Looking up at him, at the starkly handsome, dark angel's face diat legions of women before her had certainly swooned over, Susannah acknowledged herself for what she was—a plain woman, well past the first blush of youth, who was so lacking in attractiveness that she had never even had a beau. Her body was overwhelmingly ripe, so much so that, in the years before she had learned to hide it, it had elicited shocked stares whenever she had ventured out without a cloak. Her face was as unremarkable as a cabbage.
She waited, trembling, for him to turn away in disgust. Or, worse than that, to say something very, very kind as he sought to spare both himself and her feelings.
His eyes had grown very dark as they lingered on her breasts. By the time they moved over the rest of her body, then lifted to meet her eyes, they were almost as black as the night outside.
"By God, you're beautiful," he said in a harsh, grating voice that she could just barely hear. "But then, I knew you would be."
"Beautiful? Me?" Dumbfounded, she looked up at him suspiciously. His hands still held hers. He squeezed her fingers, then released them, a curious crooked smile twisting his mouth.
"Gorgeous," he said, his hands going to his neckcloth.
With a few deft motions he untied it and tossed it on the floor.
"Exquisite," he added, unbuttoning the buttons she had so recently reattached to his waistcoat, then sending that garment flying as well.
"Breathtaking." He shrugged out of his shirt.
"Sublime." He hopped from foot to foot as he pulled off his shoes.
"Sublime? Oh, Ian! You're teasing me!" Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Susannah wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth. Bare now except for his breeches and the white swathe of bandages around his chest, he peeled off his stockings. His wide shoulders were thick with muscle, his broad chest shadowed with curling black hair. His abdomen was ridged and hard-looking, his waist and hips narrow. Then, as his hands moved to the buttons on his breeches, Susannah averted her eyes. The rest of his person must go unas- sessed.
"Teasing you?" He sat down beside her on the bed, one arm sliding around her back. In the one brief, sidelong glance she managed before embarrassment overcame her, Susannah saw that he was naked. Magnificently naked .. .
"No, Susannah, I am not teasing you," he whispered as he pressed a tiny, stirring kiss to the pulse point just below her ear. His hand was doing something behind her back. As her hair loosened, aided by his fingers threading through the thick mass, she realized that he had untied the ribbon that bound her braid. Surrounded by a tawny cape of cascading curls, she watched as he pulled back a little to run his eyes over her. She blushed, hotly, one hand moving to cling to his where it rested on her waist, but she did not try to cover herself. The glitter in his eyes told her that he wanted her. Whether he was teasing or not, that glitter was enough for her.
His hand came up to cup and weigh a breast. His thumb ran over her nipple. Susannah caught her breath as his touch shot through her body like a lightning bolt. Her nipple hardened embarrassingly under his hand.
"Beautiful," he said thickly, watching. His hand tightened on her waist, the hand that had been caressing her breast rose to tip up her chin, and he was kissing her again.
She loved the way he kissed. Intoxicated, Susannah's head fell back. Her arms encircled his neck. A ribbon bound his hair, too, at his nape. Susannah felt indescribably wanton as she tugged it free and then slid her fingers into his crisp black hair. He lowered her to the mattress, then came down beside her so that she lay flat on her back with him on his side looming over her. Susannah's eyes closed as he pressed hot kisses to her lids, her cheeks, her temples. Trembling, her mind emptied of everything except the raw need of her own body that was threatening now to rage out of control. As his hands stroked over her breasts and belly and thighs, she arched her back. His touch was almost unbearably gentle against her overheated skin. Deep inside her, in the darkest, most secret regions of her heart, she had yearned for this—a man to love her, a man to put his hands on her breasts, and kiss her mouth, and initiate her into the secrets of carnal love.
How she had hungered after carnal love—and Ian! They were now inextricably bound together in her mind. Whatever came of this night's work—and Susannah refused to think about that until the morrow—she would be unrepentant. What she and he were doing might be a sin, but to go to her grave without ever experiencing this glorious bursting passion would be an even greater one.
