She buried her nose in his neck, inhaling his essence as if she tested a fine wine. “I feel magical tonight.”
His hold tightened. “You’ve always been magical.”
If only she did have mystical powers. She’d wave her wand and keep Joss captive forever. “I’ve forgiven you for treating me like a sack of potatoes.”
“I should hope so, after I did all that hard work with the Christmas decorations. I’ve been your beast of burden ever since I arrived. I thought you’d never finish ordering me around when we were cutting the greenery.”
She gave the hair at his nape a sharp tug, loving that he teased her. “You enjoyed it.”
Since she’d lost her mother, nobody had teased her. Growing up in the vicarage in Kent, Maggie had learned that laughter was an essential part of love. Laughter had been largely absent during her last five years at Thorncroft.
Until Joss arrived. He’d given her so many gifts, not just the gift of this glorious passion burning between them.
“I was cold and wet, and under orders from an otherworldly being.”
She tugged his hair again. “So?”
“So I did indeed enjoy it. I said you have magic, Maggie.”
“I hope so.” Loving the subtle slide of her skin upon his, she laid her head on his bare shoulder.
“Shall we make magic together now?” His voice was low and serious.
When she nodded her head, her cheek caressed his arm in a silent declaration of love. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”
***
Gently Joss set Maggie on the bed and came down over her. How natural all this seemed. As if ordained to happen. He felt no guilt—although seducing an innocent went against every principle—just an overwhelming gratitude that he’d discovered her. It would have been so easy to bypass this unforgettable woman, hidden in this secret, snowy dale.
Questions of servant and master didn’t matter. Had never mattered, despite her absurd and charming attempts to keep to her place when he first arrived.
Now Maggie Carr was in his bed. What a marvelous outcome. He dedicated himself to exciting her, learning the places on her body that gave her pleasure. He scraped his teeth across her neck until she shivered in helpless response. His hands traced her breasts and hips and arms, the hollow of her navel, the sensitive skin behind her knees, the luscious curve of her buttocks. Her muffled gasps of surprise and delight were a symphony in his ears, sweeter than any music he’d ever heard.
“You’re so soft,” he said in appreciation, as his hand curved around one perfect breast.
An exhalation of amusement greeted his statement. “And you’re so hard.”
She was astonishing. He gave a bark of laughter and caught her hand, pressing it to his cock.
“Oh, Lord…” she breathed in awe.
“Touch me.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Like this.”
Tensing every muscle against spilling into her fist, he curled her trembling fingers around him. Her hesitant exploration sizzled through him like lightning. Battling for control, he buried his face in her shoulder and inhaled the humid scent of her skin.
Without his encouragement, her fingers tightened. The jolt of arousal nearly blew the top of his head off, and his jaw set so rigid, it ached.
“Joss, are you all right?” Her other hand curved across his back, stroking him.
“Yes,” he said in a strangled voice.
“You don’t sound all right,” she said doubtfully.
That rhythmic stroking threatened to send him over the edge. He felt torn between pleasure and pain, but when she began to withdraw her hand from between his legs, he caught her and brought her back.
“Don’t stop,” he growled, lifting his head and trying to make out her expression through the gloom. Her spiky breathing betrayed rising excitement.
She moved her hand up and down his length, squeezing as she went. It was exquisite. It was vilest torture.
“How the…devil do you know to do that?”
Maggie stretched up to kiss his lips. The melting sweetness of the kiss contrasted with her greedy hands on his erect prick. “I wondered if you might like it. I like it when you stroke me.”
“Keep going…” he groaned, closing his eyes and letting her find her way.
She was clumsy. She was breathtaking. She turned his world upside down.
And eventually he had to stop her. Because he needed to be inside her more than he needed the hope of heaven. He placed one hand over hers. “It’s my turn to drive you mad.”
When he shifted to his side, she spread before him like a banquet. He wished he could see every superb inch. But he was wise enough to know that in full light, his Maggie would likely prove shy, instead of happy to play the seducer.
As she’d said with such heart-stopping naturalness, there was next time.
The large bed remained mostly in shadow, but when she moved, he caught a tantalizing glimpse of her body. More impression than detail. Round breasts tipped with tight nipples. The slender line of her thighs. The dip of her stomach.
His hand drifted down over her breasts, lingering to tease until she was moaning and shifting against the sheets.
“You are driving me mad,” she said unsteadily.
Smiling, he raised his head. “That’s the general idea.”
He took her nipple between his lips, scraping his teeth over the sensitive tip. She shuddered, and a cry of startled pleasure escaped her. “That feels so wicked.”
“But nice.”
Her fingers tangled in his hair and brought him back to her breast. “Definitely nice.”
Joss smiled against her softness. He drew on her nipple, while his palm traced random circles over her stomach. On each pass, he ventured lower, until his fingers tangled in the feathery hair above her sex. With every second, he fell deeper into her mystery.
And a tantalizing mystery indeed were the secrets between her thighs. “Part your legs for me, Maggie,” he murmured.
She obeyed unquestioningly. Her trust sliced through him like a sword.
