He brought the skillful caress to an end. “It’s never been wrong between us—not eight years ago, not on the night of the blizzard. Not now.”
She opened her eyes, forced them to meet his. What she saw in them shook her—had he always desired her like this?
“I know it was you, loving me in the night.” The intensity in his face, his eyes, seemed to grow with every breath. His untrustworthy lips were definitely curved—she knew better than to think the gesture a simple smile.
“It was a mistake,” she gasped. “I didn’t imagine…expect…”
One brow quirked. “Me to make love to you?”
“Yes! I just wanted to warm you up!”
“You certainly accomplished that.” The curve of his lips deepened. “But there’s one thing I don’t understand.”
She would have given anything for him to leave right then—to take his curiosity and go. But he didn’t—he wouldn’t. “What?”
“If you didn’t anticipate me making love to you, why didn’t you stop me?”
She should have ordered him to leave. “I didn’t because I was asleep, and I didn’t wake up until…you’d pushed my nightdress to my neck. And then I couldn’t think!” Despite their closeness, she wrestled her arms between them and crossed them over her breasts. “You’re very good at what you do—and you know how I get. I can’t think.”
Adrian shook his head. “No—that’s my line, at least with you. I clearly recall that time on the moor—it was you running the show. I had absolutely no intention of doing anything more than touching you—yet I woke up buried inside you. As for the night of the blizzard…” He paused as the memories cascaded through him, searching for halfway delicate ways to describe her wanton encouragement, the way her hips had moved against him, the way she’d flowered for him, opened for him…
Abby must have read his intention in his eyes; she stiffened. “Regardless, it was a mistake! Unintended!”
He met her eyes. “How many other men have you taken inside you?”
She blinked; he saw the answer blazoned in her wide eyes, all across her shocked face. Then her temper erupted. “No one!” She flung her arms up and out, then glared at him. “No one other than you. There never has been anyone else but you. There! Are you satisfied?”
Adrian couldn’t help it; he grinned.
She thumped him on the chest. Hard. “I didn’t tell you to stop on the night of the blizzard because I wanted you! I’d dreamed of you for so long and suddenly you were there—”
She choked, then she stiffened in his arms.
Adrian closed them around her and drew her closer. “Abby, Abby.” She dropped her forehead to his collarbone; he stroked her back, felt her gulp. “It’s all right—”
“It’s not all right. It’s all wrong—”
Adrian recalled her mistaken assumption. “There’s no reason to think that. I’m back home, ready and very willing to settle down. We’ll get married—”
“No!” She pulled back so violently she toppled them both onto the bed. She tried to wriggle free of his hold, but he held her easily.
“Calm down.”
She didn’t—she wriggled until he let her sit, then she pointed a finger at his nose. “I am not going to marry you, Adrian Andrew Hawsley, so you can stop thinking about it—”
“Why?” Mystified, Adrian stared at her. “I can understand that you might have mistakenly thought I wanted to make you my mistress—although why you’d have believed that escapes me—but I want to marry you, Abby. I decided to marry you some days ago—until I got here, I didn’t know you were still unmarried or I might have thought of it sooner.”
“Stop it!”
The sheer fury in Abby’s normally soft voice had him swallowing his next words. Her brown eyes glittered—he had never seen her so furious.
“Stop lying. We both know you don’t want to marry me, not really.”
Adrian gritted his teeth. “But I do!”
The look Abby bent on him was withering. “You didn’t want to marry me seven years ago—why would you have changed your mind?”
Adrian stared at her—at the pain in her eyes. His mind literally went blank—seized—refused to work. As if he’d just run headfirst into a brick wall—which he had. Oh, God. Past sins…He forced himself to hold her gaze and tried to reach her. “Abby—that was seven years ago.” And he’d been all of twenty-two and unspeakably callow. Emotionally undeveloped. Emotionally scared. That last hadn’t changed. He swallowed and said, striving to keep his tone even, “I’ve changed my mind because I’ve come to my senses.”