His fingers wandered over her belly, explored her navel, found the soft nest of dark brown curls. Susannah went perfectly still for an instant as he delved between her thighs. He touched the scalding center of her, and she cried out.
Immediately his other hand was on the back of her head, pressing her face into his shoulder.
"Shhh," he whispered. Her mouth opened against his skin and, half-mad with wanting him, she bit down on the bunched muscle of his shoulder. He went momentarily rigid.
"Damn," he said. "Ah, damn."
She didn't even need his knee sliding between her own to spread her legs wide. Reacting out of an instinct older than time, she opened to him like a flower. Both his legs were between hers, and she could feel the burning hardness of him against her soft inner thigh. He was panting, his breaths ragged in her ear, and his fingers as he slid his hand down to stroke the hot, damp flesh between her legs seemed to tremble.
Afraid she might hurt him, Susannah stopped biting his shoulder and instead pressed quavering, clinging kisses to the place where his neck and shoulder joined.
"Damn," he said again. Sounding as if he was having to force the words out, he muttered, "This might hurt. I meant to take more time. . . ."
Even as he groaned the warning into her ear, he was positioning himself above her. The hand that had been driving her crazy slid behind her to close over her rump, and he squeezed. Susannah gasped, arching up against him as he first prodded her with his shaft, then eased himself inside.
It didn't hurt. That was her first giddy thought. It didn't hurt, though it seemed as if he might be stretching her a bit.
Instead it felt wonderful, marvelous, better than anything she could have imagined, so good that she couldn't lie still beneath him but had to . . .
"Ian! Oh! Ian!" Her nails dug into his shoulders, and her pained cry was muffled against his chest as, with a single hard shove, he broke through her maidenhead and thrust himself deep inside her.
20
"It's over. The hard part's over." Ian kissed her ear.
Susannah could feel his arms trembling with the effort of holding himself still. He was wedged deep inside her, his big body hunched over hers, which had gone stiff with surprise at the sudden sharp pain of his invasion. She had known that, for a female, the loss of virginity could be excruciating. Whenever a group of women got together, at church or at social gatherings or on someone's porch, the pain of mating and childbirth were popular topics. So she had known—but not known.
Imagination was no substitute for reality.
Already the pain was fading, to be replaced by no more than a slight soreness. She grew more and more aware of her bent, spread knees and his body lying between them, of his arms shaking as they wrapped her close to his chest, of the slight abrasion of his stubbled cheek pressing into her neck and the heat and ragged pant of his breathing in her ear. He was inside her, very much inside her. She could feel the huge swollen length of him filling her.
This, then, was carnal love.
Her arms slid around his neck, and she kissed the sandpapery side of his cheek.
He gave a gasp as if he were dying. His arms tightened around her body until she thought the breath must be forced from her lungs. Pressing fierce, hot kisses into the side of her neck, he began to move his hips.
For a moment, just a moment as he pulled out and then drove deep again, Susannah lay as if frozen. Then, as he repeated the process and repeated it again, fiercely, scalding bursts of pleasure washed over her in waves. What
he was doing to her was beyond anything she had ever imagined, far more earthy and intimate and shocking. It was every dark, shameful facet of the tales from the marriage bed she had heard by way of whisper and innuendo for years brought to life, and worse. Yet she gloried in it. If that meant there was something morally wrong with her, then so be it. For the moment at least, she could only cling to the hard male shoulders that bunched and strained above her, and rejoice.
He kissed her mouth hotly, slid his lips down her throat, over her collarbone, up the soft slope of her right breast—and then closed his mouth, very gently, around her nipple and began to suck.
Susannah moaned, arching her back as ecstasy exploded within her. At her response he shivered, tightening his grip on her. Then, in a quick series of convulsive heaves, he thrust into her again and again and again.
"Oh, God!" With that bit of blasphemy on his lips, he drove deep inside her one final time, then shuddered and went still.
