Swept Away

by Marsha Canham

  Slowly, her eyes rose to meet his, and in the prolonged, breathless instant that followed, she wanted to tell him how very wrong he was. She did believe him. And although he made it exceedingly difficult to justify, she did trust him. Far more than she should. She had been raised not to think, not to act, not to believe anything that was not dictated to her over her morning chocolate. In turn it was expected that she would be the dutiful daughter, the obedient wife and mother who would subsequently raise her own daughters to parrot the rigid standards of behaviour dictated by her superior class. But in less than a week, her faith in all that social stricture had been shaken. Florence Widdicombe had shaken it, for she was proof that someone could break the rules and live quite happily ever after. Emory Althorpe had shaken it. He had shattered every rule, broken every covenant, scoffed at every social protocol...yet even helpless, wounded, and lacking any memories of who and what he was, he was more alive, exciting and appealing to her than all the staid, draconian Winston Perrys in England.

  She wanted to believe him. She did believe him. And because she believed him the full measure of her loneliness and confusion passed like a shadow through her eyes. Emory saw it. Even more, he could see that by admitting it, even just to herself, she felt more lost and isolated than ever before.

  His eyes narrowed a fraction and it was enough to turn her head away in embarrassment, but she was not as quick to move. When he stood, she was still beside him. When he grasped her shoulders and forced her to look up at him again, she could only shake her head in a feeble attempt to deny the emotions that were suddenly raging through her veins.

  “Anna--” He cradled her face between his hands. A muscle shivered in his cheek as he studied the melting blue depths of her eyes, the trembling pink bow of her mouth. “Anna...forgive me for what I have done to you.”

  “You have done nothing I did not let you do willingly and freely.”

  “Ahh, but given the smallest chance, I would have,” he whispered. “Another moment or two in front of that window, with the lightning outside and the heat inside...”

  Her lashes fluttered closed with the sensation of his thumb brushing gently at the wetness that had gathered at the corner of her eye. “Given another moment," she whispered, "I...I might not have stopped you.”

  His smile wavered, fading altogether as his body reacted to the tremors in her voice. “You don’t mean that. You would have wakened this morning hating me.”

  “I do mean it.” Her eyes were huge and fierce with conviction when she opened them. “I mean it now,” she added in a faltering whisper. “I...I...”

  The pads of his fingers brushed quickly over her lips, preventing her from finishing the thought. He was not even certain he wanted to know what that thought might be. Not here, not now at any rate. He saw the subsequent movement in her throat as she swallowed the rest of her words and he felt the warmth rising in her skin, burning with the shame of showing him just how vulnerable she was. He leaned forward, pressing his lips over the residue of a tear. He kissed her eyes, her temples, the pink tip of her nose. Her hair was in disarray, catching the lamplight on its dark, tumbled strands and his hands moved almost with a will of their own to bury themselves in the silky waves, drawing her closer, holding her while his mouth covered hers and urged her lips to part, to let him in.

  She did it willingly, tilting her head higher, feeling no compunction whatsoever to pretend she did not want him to kiss her, or that she did not want to kiss him in return. Her one lingering concession to modesty was that she did not groan aloud with longing when her hands slid up the bare heat of his chest and curled around his neck. In the end, the sounds all came from him: a throaty surrender when her body pressed eagerly up against his, a husked, breathless curse when her mouth would not settle for anything less than his very best effort.

  “Stop me,” he gasped, his hands trembling around fistfuls of her hair. “Stop me or I will not be able to stop myself.”

  She pulled herself higher and wrapped her arms tighter and kissed him like she had never kissed a man before, never known it was possible to kiss, with her whole body and soul.