He leaned back on his elbow to watch her. His eyes had adjusted to the low light, so he made out her features and the sumptuous spill of her spectacular hair across the pillows.
Slowly, using the delay to build his anticipation, he slid his hand down until he touched her cleft. She made a faint, startled sound as he stroked her sleekness. His thumb brushed the center of her pleasure, and she made another sound deep in her throat. She reached to catch his arm.
“Don’t you like it?”
“It’s…odd,” she said in a choked voice. “Do you like it?”
Testing her arousal and finding her ready for him? Luring her along the path to pleasure? “Oh, yes,” he sighed, tracing a small circle around the pearl of flesh. “Trust me.”
“I do,” she said shakily. If her actions hadn’t proven beyond question that she did, he might doubt her. “This is…more than I expected.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
The inhibiting hand still encircled his arm. “I suppose so.”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
“I’m not.”
A disagreeable thought struck him, and he wondered if he went too fast after all. “You know what’s going to happen?”
“In theory,” she muttered, kneading his biceps in a nervous rhythm. “My mother told me. She didn’t believe in keeping girls ignorant.”
Relief filled him. “Good for your mother.”
“But she didn’t tell me about…this.”
Caressing her, he pressed his lips to hers. At first she was distracted, but she swiftly got into the spirit and relaxed against the sheets. At last she released his arm, and her hand drifted down to drape across her stomach.
Slowly he pulled away, taking her lower lip in his teeth and biting down gently. Before she could start worrying about what came next, he slid a finger inside her.
She was deliciously
tight and slick. When he curled his finger against the walls of her passage and moved it in and out, a sumptuous liquid surge greeted him.
“Oh…” she said in audible shock.
“You’re perfect,” he said softly, bending to suckle one nipple. The pressure at her breast made her clench against his seeking finger, and she rewarded him with another of those quivery exhalations that sounded gloriously like the beginnings of pleasure.
How he loved to hear her discover her capacity for sensual delight. She laid her hand on his chest, where his heart galloped fit to burst. When she was sighing with every stroke, Joss eased two fingers into her, relishing her body’s welcome.
The scent of her need hung heavy on the still air. He licked his lips, longing to taste her.
Something else for next time. Her quick response and the sweet sounds of her enjoyment pushed him to a point where he could wait no longer.
He rolled over her, pleased that she instinctively moved to cradle him between her thighs. Her arms slid around his back, and she gazed up at him through the flickering light. Her blue eyes were dark and gleaming, and her kiss-swollen lips parted over small white teeth.
Joss stared down into her vivid face. Despite his urgency, he paused. At this, the zenith of desire, he recognized this moment’s life-changing importance.
He’d always been restless. Eager for the next challenge. But sharing this bed with Maggie Carr, he felt anchored for the first time. As if all his seeking found a purpose he’d never realized was lacking.
She was his home.
Joss kissed her with a reverence that was almost holy, even as he tightened his hips and pressed into her body.
Chapter 11
Maggie bit her lips, as the pressure between her legs verged on the edge of pain.
Above her, Joss was hard and huge. He was breathing in great noisy gusts, and beneath her hands, the muscles of his back were as unyielding as rock. As unyielding as that part of him invading her body.
When he moved a fraction deeper, she couldn’t muffle a whimper. Immediately he stopped and rose on his elbows to stare down at her through the flame-tinged darkness. “My darling, I’m sorry.”
He sounded like the Joss she knew, like the Joss she loved. She sucked a breath into starved lungs, and her discomfort faded a fraction.
“I like you calling me your darling.” She lifted one hand to caress his stubborn jaw.
“Is it so bad?”
He sounded in such torment at the thought of hurting her that she almost forgot her pain. “I can bear it.”
“I’ll be careful.” He reached down and hooked her knees up. The strain eased.
“I like being so close to you.”
This closeness, she knew, could well result in a child. She’d faced that possibility before she’d come to him and decided that she was willing to take the risk.
“I’ll get closer yet.” He kissed her with all the passion she sensed he was reining in so he didn’t hurt her.
Maggie closed her eyes and gave herself up to the pleasure of his lips on hers, so when he plunged forward and claimed her, the pain hardly registered.
He raised his head. “Are you all right?”
Better than that. Much better. She felt filled and possessed and united with Joss. Despite the shaky beginning, she found herself smiling. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
She slid her bottom further down in the bed, and the angle of Joss’s penetration changed delightfully. At last she started to notice things, apart from the strangeness of a man’s body joined with hers. How his warmth radiated into her. How she felt his every breath. How his scent marked the air—and her.
“There’s more.”
She ran her hand down his face, whiskers prickling under her palm, and set it on his broad shoulder. “Show me.”
Slowly he withdrew. She braced for discomfort, but the long glide set every nerve in her body singing.
“Oh,” she said, astounded at the revival of the glorious responses she’d experienced when he’d first touched her. She’d imagined such pleasure belonged purely to the prelude. Most wonderfully, it seemed that she was wrong.
Even more wonderful, he paused and thrust again, pushing her deep into the mattress. This time the sensation of being taken over was wholly rapturous.
“Oh, Joss,” she sighed.
