She flung herself against him, and he caught her up in arms so strong they made her knees buckle. He chuckled against her hair, seeming not to care that she was proving herself an unmannerly sort of wife. She lifted her lips to his, seeking the joining her heart had been missing for two long weeks.
But once again, he avoided her kiss.
Caroline wanted to gnash her teeth. What was the matter? They were married. They were alone, surrounded by nothing but moonlight and ocean. It was dark, for heaven’s sake, so he could not see her too-long legs or her too-flat chest. It was perfect.
Unless . . . unless he thought she was too forward. That sobered her a bit. After all, she was beginning to realize she was a woman who reveled in physical pleasure. His lessons had taught her that far more effectively than any book, and her curiosity over the last two weeks had fueled thoughts so wicked she was afraid to give voice to them, even in her head.
But that was who she was. Surely he understood that such a woman lurked inside her, every bit as much as the fearless swimmer.
“I have wanted to do something since I saw you standing in this very spot three weeks ago,†David said. His voice was a rumble, and at the sound, Caroline felt as if the waves on shore were actually tumbling in her chest. His hands came up and curved around her head, fingers stretching through hair that Bess had spent an hour putting up, just this morning. Pins dislodged like flying artillery, raining down as his fingers tugged gently against her scalp. And then her hair was down, and he was busy searching for the last remaining pins, his fingers taunting her with their bold strokes.
Finally he stood back, admiring his handiwork. “Beautiful.†He smiled at her, and she could see in that smile the rake he had once been. “You still are owed a lesson, I think. Turn around, Caroline. And face the cliffs.â€
Her lungs seized up, but her feet, thankfully, retained their function. She turned as her husband instructed and waited to see what he would do next.
Her inability to see him only heightened her want. His fingers brushed against her neck in a slow, tantalizing sweep, smoothing her hair to one side and making the fine hairs on her arms stand at attention. And then his lips replaced his fingers, there along her nape. Her skin crackled beneath the blazing touch of his tongue and she sagged against him, feeling the insistent press of his erection notch against her backside.
Relief caught her up in its arms. She might be forward, but clearly, he wanted the same thing she did.
The strong band of his arm snaked around to pin her waist. Cool air met the skin of her shoulders as he used his other hand to unbutton the row of buttons that marched down the back of her wedding dress. Seed pearls scattered beneath his fingers, but she could not bring herself to care as he slid it down off her shoulders.
She started to turn around, but the wall of his arm prevented her. “Stand,†he warned, nipping her earlobe with his teeth.
She stood with her back pressed against him. Trembled as he unlaced her corset and sent it the way of the beautiful gown. Obeyed when he instructed her to kick out of her slippers.
But when he reached around and untied the ribbon that closed the front of her shift, she placed a hand over his.
“Can we not leave it on?†Thoughts of her body’s inadequacy made her fingers tremble. Divested of the protection of her gown and corset, she could feel his hard length, seeking her core through the thin layer of cotton. Her shift posed no barrier to physical intimacy, as his earlier lessons had already taught her. But it did relieve her fears, a thin shield that guarded her vulnerability.
His chuckle slid down her spine and centered with remarkable alacrity on that place between her legs that had grown moist with want. “Oh no, love. This is the other thing I have wanted to do, ever since you tortured me in the bathing machine with that hideous robe. Modesty has no place in a marriage. And I will not be denied my rights.â€
Chapter 35
THE MINX THOUGHT she could spend their wedding night in her shift.
Clearly, there was more here to teach.
David pushed her protesting hand away. Grasped the tie that haunted his dreams.
Pulled it free. Her gasp told him he was heading in the right direction, even if she couldn’t bring herself to admit it.
He slid her loosened shift off one shoulder, then the other, then knelt to slide the filmy piece of fabric the rest of the way down. He permitted his fingers the luxury of trailing her bare skin as he went. When he finally had her free of the thing, he placed his palm against her soft calf. “No stockings?” he whispered, swallowing in anticipation.
“I do not wear them in the summer.”