  Emory’s groan turned deep and guttural, his lips demanding and possessive. Her breasts were crushed against his chest, and his hands moved restlessly to explore what had kept him awake through most of the night, but there were too many barriers, too much silk, too many fashionably pert satin ribbons. He pushed aside the tumbled waves of her hair, his fingers searching blindly in the delicate pleats a moment before he found the upper lacings. A few quick tugs and the gathered folds of the bodice were slack enough for him to ease the sleeves of the dress and underlying chemise off the top of her shoulders. A further stroke of his hand brushed the flimsy shields down to her waist and he breathed another oath, soft and warm against the satiny smooth flesh as he dragged his mouth downward and claimed the crinkled pink crown of her nipple.

  Anna gasped and arched her head back. Her fingers curled into his hair and her body swayed with the sensations that poured through her, a flood of sweet, hot shivers that responded to every rolling thrust of his tongue. She felt deeper, more urgent contractions in her belly and between her thighs, but it still came without warning--the hot, shuddering rush of exquisite pleasure. Desire for more spread through her body and weakened her knees; it brought her down beside him, then beneath him as he lowered her onto the crush of her own skirts. His lips continued to plunder her breasts, then moved lower, following the path his hands blazed as he pushed her gown lower to bare her hips, her thighs. When the last filmy layer of silk was tossed aside, he lingered over the smooth plane of her belly, his breath as hot as his mouth where it teased the indented vee above her thighs. His hands skimmed down to her knees, coaxing her limbs gently apart, wide enough for him to ease his fingers, then his mouth into the dark patch of curls.

  Anna did not know where to look or what to do with her hands. The shock of feeling his fingers sliding back and forth over her flesh was devastating enough; the realization that it was his mouth now, and his tongue lapping at her, devouring her like she was some exotic delicacy nearly sent her skin up in flames. Surely this had to be the ultimate violation of every moral and chaste rule that governed the behavior of a proper young lady, but for some inexplicable reason she wanted to laugh out loud with the joy of it. It was pleasure. Simple, raw, sensuous pleasure with a magnificent rogue who saw no shame in her cries and who did his very best to elicit more.

  When the pleasure became almost too acute to bear, she tried to pull herself away, but his hands were to catch her, to hold her by the hips and brace her while he proved she could indeed withstand more. His tongue lashed furiously at her few remaining shreds of modesty and Anna did not even have a chance to draw a full breath before the light and heat and fury burst within her. It sent her arching up off the floor, her hands clawing at his shoulders, his neck. It sent her fingers twisting frantically into the waves of his hair, holding on for dear life as streak after streak of unimagined ecstasy brought her writhing and lurching against him.

  When the tumult passed, she lay quivering and shaken beneath him. He lifted his mouth from her body, but only for the few brief seconds it took to strip away his boots and breeches. Then he was back, his lips chasing the shivers that raced across the surface of her belly while his hands stroked and caressed and urged her thighs to part again, this time to welcome the heat and heaviness of his own naked need.

  Emory forced himself to move slowly, to introduce himself inch by agonizing inch. She was lush enough, slippery enough to accept the intruding pressure with a hardly more than a startled gasp. Yet she clutched at his arms, his shoulders, even his hair, until he began to fear that perhaps she was too small, too frightened to accommodate something so swollen and inflexible, so rigid he almost did not recognize it as part of his own body.

  In some ways, he shared her thrill and uncertainty. Lacking any memories of previous experiences to fall back on, he did not know if all women tasted this sweet or
felt this sleek and luscious, if it was pure instinct or something else urging him just to thrust and thrust and thrust until there was nothing between them but friction and heat. The reality that he had barely eased half of himself inside her, that she was whimpering softly in his ear, made him stop and gather himself before tearing into her like a plundering barbarian.

  His stomach clenched, his whole body shuddering with the effort it took just to calm himself and count his heartbeats, one thunderous measure at a time. She was a virgin. Of course she was. She was tense, tight as a fist and he had her on the hard wooden floor like a twopenny strumpet, with her thighs spread and her eyes undoubtedly glazed with fear over the size of what he was trying to push inside her.

  “Dear God...”