Later, a long time later, he drew in a deep, shaken breath, lifted his head from its pillow on her shoulder, pressed a quick kiss to her mouth, and rolled off her. Susannah should have been relieved to be free of the hot, damp weight of him. But she was not. She felt both vulnerable and bereft, and more naked than she ever had felt in her life.
Glancing sideways, she saw that he lay sprawled on his back with his arms flung over his head, seemingly unconcerned about what he exposed. Unable to help herself, she dared a quick glance down his body, then, blushing scarlet, promptly averted her eyes. If being blatantly, unconcernedly nude in her presence did not disturb him— and it certainly didn't appear to—then his nudity shouldn't bother her, either, not after the unbelievable intimacies they had shared.
But it did. She couldn't help it, but it did.
His eyes were closed, and she thanked the Lord for that. Moving stealthily, she rolled off the edge of the bed, found her nightgown on the floor, and pulled it over her head. Her body was sticky with his sweat and her own, and what she really craved more than anything else at that moment was a bath. But that would have to wait until she was alone. More important at the moment was that she cover herself. She did not think she could face him otherwise.
With the savage pleasure of their coupling already fading into memory, she found herself growing increasingly uneasy. What did one say to a man after such an experience? More to the point, what did she, Susannah Redmon, plain spinster daughter of a minister, say to Ian Connelly, her sinfully handsome bound man, after he had just finished deflowering her with her full consent and cooperation in her own bed?
She could not call him Connelly after this or step back into the role of mistress to his servant. Not that she had ever really managed to assume that position with him, of course. He was, in his own way, as obstinate and ornery as she was herself, and he had been distinctly unservile from the first moment she had laid eyes on him.
A soft snore from the bed drew her gaze back to him. Disbelievingly, she realized that he had fallen asleep. Relieved not to have to deal with him until she had had time to compose herself and yet oddly affronted that he could just fall asleep after so momentous an event, she swept her eyes over him, conscious of a craven urge just to let him lie. She could dress and slip down to the kitchen and not have to deal with him at all. But of course she could not do that. The sky outside the window was already brightening. Soon it would be dawn, and the household would be up and about.
She could not let their bound man be found naked and snoring in her bed.
"Ian." Susannah leaned over him, prodded his shoulder. Her touch was tentative, almost shy, and it did no good whatsoever. The insensitive lout snored on. She prodded him harder, then shoved his shoulder good and proper with the flat of her hand. His snore suspended in mid-rattle. "Ian, wake up!"
Without warning his eyes opened, and he blinked as if he could not quite remember where he was. Then, discovering Susannah leaning over him, his mouth curved into a slow, sensual smile.
"You were worth waiting for. I knew you would be," he said, or at least that was what she thought he said, though the words didn't make much sense. She guessed he must still be half asleep. "Come back to bed."
He reached up and caught her hand. Susannah tugged it free.
"No, I . . ."
To her consternation, one of the roosters suddenly crowed outside her window. A second rooster followed suit. Unbelievable as it seemed, it was dawn already, and her father and sisters would be stirring.
"You have to go," she said urgently, turning away from him to snatch his clothes from the floor and then almost throwing them at him. "Hurry!"
He sat up, shaking his head and running his fingers through his hair as he ignored the garments that littered the bed around him. "Listen, Susannah, I . . ."
"Hush!" Frowning, putting a finger to her lips, Susannah moved to stand before the door. There was no lock on it, because there had never, until now, been a need for one. Though she was customarily the first one up, it was not inconceivable that one of her sisters, missing the usual sounds of Susannah dressing and going downstairs to start breakfast, might rise and investigate. At the thought of being discovered in such a fix by Sarah Jane or Mandy or Em, or, God forbid, her father, Susannah's blood ran cold.