A year after he’d introduced her to passion, his father and hers had hatched a scheme to use Adrian’s gambling debts to force a marriage between them, purely to further the men’s long friendship; their sires had not known of their once-only affair. Adrian had been incensed—he’d met Abby on the moor and told her all, poured out all his raging bitterness. He hadn’t had to state that he didn’t want to marry her—that had been glaringly explicit in his furious, and unguarded, ravings. Abby had known nothing of the scheme—she’d patted his arm, told him she’d take care of it, then left him. She had taken care of it. In her usual forthright way, she’d simply marched into her father’s study and declared that no power on earth would ever make her marry Adrian Andrew Hawsley.
Searching her eyes, Adrian could hear her making that declaration.
Before he could say anything more, she folded her arms and glared at him. “You’ll understand my reservations—especially over which senses you’ve come to.”
Her sarcasm pricked him on the raw. It stated very clearly that he could argue, even plead, all night—and he’d get nowhere. Adrian narrowed his eyes at her, then abruptly sat up. His shirt was already half-open—he hauled the tails from his breeches and whipped it off over his head.
“What are you doing?”
He flung the shirt aside and reached for her. “Demonstrating.”
Abby stared into hard amber eyes—and felt nothing but a searing elation. Excitement flashed through her—she instinctively pulled away, but he closed his hands about her waist and bore her back onto the bed.
She struggled. Utter, unmitigated madness—she knew she couldn’t break free. She redoubled her efforts, arching beneath him as he captured both hands, pressed them down on the coverlet on either side of her head, and lowered his large body to hers.
“Mmm.” The guttural hum of satisfaction purred from his throat. His eyes, heavy-lidded, gleamed, then he bent his head, but not to kiss her. His lips brushed her breast and she fought to swallow a gasp.
“You want me, Abby—we both know it. You want me almost as much as I want you.”
She didn’t doubt she wanted him, but he was wrong. She’d had eight years to learn about wanting—no one could want as she did. The well within her was deep and empty—it would take years to fill it.
As if she’d spoken, he murmured, “We’ve years to make up for. And years to do it in.”
He didn’t wait for any comment but bent to tease one pebbled nipple; Abby lost her fight and gasped, then bit her lip against a groan. He laved until her thin chemise clung, then drew the peak into his mouth.
When she could next catch her breath, she pushed weakly at his shoulders. “Adrian—get off me.”
“In a moment.”
Abby’s heart lurched. Lifting her head, she stared down at his hair, all she could see as he tortured her other breast. This was only a taunt? A tease?
“There are hundreds of positions I’ve learned over the years—just give me a moment to decide which to teach you tonight. Doesn’t have to be me on top.”
His hands tugged, gathered, and pushed her chemise up so it lay above her breasts, leaving her naked, bare, beneath him. Then his hands were on her skin and all resistance fled; Abby slumped back into the bed. Her eyes closed, her body instinctively bowing as pleasure, insidiously tempting, spread through her.
She was insane; so was he—this shouldn�
�t be happening. Abby knew it, and cared not a whit. She couldn’t hold back, pull back—she’d never been able to, not with him. Not emotionally, not physically; it was as if her body and soul knew she was made for this—for loving Adrian—and overrode her logical mind.
It had been she who had instigated their lovemaking eight years ago, she who had insisted Adrian satisfy her curiosity about physical pleasure. Only when she’d threatened to find some other man to do it had he agreed; she’d wrapped him in her arms and taken him into her body, ignoring the protests he’d tried to make. Later he’d seemed dazed, as if she’d hit him over the head with a plank.
She didn’t think he’d be the one dazed this time.
Even if he was, she’d be in no state to notice—what was the untrustworthy man doing?
Abby smothered a shriek as his lips, which had been lazily trailing down her body, pressed into the curls at the base of her stomach. Before she could catch her breath, his tongue touched her. She gasped as her hips lifted off the bed. “Adrian!”
He chuckled as he slid lower, settling between her thighs, already parted to accommodate him. “Don’t be so impatient.”
