Daniel dropped one of his cards and had to pick it up off the floor. Georgina crossed her stockinged legs beneath the table and wiggled her ankle at him while he was down there. He was a long time in coming up.
They both had lousy hands for the next round, but Daniel lost his last two shirt buttons and had to add the shirt to the growing mound of discarded clothing over his chair back. Georgina's fingers ached to touch the bulge of his shoulders, and she had difficulty keeping her eyes away from the ridge of muscles across his chest. Her mild-mannered journalist was built like a stevedore.
Daniel looked up questioningly when she hesitated too long over a discard. "You can fold now, if you like. It will only cost you those two pretty ribbons." His gaze indicated the ones he meant, the ones tying her chemise closed across her breasts.
That was dangerously close to shameless, but Georgina did as he suggested. It was easier to unfasten two ribbons than gamble more and lose the whole piece. She didn't think she was brave enough to sit there as bare-chested as he.
Daniel sighed in ecstasy as the chemise gaped, revealing almost the entirety of the valley between her breasts. "Why don't we retire this game until later and explore the possibilities of that bed now? It's perfectly legal, you know."
"I could win," Georgina reminded him, but she pushed her arms against her sides until her breasts rose against the thin fabric of her chemise, threatening to spill over. Victory was already flooding through her veins as Daniel rose from his chair.
"This way, we both win," he murmured, pulling her up out of her chair.
He tasted of wine and masculine heat and his tongue took such rapid possession of her mouth that Georgina couldn't control her spinning senses. Her hands circled his neck, and the broad chest she had just been admiring from afar was now rubbing disconcertingly across her own, sending screaming warnings through her nerve ends.
Daniel's hands caught her waist, circling it, lifting Georgina closer until she could feel his hips pressed near hers in a proximity that even in her innocence she knew was dangerous. And seductive. She pressed closer, wanting more, but Daniel's hands were exploring elsewhere now, rising higher until they rested just beneath her breasts. They teased at the covered curves, creating desires over which she had no control. In a minute she would be jelly in his hands, and there would be no turning back.
Gasping, Georgina pulled away. Placing her hands on Daniel's chest to hold him off, she stared at him in astonishment. This wasn't Daniel, the mild-mannered newspaperman with spectacles and an endearing grin that she knew so well. This was a man with only one thing on his mind. She read the truth in the flare of his nostrils, the darkening of previously clear gray eyes, the twitch of a muscle over a broad jaw. She didn't need to know more. She backed away.
"We're not finished with the game," she said lamely.
His eyes darkened further, but he nodded and took his place again. This time, his face was ruthless as he dealt the cards.
She was going to lose. She could see that in his eyes. What had been a game had become something else. He was playing to win, and she was the prize.
Georgina bent her concentration on the cards, discarding wine and desire and all other encumbrances to clear thought. She felt as if she were suddenly fighting for her life. She didn't know how or why the game had changed that way, but she knew it had become a winner-take-all dispute.
She had two deuces in the hand he dealt her. She played them for all she was worth, but in the end, his pair of fours won. Rather than remove any more ribbons on her chemise, Georgina untied her garters and her drawers, throwing them both on the stack of clothing she had accumulated.
Daniel grimly shuffled and dealt the next hand. She was sitting on the chair with nothing but one thin piece of cotton between the wood and her skin. She had never felt so naked in her life. Daniel's knowing glance didn't help. The place between her legs tingled, and Georgina began to have some idea of what she was about to lose. She glanced helplessly at the massive bed. Her mother had never told her what happened in a marriage bed, but her body was telling her things she would rather not know.
Daniel dealt again. This time he folded after drawing two cards. He stood and began unfastening his trouser buttons.
It was then that Georgina noticed the bulge pushing at the tight fabric of his pants, and she went red clear to her hair roots. The wine finally took control of her brain, and she tilted in the chair as if she were spinning giddily.
Daniel was beside her before she could fall. He caught her up and carried her to the bed, and suddenly the spinning was something else, something much more serious, and Georgina grabbed for his shoulders.
That was undoubtedly her undoing. His skin was hot and smooth and slightly moist with the heat of the nearly airless room. Georgina couldn't resist touching even as Daniel laid her back against the cool sheets. She wanted to touch all of him, and her hands spread around his sides and went forward, touching his chest as she had longed to do all afternoon.
Daniel was on top of her before she could say a word. His kisses were neither gentle nor reassuring; they were demanding, decisive, and inflammatory. Georgina's fingers dug into his back as he pushed her deeper into the pillows, but she couldn't fight him. Her mouth opened beneath his command, and his invasion left her gasping for more. The wine and the heat and her own desire had her spinning out of control.
When Daniel's hands cupped her breasts, Georgina moaned into his mouth and felt her bones melt beneath his touch. She was liquid wax and he was the mold shaping her.
When his kiss strayed elsewhere, her eyes flew open. She hadn't even realized she'd closed them. She trembled as the rough stubble of his chin grazed against her cheek but then his fingers found the peaks of her breasts, and she was lost again.
