Stella Cameron

by Fascination

  “What’s happening?” Grace said, panting. The spewing debris sent a swell over her, and she sputtered as she bobbed up.

  “I’m not sure,” Arran admitted. There was no way out. “Probably a cave-in somewhere in the passageway. It’s blocked.”

  “The water may stop rising,” she said, and his gut clenched. Her voice was growing weaker.

  “I’m sure it will,” he told her. “We’ll be all right. Sooner or later one of the servants will think to come down here, and we’ll be found.” Found dead after water was finally seen escaping from the vaults.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Her grip started to slide.

  “Hold on,” Arran ordered. “I’m going to get to the door again. The wood is old. Perhaps it’ll give—or the lock.” Or any other damfool impossible thing.

  His heart hammered, thundered in his ears. Dragging Grace, he made his way through the chilling water. At least the sound of the thrusting current had dulled. He looked at Grace and saw her eyes drifting shut.

  “Grace! Stay awake!” He could not shake her, could not try to kiss or console her. “Grace! Wake up!” Please let him live to kill Mortimer Cuthbert and his evil wife.

  Grace opened her eyes very wide. “I’m sleepy.”

  “I know. It’s the cold and the shock. You must not sleep. I need you, Grace. I need your help.”

  She smiled, and Arran reached the steps.

  Hopeless. With his head touching the trap, the water already washed above his waist.

  The candle went out.

  Arran closed his eyes. The air was growing thinner.

  Thanking God he’d been born with extraordinary strength, Arran hauled Grace over his shoulder. All he could do was keep them both alive for as long as possible.

  Absently he felt in his pocket for another candle, then grimaced, realizing that even if they were not wet, he had no means of lighting one.

  His fingers closed on something long and round, thin and smooth. For an instant his heart almost ceased beating.

  Blanche Wren’s “ingenious” key. The key that opened any lock.

  Very carefully, terrified he would drop it, he eased the precious device out. Anchoring Grace with an arm, he fumbled until he found the keyhole in the darkness and slipped the strange key in.

  It met resistance. The key that had been used to lock them in was still in place. Cursing aloud, he poked and shoved ... and their last hope for life jolted all the way into the lock as it pushed the other key out.

  Arran turned and turned the thin key. Nothing happened. He turned the other way. And he felt the sluggish opening of the latch.

  A roar sounded from somewhere in the earth below. The water bubbled toward his shoulders—and Grace’s head.

  Arran prayed that he could summon one last burst of strength from his sorely tested body, and with a great shove, threw the heavy trap upward with one hand.

  Cradling Grace in his arms like a child, he barely staggered past the final step to the middle chamber. A mighty blast of water followed, sweeping almost instantly to his knees. Struggling, he waded through the darkness with the oozing mass tearing and sucking around him.

  A sodden heap of something that gleamed palely blocked his path. He pushed it with one leg until it rolled heavily away, then he leaned to jerk at the pulleys that controlled the water trap.

  With a mighty clang, the great plate slid down into place again.

  “Thank you, God,” Arran said loudly.

  He made his way from the hell his ancestor’s folly had become until he once more set his feet on the dry stone flags at the base of the great wheel-stair.

  “I told you we’d find a way out,” Grace heard herself say. Disoriented, she looked up at Arran’s jaw—a sharp jaw, dark with the beginnings of a beard. She wriggled and shoved. “Put me down, please. I can walk perfectly well.”

  “Hold your tongue, madam,” he roared.

  Grace turned her mouth down. “We have both had a great trial, Stonehaven. But that does not mean you should shout at me.” He was striding up the stairs to his chambers, jarring her against his chest.

  Arran did not so much as favor her with a glance. Just as well since she could feel anger in him.

  She felt jumpy, excited—afraid not to be afraid anymore. The cavern had been so dark and the water had risen so fast.

  Arran’s black hair, wet and curly, hung loose in a manner that reminded her of a pirate. Some women would be afraid of being carried by a man who looked like a pirate. “I am not afraid.”

