him. “It is not as if there is anyone to hear our frightful lack of propriety anyway.” She assessed him in a broad, hazel sweep. “I confess, you have taken me a bit by surprise. I rarely see anyone on this stretch of beach.”
David had not known what to expect on returning to this beach this morning. An epiphany, perhaps. A dark memory of the boy he had once been, and a sharp reminder of the man he must be.
But he had not expected her.
“It is a rather isolated bit of coast. And difficult to reach.” He glanced down to the high hem of her skirts and the sturdy half boots that graced her feet. She had dressed properly for the walk. Practical girl. He was wearing shoes better suited for a stroll along Brighton’s Marine Parade, and a vicious blister had taken up residence on his right heel.
“Why did you never return?” she asked, her voice lower and huskier than the one in his memory.
David considered his answer. After the events of that fateful day, he had returned to nearby Preston where his infantry unit had been stationed. He had been close enough to have come back any time he had wanted.
But he hadn’t wanted. The less he thought of Brighton, and the fewer visual triggers he forced on himself, the easier it had been to go on during those early, guilt-ridden years. He shrugged noncommittally. “I live elsewhere. This is my first visit back since that day.”
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