  “Wh-what is it? What is wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he rasped. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Am I hurting you?”

  “Hurting me?” He lifted his head off her shoulder and gazed down with a combination of disbelief and wonder. “I am barely holding on by the skin of my teeth, trying not to make a complete damned fool of myself, and you want to know if you are hurting me?”

  Her eyes were indeed glazed, but not with fear over any discomfort he was causing her. They were bigger and bluer than any ocean he had ever seen, and were looking up at him almost apologetically as she gently untwined her fingers from his hair. It was only then that he understood. She was afraid she had tugged too hard on the bruised back of his scalp and the pain was what had made him stop and pull back.

  He laughed in sheer self defence then kissed her full and hard on the mouth. “No. You are not hurting me. But you are,” he added gently, “killing me.”

  “I am?”

  “You are a virgin, are you not?”

  An instant, hot flush darkened her cheeks and he kissed her again, quickly. “No. No, I...I was not asking, I was...I was clumsily trying to explain why I had to stop. Why I am being... cautious...and trying not to hurt you.”

  She curled her lip between her teeth and considered what he said, weighing it against the swollen, throbbing presence inside her. “You do seem very...big,” she admitted on a whisper. “And it does feel so...strange...that you could actually fit inside me like this. That it would feel so warm and so...so...full.”

  The innocent admission was too much for Emory and he groaned. He slid his hands down to her waist, then around beneath her hips and he lifted her, breaching her so hard and fast she had no time to register anything but a little cry of surprise. A ripple of tension passed through her body, but he only held her closer and buried himself deeper until there was nothing between them but damp skin and crushed curls. Nothing but heat and a rising sense of urgency that bade him whisper reassurances against her mouth, against the strained arch her throat.

  He need not have worried. The sting of penetration was all but forgotten as her body shuddered and melted around him. Waves of tiny contractions began to turn all the tension inward so that she gripped him harder and tighter while she adjusted to his size and thickness. The pleasure began to build again, swirling in upon itself, coiling around him in a series of fierce little clutches that had him gasping, shaking like a schoolboy on his first foray into the realm of sin. Her entire body began to burn with an intuitive impatience that made her tilt her hips higher, wriggle herself closer, implore him by her actions if not her ragged breaths to move, to do something to ease the terrible, wonderful pressure.

  Emory complied with his hands, his body. He began to move inside her with slow stretching strokes, displaying a level of restraint he did not know he possessed. He slid into the soft, sucking wetness as deeply as he could bear it before he withdrew, judging the impact of each thrust by the way she moved her body to receive him, by the soft sounds of awe that vibrated in her throat. She turned liquid around him, molten and silky, and he started to surge into her with greater speed, greater power, more ferocious hunger, knowing by the way she trembled and pushed herself feverishly into each rhythmic beat that the shattering release of a shared orgasm was just a breath away. It was there, flaring white-hot and brilliant, just a stroke...two...

  In unison they rose to meet it. Anna clutched at his body as the spasms began to tear through her, her flesh contracting around his so tightly all the restraint and control in the world could not have stopped the ecstasy from streaking through him in sweet, hot waves. He stiffened and arched, his hips an aggressive blur of movement that halted, suddenly, on a final plunging thrust. Their cries blended together as he poured himself into the deepest part of her, feeling her muscles contract and squeeze until she had wrung every shiver, every throb from his flesh. When the initial wave was spent, he felt an even stronger surge pushing and pulling at his body, driven by the sight of Annaleah's body writhing and twisting from the pleasure.

  “Wait,” she cried. “Stop!”

  He bared his teeth in a snarl and shook his head, unwilling to stop, unable to stop or to believe she could ask it of him now, not now when he was drowning in her sweet heat.

  “Do you not hear it?” she gasped. “Listen!”