  “You no longer have to be afraid. But you have been more afraid than any woman—or man—should ever be.”

  She had an outrageous urge to giggle. “It was horrible.” Stifled laughter erupted as a hiccup. “So horrible. We were meant to drown. Very soon the room would have filled ... We would try ... How could being captured by a pirate seem like anything after that?”

  He kicked open the door to his sitting room and marched to the fireplace. “You are hysterical, madam. I suggest you hold your tongue.”

  “I most certainly shall not hold my tongue.” She tried to push away, but he held her tightly while he stooped to throw coals onto a fire that had burned very low. “I very nearly did not have the use of my tongue at all. I shall certainly not—”

  His hand, clapped over her mouth, reduced Grace to mumbling.

  “They tried to kill us,” he said. His eyes glittered menacingly. “But they failed. And now, finally, we are alone.”

  He was behaving strangely. “I want you to put me down.” Suddenly she was aware of how small she was, and how pathetic in her wet finery. Arran was exceedingly large and strong. He was also wet, but there was nothing pathetic about the figure he made. Grace swallowed. “I said—”

  “I said you are to say nothing.” His shirt clung, transparent, to his chest. Dark hair showed clearly, and the defined lines of his muscles.

  A fine quiver passing through him struck trepidation into Grace. He quivered with energy, with tension. His eyes seemed not quite focused, yet she knew his concentration was centered on her.

  “Are you angry?” she said in a small voice, and felt foolish. “Naturally you are. Forget I—”

  “I almost lost you—just as I almost had you—completely.”

  There was something in his unflinching gaze that suggested she was right to be nervous. “We have to think carefully,” she told him, doing just that herself. “Yes, we had better sit quietly and decide what to do next.”

  “I know what I’m doing next, and I have no intention of sitting quietly, I assure you.”

  Oh, dear, there did seem to be some threat in his words. “The Cuthberts will come,” Grace said, and shuddered. “And Melony. I do not believe she is at all what she appeared.”

  “She is exactly what she appeared to be. You are too trusting, but you will learn better. I shall teach you.”

  “Oh.”

  Quite abruptly, but carefully, he lowered her feet to the floor. “In future you will make no friend without consulting me. You will need no friends for a very long time.” He settled his hands loosely around her neck, and his thumbs brushed back and forth along her jaw.

  “One always needs friends. I know, because I never had any before you.”

  “Now you do have me,” he told her. “Any other friend will be superfluous. And you will have no time to spare away from my needs.”

  “Oh.” Really, she wished she didn’t say that so often. “Well, back to the issue at hand.”

  “I am referring to the issue at hand.”

  “They will come, Stonehaven. We must be prepared for them. Lock the door.”

  “My name is Arran. They will not come. And the door is locked ... for quite different reasons.”

  “Oh.”

  “My cousin and his female accomplices will come nowhere near this room. They plan to wait until morning. Then, when McWallop announces we are nowhere to be found, they will appear surprised and concerned. There will be a grea
t search, and eventually our disappearance will be pronounced a great unsolved mystery. At that point Mortimer will be appointed administrator of my estates. We will speak more of all this later.”

  “You do appear angry.”

  “I am angry.” His narrowed gaze rested on her mouth. “I want to be with you, to lie with you.”

  Her stomach made a quick little jump. “Is that ... is that a euphemism, Arran? For Sit with Me?”

  He tipped up his chin and looked down at her. “Give me patience,” he said. “I have waited longer than any man should wait—endured more in the time I’ve known you than any man should endure. Come with me.”

  As he caught her wrist, she held up her other hand. “Arran! Arran, I am beginning to think you have not been honest.

  “Come with me. I’m about to be absolutely honest.” His eyes moved over her.

  Hot. He looked at her body, and his gaze was heated. Her sodden gown and robe stuck to her in places she wished she could hide.