Seeing her agitation, Ian grimaced but heaved himself off the bed and began to dress. Susannah had never watched a man clothe himself before, and for all her anxiety she was fascinated. It was quick work, as he had far fewer garments to concern himself with than did she or any other woman of her acquaintance. In a matter of minutes he was standing on one leg and then the other as he pulled on his shoes, and then he shrugged into his waistcoat. He draped his neckcloth around his neck, and his hair ribbon was tucked into a pocket.
Decent now, he came toward her, moving quietly but purposefully, till he stood before her. There was nowhere Susannah could go to escape him, though the urge to run was strong in her. It was all she could do to look at him, knowing the knowledge of the few hours just past was there in his eyes. Only in moments like these, when she stood so close to him, did she remember how very tall he was in comparison with herself. She tilted up her chin, trying to quell the sudden renegade quickening in her loins as her eyes moved over his wide chest, barely clad in the opened shirt and unbuttoned waistcoat, then slid past his broad shoulders to his face. Impossible to believe that she had lain naked with him less than half an hour before. The crisp chest hair that curled over the edge of his bandage had rubbed over her naked breasts; she had dug her fingers into those hard-muscled shoulders, and, unbelievably, bitten them. And his mouth—had she really passionately kissed that beautiful mouth?
When her gaze finally met his she was scarlet. Amusement twinkled at her from his gray eyes, though he was too wise to risk a smile.
A sound from the hall outside the door made her stiffen. She glanced around in alarm.
"I'm going," he whispered, sounding resigned. Before she realized what he meant to do, he cupped his hands around her face and bent his head to kiss her mouth. His kiss was quick, hard, and unexpectedly passionate. Susannah shivered as her hands rose to grip his wrists, and she closed her eyes. He pulled away, turned his back, and was gone. By the time Susannah opened her eyes again, he had disappeared into the rapidly lightening gray of the dawn.
Twenty minutes later she was washed, dressed, and in the kitchen. To her consternation, Sarah Jane was there before her, shaping the dough Susannah had left to rise the night before into loaves.
Susannah checked for an instant as her sister looked at her gravely, then forced herself to move on into the room as though nothing at all were amiss. If her cheeks were hot, why, she could only hope Sarah Jane wouldn't notice.
"What are you doing up?" she asked as casually as she could. Fortunately, the fire needed building. Dropping to one knee before it, she was able to turn her back to Sarah Jane as she fed the few sticks left from the previous night into its hungry orange mouth. She straightened to poui- water into the kettle and set it o
n its crane over the fire, all the while keeping her face averted from Sarah Jane.
"I heard you come in last night. It was very late, and when you didn't get up on time this morning I thought you might be tired."
So Sarah Jane had heard her come in. What else had her sister heard? The possibilities made Susannah squirm.
"Mary O'Brien took a bad turn last night. I did what I could for her, but I fear it wasn't much. She is dying, I think." Susannah, left with no excuse to linger, turned away from the now-crackling fire and came to fetch the bread from her sister. She would act as if all were as usual if it killed her, which, considering her guilty conscience, it just might.
"Don't say so! What a tragedy it would be should those children lose their mother! The youngest is only two years old."
"I know." Sliding the bread into the oven, Susannah felt a little better. If Sarah Jane possessed any damning knowledge, she surely would have revealed it before now. " Tis as God wills, though."
"Yes."
A step on the porch outside made Susannah stiffen. But it was only Ben, entering with an armful of firewood.
"Dump it into the basket, please."
Ben complied, then turned to pick up the pan Susannah had filled with grain for the chickens.
"I went to get Craddock up, but he weren't in his cabin. Connelly said he hadn't seen him since supper last night."
"You saw Connelly?" That particular form of Ian's name almost stuck in her throat, but Susannah forced it out. Her heart started to pound as she considered the possibilities. Had Ben seen him jumping from the porch roof, perhaps, or even sliding from her bedroom window? "I'm surprised he was up and about."
"He's always an early riser, Miss Susannah. This mornin' he even beat me gettin' dressed."
Nobody's Angel Page 16