Her voice teased down at him, reminding him that he held a very long length of leg in his hands. His lips begged for the privilege of charting its contours, and he gave in to the demand, delivering a series of tiny kisses upward until he reached the hollow behind her knee. “I believe summer may have to become my favorite season, lass.”
Her body shook, whether from amusement or want was difficult to tease out. “I like it when you call me lass.”
“I wonder if you’ll still like it when you’re seventy.” He hoped so, because he was planning on calling her that for a good, long time.
He was concentrating on the taste of her thighs now, and he swirled his tongue ever closer to where his instincts demanded his mouth go. Her labored breathing was painting a very clear map, but he reminded himself that she was still innocent. One step at a time.
He was fast losing his hold on the tenuous restraint he had been gripping most of the evening. He rose and stripped off his clothing faster than he could have ever imagined. And then his arms were reaching around her again, this time to cup her breasts. He brushed his fingers over her nipples, thrilled by the shudder he could jerk out of her with little more than a touch. Her gasp of surprise told him he had made the right choice in keeping his lips to a more conventional purpose. If a mere touch from his hand sent her trembling like this, anything more would have been too much, too fast.
The feeling of her bare back pressed against his own heated skin had him groaning against the nape of her neck. He pressed another kiss against the impossibly soft skin there, and then slowly released her. As difficult as it was to hold himself back, there was one more thing he wanted to do.
He stepped around her. Turned. And stared.
The moment stuttered to a stop, and David knew he had a new vision of this woman, to be held in miniature and tucked away for special occasions. Her skin glowed white against the meager light of the half moon and lantern. Her hair tumbled like a dark curtain over her shoulders, a riot of curls and waves that he wanted to wrap around his hand. The ocean lay at her back, the half-moon reflected on the horizon. It occurred to him that she belonged here, uninhibited, untamed.
And moreover, that she belonged to him.
“I love you, Caroline. I shall never tire of looking at you, I fear, so you’d best get used to the idea of swimming without your shift.”
Her lips curved up, an open invitation that made the picture she offered that much more poignant. “Are we to swim, then?”
He nodded, his chest squeezing tight against the thought of even a moment’s additional delay. “Aye. Among other things I have planned for tonight. But not the first.”
He lifted her up and hooked an arm beneath her bare legs, carrying her toward the bed that had been laid out on the rock. “I think,” he said, his voice gone hoarse with the want that threatened to consume him, “that it is time to finish this lesson.”
DAVID LAID HER down on a pile of linens so luxurious that in another time and another place, Caroline would have been tempted to roll over and bury her face in them. But he scarcely gave her time to contemplate the feel of it because in what seemed like an instant, he was kneeling between her legs and running his hands up and down the length of her nude body.
It was unbearably dark. He had left the lantern where they had
been standing, and now she had only moonlight to see him by. But it proved enough, given that at the moment, her eyes wanted only to flutter closed. Her skin caught fire at his sure, deft touch, licking along her limbs to center with delicious promise in the juncture of her thighs.
Yes. This was what she had been wanting, this pleasure-pain that the sight of him promised, but couldn’t quite deliver. She arched up against him, trusting him to show her what she needed, convinced that if he didn’t hurry, she might expire on the spot.
And then he was lowering himself on top of her and taking her lips in a kiss that left her panting. His tongue danced against hers, teasing, withdrawing, coming back again. He kissed her a long, long time, seeming to take pleasure in her rising passion. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted to throw off her skin and meld into him. She wanted a touch from this man so sure, so deep, it would bind them as one breath, one thought.
She moaned into his mouth. “More,” she gasped.
And he obeyed. Notched his hips against hers. Slid inside her ready body an agonizing inch and . . . stopped. Caroline opened her eyes in frustration. The moonlight seemed brighter now that her eyes had adjusted to the dark. She could see his large body looming over her, a look of pained uncertainty on his face. Surely he wasn’t going to stop now. She was lying beneath him, her legs wrapped around his waist.
If he stopped now, she was going to kill him.
“I want more.” She was demanding now, not asking.
“And you shall have it,” he told her through gritted teeth. “Just . . . kiss me, lass.”