"Daniel," she whispered desperately, having no idea of what she wanted to say.
"Don't, Georgie," he whispered against her skin. "Don't say anything. This is the way it's meant to be."
His lips found her earlobe as his hands played skillfully at her breasts, and Georgina couldn't speak had she wanted to. It was all beginning to make sense now. She was coming alive, and he was showing her how. Passion and desire and hunger flooded through her, and nothing he did was enough. There had to be more.
Her hands skimmed over him, learning him. The unbuttoned trousers were an inconvenience easily disposed of. He helped her push them off. Her chemise followed, and they were naked between the sheets.
Daniel didn't let her hesitate. He bent to suckle at her breast, and Georgina rose straight off the bed with a small scream of delight. His arm circled her waist and held her there, pressed against him, and she felt a hardness she had never guessed at probing between her legs. Her hips angled in that direction, and he helped her, cupping her bottom with his hand, letting her feel the heated length of him.
"Daniel, please," she whispered, not knowing what she asked.
He stopped what he was doing and braced himself over her, catching her gaze with his own. She looked up into the steely gray of his eyes. She saw the hard possessiveness in that stare, the look a male animal must give his mate when he takes her, and she trembled.
"Man and wife, Georgina, till death do us part." It wasn't a question, but a promise.
She was utterly terrified by the immensity of the moment. This was their wedding then. This was what it meant to be married. She nodded, and he kissed her, then his hand came down between them to caress the place where they would join.
Chapter 25
She was wet and ready and arching anxiously against him, and Daniel couldn't wait any longer. This wasn't a noble or heroic thing he did. It was selfish all the way to the bone. She was innocent and drunk and he was starved for a woman, any woman. It was just convenient that the one in his bed was his wife.
And the moment he moved, she would be his wife for ever. Daniel positioned himself carefully and thrust deep within her.
Georgina cried out, but he caught the cry with his mouth, kissing
it away as he tried to hold himself still. He was shaking with the need to move, to thrust deeper, tc push himself all the way into her until they were both screaming for release, but he could taste the tears on her cheeks. He kissed them away and soothed her with words that made no sense to his ears.
Then he began touching her again, arousing her to that peak where they had been before. He didn't think he could wait much longer. She was so tight around him that it was just a matter of time before he lost it all. He ached too much to do this right.
Then Georgina arched into him, and Daniel cried out in relief and sank deep within her welcoming body. He was beyond caring that she hesitated again. He was finally inside her, making her his own, and nothing could stop him now.
She was still struggling to keep up with him when he made one final thrust and shouted with a pleasure that nearly swept him away. Too much wine had made him giddy; he'd never had a head for drink. But nothing could take away the pure ecstasy of having Georgina naked in his arms and crying with need beneath him.
Daniel opened his eyes and looked down into hers. The sparkling blue contained suspicious hints of moisture, but her cheeks were growing pink. He pressed a kiss to her trembling lips.
"I think... I might come to like that," she whispered a trifle breathlessly.
He had shown no self-control and made an utter baboon of himself, but she still tried to make him feel good. Daniel shook his head in disbelief but didn't move from his position. He wasn't ready to leave her yet. It might be a month before he could work off this need he had denied too long. He could feel himself hardening within her already.
"Good," he murmured, kissing her ear and fondling her breast. "Because we have only just begun."
She looked mildly alarmed, but Daniel was in better control this time. The wine still buzzed through his brain, what remained of it, but he did know one or two things about pleasuring a woman. Knowing he was the first to show her these delights sweetened the moment. He sought her mouth with his while his hands found her breasts, and she was soon moaning with hunger again.
This time, he plied the place between her legs with care, until she was begging for more, writhing her hips and clutching his arms and pulling at him until neither of them could stand it any longer. This time, when he lifted her buttocks, she was wholly with him.
Daniel tried to be careful, to be conscious of her newly opened tenderness, but Georgina was thrusting as wildly as he had earlier, and he went down in a self-destructive swirl of desire, caught up in the whirlpool of her passion. It was like nothing he had ever done before or would ever do again. It was pure crazed lust that drove him until she was exploding with the same ecstasy that she had given him earlier.
His release wasn't any less frantic this time than last, but Daniel had the satisfaction of knowing he had carried Georgina with him. And as he rolled over to his side, momentarily sated, he had the satisfaction of knowing they would never be parted again.
He just hoped the tears she was weeping now were tears of joy.
* * *
"Get up you two lay-abeds! The train will be arriving any minute now. Daniel, move it!"
The all-too familiar male voice resounded outside the door in accompaniment with a violent knocking. Daniel closed his eyes tighter and groaned. There had been too many mornings in his youth when Tyler had roused him from a warm bed like that. He'd like to throw something at the door right now, but he had the uneasy feeling that he was forgetting something.
The wine caused a mild ache behind his eyes, but it didn't take long to rouse him to the feel of warm flesh beside him. She moved away, but memory was rapidly returning. Daniel turned and caught Georgina's waist and stared down into wide blue eyes as the noise continued outside.