Her eyes flew wide as she felt the brush of his breath. Sudden insight flooded her and she wildly grabbed for him—but he’d slid his hands under her bottom; he lifted her hips at that precise moment, and she couldn’t reach. “I’m not—!”
That was all she managed to get out. Not another coherent word passed her lips as he kissed, licked, then artfully probed. The kisses she might have lived through, the licks she might have survived. But the probing?
She was sure she was going to die.
She had never imagined such intimacy, never imagined such glorious delight. Rivers of pure pleasure ran down her veins, pooled in her loins. Heat flared. She tried to distance herself from the approaching conflagration, but he sensed it; he cut her no slack, gave her no chance to pull away. Her hips locked in the vise of his hands, he held her steady and ruthlessly stoked the flames. Until they caught her, consumed her.
He let them rage—let her gasp, let her sob, let her writhe. Then, with a deliberateness she sensed even through the conflagration, he filled her and shattered her senses.
She cried his name as her consciousness fragmented, as the sharp peak of delight turned incandescent, too excruciating to bear. She was floating in a sea of warm pleasure as he laid her down.
Consciousness drifted back to her; her logical mind was trying to warn her, trying to make her wake up and react. His weight had left her—he’d left the bed. Had he left the room? Could she escape?
Escape was the last thing her body wished to do. She lay still, feeling the sheet cool beneath her. Her skin was hot, her flesh flushed, heated, yet she felt empty—her body had melted with delight, but still she wanted more. She wanted him. Inside her. Filling her. The realization that her chemise had disappeared slowly crystallized; something inside her relaxed. He hadn’t left.
On the thought, he returned. She cracked open her heavy lids. He’d moved the candle to the bedside table. In its light, he looked nothing short of magnificent as, with care, he lowered his naked body to hers. He settled his hips between her thighs, guided himself to her entrance, then glanced at her face. He caught a glimpse of her eyes, and murmured, “Just lie still.”
She lay boneless beneath him as he pressed into her. Despite the fact he’d filled her only seven nights before, the fit was still tight. So tight. But there was no pain, just that relentless pressure, stretching her, slowly filling her.
With a small gasp, she tilted her hips; he pressed deeper, then deeper still. She knew he was large, but he felt even larger than before. He’d taught her the very first time how to relax and take him in; she concentrated on releasing the muscles that instinctively clenched against his invasion, and with one last thrust, he was there, embedded within her.
The tension in his body eased a fraction. With one hand he brushed her hair from her face, then cupped her jaw. His lips touched her forehead. “Are you all right?”
“Hmm.” She opened her eyes. His features were taut with passion and leashed desire. She reached up and pulled his head down, bringing his lips to hers. “Yes,” she breathed, then kissed him.
He let her press her demands, then he settled more fully upon her, wrested back control of the kiss, and reminded her of what he did so well. For one instant, the hot pleasure of his kiss held her enthralled, then her awareness abruptly shifted, expanded. Her senses leapt. His hard body pressed hers into the soft bed, his weight pinning her, his hardness impaling her. Muscles like heated steel surrounded her; she felt soft, vulnerable—female to his male. He shifted, pressing one hand beneath her, cupping her bottom to tilt her hips to him, opening her a fraction more. With an expert nudge, he pushed deeper, then eased back, and back, only to return—slowly—as if taking her sensual measure, not just in inches but in sensitivity, in slickness and softness, suppleness and surrender. As if mapping out his conquest.
Once he’d filled her again, he withdrew, then returned, a fraction faster but still with the same languid authority that stated very clearly he intended to enjoy her and saw no reason to rush. Her senses heightened, her nerves tightened. The dance as she remembered it began.
A stately measure that steadily escalated as their wildness rose and insinuated itself into the score. She could almost hear the music—her body felt the beat. His controlled, compulsive movement over her, within her, grew increasingly primitive, primally possessive, yet he made it seem graceful, elegant, inspired. Beautiful. The word resonated in her mind as her body matched his, searching for glory on the sea of sensual rapture he created. They created.