  Blood was pounding through his veins, drumming in his ears, and if he could have made a coherent sound he would have asked her what she possibly expected him to hear when his entire body was screaming like an open nerve. But then it came to him and he blinked the blindness out of his eyes. He turned his head and his gaze flew to the window and with a single fluid motion that was as breathless as any that had gone before, he pulled out of her and was on his feet, moving with catlike speed across the room to extinguish both lamps.

  No sooner were they smothered in darkness than the authoritative clumping of a dozen or more booted feet passed by on the street below. Emory went to the window and rubbed a circle in the grime while Anna wobbled to her knees, holding a fistful of crumpled clothing up to shield her nakedness.

  “What is it?”

  “Soldiers,” he said. “A entire bloody detachment from the look of it.”

  “Soldiers?” The word was scarcely a breath. “What do they want? They could not possibly be looking for me already!”

  “I would not want to wager the fate of my soul on it.” He hurried over to where he had draped his greatcoat over the foot of the bed. While Anna watched in increasing dread, he took a pistol out of one of the deep pockets and checked to insure it was primed.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “They appear to be starting their search at the far end of the street and with luck, it will take them a few minutes to work their way here to the inn.”

  “But what are you going to do?”

  He glanced at her as he reached for his drawers and breeches. “I am not going to trust the landlord to ignore a thousand pound reward.”

  She glanced down, her nude body pale against the shadows. Quickly she separated her chemise from her dress, pulling both garments over her head and fumbling with the drawstrings around her bodice and waist. Her arms were shaking almost too much to accomplish the simple task, although she could see she was not alone in her predicament. Emory seemed to be having difficulty buttoning his breeches and when he saw Anna watching, he frowned and turned aside.

  “It doesn’t just go away as easily as all that,” he muttered.

  No, it doesn’t, she thought, barely able to keep her teeth from chattering in the sudden chill that swept through her. There was blood mingled with the pearly spill on her thighs, proof that something was, indeed gone, but where she should have felt shame and humiliation, she felt only pride and a newfound awareness of her own sexuality.

  She noticed more blood on her hand and wrist and realized that Emory’s arm was bleeding again. A smeared trickle of red ran from the wound to his elbow, threatening to drip onto the floor. She fetched the two large handkerchiefs she had found in the haversack and folded them into a bandage.

  “Keep still,” she ordered when he tried to scowl her away. “The shirt you were wearing is ruined, and you only have one spare in your hav
ersack.”

  “I did not pack this morning with an eye to comfort.”

  “Well,” she wrapped and tied the bandage in place, “I am sure we will be able to manage without extra clothing for a day or two, but how I shall get along with only one shoe is another matter entirely.”

  “We?”

  “I am going with you.”

  “You absolutely are not.”

  “I absolutely am.”

  “Anna--”

  “And if you try to stop me, or order me to stay behind reading a foolish play about forest nymphs, I shall lean out the window the moment you leave and scream at the top of my lungs.”

  “You would not do that.”

  “Yes I would. My father knows some very good solicitors in London. If you are innocent, they will be able to prove it.”

  He grasped her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. “This is not a parlor debate, Annaleah. Those are real soldiers with real guns and they intend to kill me, not take me to court, if they get the chance.”

  “Then we mustn’t give them the chance, must we,” she said softly. “And besides, at the moment they are not searching for you, they are searching for me: A terrified, kidnapped heiress who they believe has been snatched off the street by some nefarious brigand of unknown origin.”

  “I don’t--”

  “There is no earthly reason they should suspect it was you. Not yet anyway; not until they have searched everywhere and found no one tied to any chairs awaiting the delivery of a ransom note. Was that not your goal all along? To keep them busy searching for a stolen heiress while you slipped away unnoticed? If so, it will be a very short distraction if they find me in the next ten minutes. I doubt you would get farther than the first crossroad.

  “On the other hand,” she added, shoving her arms into her spencer, “I would happily wager the fate of my soul that we could walk out the front door of this inn, arm in arm like a soldier and his wife and they would not glance at us twice.”