  “You failed to tell me the truth,” she said weakly, backing rapidly away from him.

  He followed with measured steps. “Your clothes are wet. Take them off.”

  Her heart pounded. “No.”

  “Take them off.”

  Grace sidestepped behind a chair. “That will make you angrier.”

  “I think not.”

  “I’m certain I’m right.” Grace vacated her spot behind the chair and dodged for the writing table—with Arran closing the space between them as slowly or as rapidly as he chose. “If I am undressed before you, your principles will be compromised.”

  “Hold your tongue, madam.”

  “You have already said that.” She made a run for it but didn’t cover a yard before he caught her waist and hauled her to sit upon the writing table. “You are overbearing,” she told him. Straightening her back, she crossed her arms over her breasts, glanced down, and lowered one hand to rest in her lap—her very revealed lap.

  “You fascinate me, imp,” Arran said. He lifted her heavy, damp hair away from her shoulders and studied her carefully. “So delicate, but so strong. Yes. Yes, I think we shall do very well together.”

  “I shall not continue to be subtle,” Grace announced. “We have not already done absolutely everything that is done by a man and a woman. In private. Have we?”

  “God, in heaven ...”

  “There is no need to speak the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “I assure you I spoke from the heart.”

  “We haven’t, have we? Not everything? That’s done in private? Between a man and a woman? When they are completely alone? There, I have asked you.”

  “You have asked me.”

  “What else is there?”

  Arran parted her knees and stood close to her against the table. Grace had to raise her chin to see his face. Shrugging, he worked off his coat, dropped it to the floor, and took off his waistcoat. “I don’t think I shall ever wear those again,” he said, undoing his shirt. “It is quite possible that I am about to embark on a long period when I do not wear anything at all.”

  Her stomach fluttered. “Kindly be direct with me.”

  “I am direct. And I intend to be more so.” His shirt went the way of his coat and waistcoat.

  He was big, overwhelmingly big. The hair on his chest made an intriguing pattern, wide over the broadest part, narrow over the narrowest part—that part where it disappeared into his trousers.

  “They’re wet, aren’t they?”

  She jumped. “What?”

  “My trousers. You are noting that they are wet and should be removed.”

  “Well, no—at least, perhaps not.”

  With one hand he cupped her bottom on the table and steadied himself whilst tugging off his boots.

  Grace grew hot.

  He smiled at her, a smile that reminded her of a tiger ... a tiger who had yet to eat the meal he’d waited too long to eat. Now his trousers received his attention.

  “Oh, I don’t think—”

  “Don’t think,” he ordered, and continued until the trousers lay atop the rest.

  Grace raised her face sharply, to be confronted by the altogether unsettling spectacle of Arran’s mockingly intense stare.

  Ignoring her flapping hands, he untied her robe and pulled it off. He lifted her against his very bare chest and slid the robe away.

  “Grace.” He anchored her face between his hands. “We have not done everything that happens between a man and a woman—his wife—in private. We are going to do it now. At first you may not enjoy every moment of the experience, but I promise that you will soon become addicted.”

  She frowned. “How do you know?”

  “Because I already know how passionate you are. You are ready for what we are about to do.”

  “But if I’m not going to enjoy—”

  His mouth, sealed to hers, shut off the words. He kissed her deeply as if applying his brand, making his mark.

  “I am chilled, Grace,” he said when he finally raised his head. “Dry me. Rub me, Grace.”

  Deep places, nameless places, pulsed again as he had made them pulse before. “I have nothing to rub you with.”

  He laughed and pulled a stool from beneath the table. “This is how you shall start.” The scanty nightrail was jerked up about her hips. Arran braced a foot on the stool and lifted Grace astride his thigh. “Yes. Oh, yes, I think I like the way that feels. Do you, Grace?”

  She drew in a sharp little breath and scrabbled for his arms. Her eyes widened. “It feels ... Oh, it feels!”

  “I quite agree.” He covered her breasts and squeezed gently.