She caught his driving rhythm, his urgency; as the symphony of delight approached its crescendo, she realized how skillfully it was orchestrated. Written and executed for her delight, for her entrapment. Her lips curved. With a soundless gasp, she gave herself up to the silent music, to the pleasure—to her dreams. To the man in her arms.
Adrian was watching her; he knew when she surrendered to the moment, to him. To his expertise. Triumph welled—he held it in check, closed his eyes, and concentrated on appreciating all his senses could seize.
She was liquid silk in his arms, hot and heated, smooth, sleek and vibrantly alive. Her limbs twined with his; her body arched beneath his, enclosing him in a satin embrace. Her tightness nearly unmanned him—a wet dream indeed. But it was her wildness that tamed him, captured him, and held him, that abandonment to the moment that was so integral a part of her—and him.
They were together as they crested each peak, deliriously seizing each precious moment, giddily, hungrily, wanting more. And more. She asked more of him, demanded more of him, than any more experienced lover. She was willful and passionate and elementally free.
He gloried in her, steeped his soul in her passion, in her openhearted desire. She was absolution and welcome, promise and fulfillment—she was all he’d ever need. He was with her when they tumbled headlong into ecstasy, when their bodies tightened, clutched, and held. Fused. Elemental triumph seared him; he gasped her name and sensed her joy as her womb contracted powerfully.
Slowly the glory faded and still they clung, neither willing to let go.
They adjusted here and there, but neither made any move to part. Their lips brushed, touched, parted again.
The candle guttered and darkness enclosed them. Sleep came silently, and they surrendered, wrapped together, limbs entwined, hearts as one.
He slipped into her as dawn was staining the sky with banners of pure gold. With no words, they loved, each reaching for and finding that joy neither had found with any other.
The power was frightening.
Abby tried to hold it back, to hold it at bay. Tried to deny it when it would sweep her away.
Adrian’s hand tightened across her stomach; he nuzzled her ear. “Let go, sweetheart. Be mine.”
She did, she was—as the tempest tore through her, through him, and took them bo
th, Abby acknowledged that truth.
It changed nothing.
Later, when they were both awake, lying snug in her bed but aware they would have to soon rise, Abby took the bull by the horns. “I’m not going to marry you.”
She felt Adrian’s sidelong glance.
“You will.”
Tossing back the covers, she sat up and reached for her discarded chemise. “I won’t.”
Adrian was too wise to argue, not directly. The day dawned fine; the sun shone. By midmorning the road to the village was clear enough to return. All through breakfast, all through the drive home, he made not one reference to their difference of opinion, nor to the fact that Abby had shared her bed and her body with him throughout the night.
By the time the gig was back in the cottage’s stable, and Esme, Agnes, and Bolt reassured of their health, Abby was casting him suspicious glances. He ignored them and continued in even-tempered vein.
Exceedingly suspicious, as Abby well knew.
After dinner, as was his habit, he followed Esme and Abby to the parlor. Once they’d settled in the armchair and on the chaise respectively, he took up a stance by the mantelpiece and fixed his gaze on Esme. “Aunt Esme”—she had insisted he call her that—“I would like to ask you and Abby to accompany me to London in a few days’ time.”
Esme glanced up from her crochet and smiled. “Why, of course, dear. When would you like to leave?”
“No!” Abby sat bolt upright and stared at her aunt. “I mean”—she flicked a violent glance at Adrian—“we can’t just up and go off to London purely because Dere asks us.”
“Can’t we?” Esme frowned. “I really don’t see why not, dear. It’s not as if we have any pressing engagements to keep us here. In fact, we don’t have any engagements at all.”
“But…but…think of the propriety.”
Esme stared at her. “At my age?”
“No—at mine!”
“But, dear, I’ll be there, too—under Dere’s roof, I mean.” She smiled up at Adrian. “I presume that’s where we’ll stay?”
Secrets of a Perfect Night Page 8