When he kissed her, the sweep of his tongue into her mouth had her squeezing around him. He groaned against her lips. “Good God above, do that again.”
“This?”
His answer was a long, jagged sigh. “You’re made for delight, Maggie.” He paused. “You’re made for me.”
Before she could question that hoarse statement, he started to move more purposefully, stealing all capacity for speech. But something in that husky bass declaration had sounded like love. And her last misgivings fled.
Because she had been made for him. Just as he was made for her.
He settled into a hard, driving rhythm that sparked a spiraling, craving sensation inside her. Blindly she tilted her hips to meet him, seeking relief from the rising need. But still the tension built, until her breath emerged in harsh sobs. Surely if this went on, she must shatter into a million pieces.
Joss rose above her, and she felt he went so deep into her body, he became part of her. She released a choked moan and tightened her grip on his hard male shoulders as he drove her higher.
He slipped a shaking hand between her legs and touched her in that place that made her tremble. A blast of exquisite sensation seized her, and on a flash of blinding light, she tumbled over into the abyss.
But the abyss was bright and hot, and she was safe in her lover’s arms, even as she soared through space, slicing through the flames like an eagle.
In the midst of transfiguring joy, she heard Joss give a long, guttural groan. As he plunged inside her, the sinews under her hands tightened. A rush of heat flooded her womb. As she drifted from the sublime heights, she felt him pump into her.
He groaned again and slumped down, forcing the breath out of her. Maggie didn’t mind. She’d imagined she couldn’t feel closer to him than she had in those transcendent, transforming moments at her peak. But now with him collapsed over her in exhaustion, their bodies still joined, she felt a richer, deeper union with this man she loved.
His head was buried in the curve of her neck, and he was shaking. She tangled her fingers in the damp curls at his nape and smiled up into the shadows, her mind full of what had happened between them.
She’d satisfied him. Even in her inexperience, she knew that. And in return, he’d shown her a world beyond her wildest imaginings.
Eventually he shifted, and Maggie sucked in her first full breath in what felt like forever. He rose above her, his face in shadow. “You’re a miracle, Margaret Carr. I never want to be apart from you again.”
“Joss?” she asked, more shocked by what he said than by what they’d just done, extraordinary and magnificent as that had been.
Instead of answering her, he kissed her again. She waited for more passion, but Joss’s lips expressed tenderness, verging on worship.
When he lifted his head, she was trembling. In the uncertain light, those dark green eyes seemed to send her a message too profound for mere words. “Wait here.”
She frowned, caught by surprise. Wait here? What on earth was happening? “What’s wrong?”
“Absolutely nothing, my darling.” He cupped her jaw in his hand. “But I have something important to talk about, and I want to do it right.”
After another brief kiss, he rolled out of bed and found his dressing gown. More slowly, Maggie sat up and pulled the sheets up to her bare breasts. His unexpected behavior was making her self-conscious, as she hadn’t been since she’d offered herself to him.
Movement set up a myriad of twinges in her secret places, reminders of the marvelous things Joss had done to her. The skin on her cheeks, neck and breasts stung. During their turbulent passion, his whiskers had chafed her.
&n
bsp; “Why can’t we stay here?”
She caught the flash of white teeth as he smiled. “Trust me.”
He’d said that before he claimed her body. Well, that had worked out fine, hadn’t it? She told herself to have faith.
Joss stepped closer and kissed her with more of that soul-searching tenderness. She’d basked in his passion, but this sweetness left her completely defenseless. Reminded her that while he’d given her so much, he hadn’t given her the promises her aching heart longed for.
She reminded herself that she hadn’t asked for promises. When she’d arrived at his door, she’d just been desperate to give herself to the man she loved. The man who could so easily be lying frozen and dead out on the hills tonight, instead of standing beside the bed, teasing her.
But now that she knew what joy they created together, the prospect of Joss moving on and perhaps forgetting her was unbearable. Life had taught her not to be greedy, but when she looked at her bold and vital lover, she felt greedy.
For more pleasure. For more life.
For more…him.
She’d hoped that satisfying her desire would provide memories to compensate for the years of loneliness ahead. But watching Joss as he left the room—a foretaste of his final departure—she realized she’d made a fundamental and catastrophic mistake.
Because one night wasn’t enough. Even if he stayed until Jane came back, it wouldn’t be enough.
When a woman loved a man as much as Maggie loved Joss, a whole lifetime wasn’t enough.
The day he rode away from Thorncroft, he’d leave her life in ruins. And it was too late to do anything to save herself from the coming devastation.
***
The light from Joss’s candelabra disturbed Maggie’s troubled sleep. She hadn’t heard him return—he really did move like a cat.
She blinked and yawned. Her forebodings about the future hadn’t kept her awake. She was exhausted after a day of life-changing events and emotional upheaval. Not to mention those energetic hours skating in the cold, fresh air.
“Joss?” she asked sleepily, rolling onto her side so she could see him standing in the doorway. In his crimson velvet robe, he looked tall and oddly exotic, like a pasha visiting the harem to choose a concubine for a night’s pleasure. “Is everything all right?”
Mistletoe Wishes Page 55