"Shut up, Monteigne. We're up and awake," he shouted at the door, but his gaze was busy taking in the dawn-flushed sight beneath him. "Lord, but you're beautiful," Daniel whispered with a certain amount of amazement as his hands curled in thick strands of silver-shot hair and his gaze traveled over the fullness of upthrust breasts to the curve of a tiny waist.
"Shouldn't we be getting up?" she whispered back, lying still and slightly frightened beneath him.
Frightened. Of him. Daniel sucked in his breath and smoothed her hair back. What in hell had he done last night to make her fear him?
He had a vague recollection of a truly violent lovemaking session, of an uncontrollable passion that he had never released before, and he winced, closing his eyes and touching his forehead to hers. He had taken her with less care than he had given experienced whores.
It had to have been the wine. He would never touch a drop again. Taking a deep breath, he touched her cheek and murmured, "I'm sorry," before rolling off her and out of the bed.
Georgina watched him go with trepidation. She didn't know why he apologized. She was terrified of the needs he had aroused in her. She was lying here now trying to deny them but wishing he would come back to bed and show her more. She was starved for more, and she was terrified he would discover how she felt. She was quite certain ladies didn't feel like this. She'd heard enough conversations between her mother and women like Loyolla Banks to know she ought to be grateful that he was getting dressed now. She should be hoping he wouldn't want to do that again until next week. But she lay here like a wanton whore hoping he would change his mind.
This wouldn't do at all. She had promised to learn to be a wife, and wives didn't behave like whores. Pulling the sheets up around her, Georgina looked for a washbowl and wished for a convenience.
As if sensing her desires, Daniel yanked on his wrinkled shirt and trousers and started for the door. "I'll send someone up with warm water."
He was gone before she could say anything.
The room seemed hollow without him. With the sheet wrapped around her, Georgina wandered to the window, but it overlooked the street. She assumed Daniel would be heading out back to the privy.
Daniel, her husband, until death did them part.
She closed her eyes and offered a fervent prayer. They would be sharing toilets and washbowls for the rest of their lives. She would have to learn to live with these terrifying desires coiled up and rattling inside of her. She would have to pretend she was a perfectly normal person going about her everyday chores when all she wanted was to be back in that bed with her husband.
She was out of her mind.
She forced herself into the prosaic chores of preparing herself for the day. She was sore between her legs, she discovered as she washed with the water the maid brought up. She had bled, and a hasty glance to the bedsheets showed the stain. She blushed and cursed herself for blushing. She was a married woman now. She was expected to know about these things.
The room smelled of what they had done, and Georgina threw open the window to air it out before anyone noticed. Once washed, she dressed hastily. Daniel would be back at any moment, and she would feel better insulated against these desires if she was buried in clothing.
When he came back, he had his shirt properly tucked in, and he was carrying a paper bag full of rolls and muffins.
"There isn't time to find breakfast. Maybe these will hold us until we reach Cincinnati."
Daniel was unrelentingly attentive as he fastened her buttons, gathered their things, and led her out to join the others to walk to the train station. He was everything an overzealous husband should be to the point of driving Evie and Tyler to laughing glances. But Georgina knew it was all for show. The Daniel she knew had retreated somewhere behind that pleasant facade. His mind wasn't on the false attentions with which he showered her.
That was nothing more than she had expected. His mind was back on his business already. She ought to be glad she hadn't horrified him with her wanton ways. But a trace of her still longed for that romantic encounter of the prior day when his attention had been solely on her.
Well, now that he had what he wanted, that would never happen again, so she might as well get used to it. Despite his protests, Da
niel was still a Mulloney, and she had reason to know their single-mindedness. She should be grateful he had agreed to take her as wife so she had a roof over her head. She wouldn't ask for more than he could give.
So she smiled and blushed at the Monteignes' gentle teasing and clasped the bag of baked goods tightly in her hands as they found seats on the train. Evie ordered Daniel to sit with Tyler on the other side of the aisle, informing him that he had the rest of his life with Georgina so he couldn't protest a few hours apart. Then she spread her elegant skirts and took the seat beside Georgina for herself.
Georgina offered her the bag, and after they each selected a roll, they passed it over to the men. She felt shy with this elegant woman who seemed so very certain of herself. She had never felt shy in her life. Perhaps it was just because everything in her life had suddenly become so strange. Georgina picked delicately at her roll, conscious that the gown she wore was Evie's and not even her own.
"I must tell you, we were terribly worried when Daniel telegraphed us that he was married."
Georgina looked up, startled. The woman certainly didn't believe in social amenities.
Evie smiled back at her. "Well, we only have a few hours, and I didn't want to waste them. Tyler said we would be imposing if we went home with you, so we're stopping in Cincinnati."
Georgina crumbled her roll some more. "I'm certain Daniel would love to have both of you. We would have to put you up at the hotel, though. We haven't had time to..."
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