  Grace made a grab for his wrists, almost fell, and clutched his naked shoulders instead.

  Arran laughed deep in his throat. “You had best hang on, imp. This stuff is so thin, it is quite dry now.” He fingered her nightrail. “I don’t think I like it anymore.”

  Instantly he bowed his head and licked the fabric over a nipple, opened his mouth wide and sucked until the fine lawn was soaked. “Mm. Wet again. Much better.” He nibbled and nipped at first one, then the other breast. “Lovely. But you aren’t rubbing me.”

  A blaze of white heat shot from her breasts into her belly. “I ... I can’t.”

  “You will.”

  He rocked her back and forth on his thigh until she cried out. “It’s ... Oh, it’s ...”

  “I quite agree.” His voice sounded so strange now. “That’s what I want for you, my sweet one. You are going to learn the power you have—to take and to give.”

  Rocking, rocking, rocking. A sharp ache started between her legs. Grace panted and felt perspiration pop out on her brow and her back.

  “Touch me,” Arran said huskily. “Hold me.”

  The tensing in those mysterious places drew tight. Shaking steadily, Grace stroked his shoulders.

  “Not there,” Arran said. “The part of me that so fascinated you before. Hold me there, sweet Grace.”

  She was afraid.

  Arran looked into her eyes—and ripped the nightrail from neckline to hem.

  Grace gasped aloud.

  “Very soon you will hold me—and do a great deal more.”

  The nightrail went the way of the rest of their clothes, and without another word, Arran shifted Grace farther onto the table, tipped her to her back, and pulled her knees over his shoulders.

  “Arran!”

  She was open to him. He could see all that should be kept hidden. And he leaned over her, swaying a little. The part of him he wanted her to hold jabbed insistently against the place between her legs that was embarrassingly moist and achy.

  “I do not think this is appropriate,” she said, listening to the wobble in her voice.

  “Anything we do is appropriate,” he told her. “Tonight we almost died together. Now we will celebrate living together. And we will celebrate it again and again. Let me give to you first, Grace.”

  He spoke so strangely sometimes.

  Arra
n went to his knees between her thighs.

  “What—”

  “Hush.” He reached to cover her breasts, to pinch and roll her nipples until she writhed.

  “Arran!”

  He did not reply. He could not. His mouth was there. His tongue was there. Flicking, nuzzling.

  “No! Arran!” The burning darts became searing fire. “Arran!” She found his hair and tugged. “Ooh! Ooh. Oh, Arran.”

  Wave after wave of rippling pleasure burst, spread outward, upward. Her legs felt boneless, and her arms, her whole body.

  Then he was on his feet again, still holding her helpless by the legs, and leaning to kiss her with violent possessiveness.

  And whilst he kissed her, she became aware that even as the throbbing at her center faded, he parted slippery folds and eased a finger inside.

  “Why are you doing that?” She clamped down with muscles of which she’d never before been aware. “Why?”

  “To help ease the way, sweet one.” With gentle persistence, he used more fingers, and Grace bit her bottom lip hard. His fingertips stroked higher and she twisted, found his hand and held it to her.

  “You are right for me, Grace. And ready.”

  Arran withdrew his fingers and jutted his hips closer. He pressed that heavy, hard part of him to her body.

  “I want you now, Grace.”

  “Yes.” Without knowing what he wanted, she knew she wanted it, too.

  The pressure increased and he began to push into her body. Velvety smooth, but so large, so hard. “There will be a little pain, but not too much, I hope.” His breath hissed between his teeth. “You are very small.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “I think I know about everything now. Perhaps there is no need to continue.”

  “Grace,” he cried, and the impossible occurred, he slid all of that great hardness inside her.

  “It burns.” She pushed on his chest and felt something break inside her. “Arran!”

  “Hold on, sweet one,” he said against her ear when she flailed, trying to stop him from hurting her. “It will soon pass.”

  She panted, attempted to fill her lungs, and the pain subsided.