She pulled his head down, her mouth open and willing, and then, at the moment when their lips met, he pushed into her body, making a raw sound of need that quite covered up her squeak of surprise.
While the brief flash of pain was distracting, the aftermath of it was not . . . unpleasant. Far from it. She adjusted to meet him. To welcome him. She might be innocent, but her body seemed to know the movements as if they were imprinted on her soul. When he began to rock her gently, she responded with an instinctive arching of her hips.
“Better?” he asked, his words a breathless question.
“I still want more,” she gasped against his lips.
He chuckled and moved faster, apparently satisfied that she wasn’t going to break or run shrieking into the night. Caroline’s soul strained upward, reaching for that spark he had previously shown her, realizing, in that moment, how powerful she was with him.
How perfect they were together.
Whatever momentary discomfort she had felt on their joining dissolved. She reveled in the building storm. She felt no hesitance this time, no resistance to launching herself toward those swirling emotions. She knew her final destination now, and she trusted him. With her heart, her body, her pleasure. He had learned her body well, and she could sense he guided her toward that place, as skillfully as a captain at the helm of his ship.
And then she was there, breaking over the crest of that wave, shattering like the water against the nearby rocks. She felt bounced against the stars, lobbed high against the stark black canvas of the night. Dimly, she realized David was right behind her. He gasped against her neck, straining into his own release.
Falling back to sanity took nearly as long as the falling apart. She became aware, in slow degrees, of the cool night air and the perspiration on their bodies. David shifted so his weight fell beside her, and then she drifted in the beauty of his arms, sated and happy. She experimentally stretched her toes, to see if they still worked. Her body felt disjointed, as if he had taken her apart piece by piece. She wondered if she would ever be set back to rights.
“How did you find the final lesson?” His voice reached out to her through the shadows, curling about her thoughts and sending a frisson of warmth through that place on her body where they had just been joined.
Caroline opened her eyes to see this man who was her match. A smile worked its way onto her face. “Surely that wasn’t the final lesson.” She knew there was more to discover, knew it as surely as she knew how to breathe. Her innate curiosity about things of a physical nature, her athleticism, those things that had always set her apart and marked her as an oddity bound for gossip and ostracism, had finally found a place where they belonged in this man. “I suspect I may need more practice, if I am to acquit myself well in the future.”
A low chuckle reached her ears. “We’ve the whole night, lass.”
Caroline lifted herself on one elbow. She was this man’s wife. The thought filled her with awe. They could do this whenever they wanted, and there was no doubt in her mind she wanted to do it again. She skimmed a questing finger down his chest, and repeated the motion when he shuddered beneath it. He had taken great care with her, of that she had no doubt. She felt a little sore, but nothing to the degree that she had expected.
She reached out a hand and touched the length of him through the darkness. He felt soft in her hands, a man well spent.
Caroline permitted herself to give voice to the wicked idea that had plagued her ever since he had stood in front of her, glorious in his own nakedness, even as he had stared down on hers. “Would you like me to put my mouth on you?”
A beat of silence followed her question, and then she heard his unsteady response. “Where did you learn about that?”
“Pen’s book,” she admitted, fitting her fingers around him in an experimental fashion.
“I thought it was a medical text.”
“Well, it might be a medical text. About Far East practices. My father collected travel tomes. Some of them are rather . . . revealing.”
Another long silence. “Well lass,” he sighed, though it was a happy sound, “not that I do not find the idea pleasing, but the truth of the matter is that such a thing works better before the act. It shall take me a few minutes more to recover to the point of being ready.”
“How many more minutes?” she asked, genuinely curious. She tightened her fingers, and his body, which had been so quiescent only moments before, stirred to life in her hand. “Because I confess, I want more. And it seems to as well.”
He rolled her onto her back and reared up over her, a dark, tortured prince come to life. “Christ, you are a surprise, wife.” He leaned down and caught her lips in a gentle kiss, but now that she knew where gentle kisses could lead, now that she knew she could force him to that place where he lost his mind and became as much animal as man, she did not mind his careful restraint. “More, is it?” he asked, his breathing already becoming ragged.
She nodded, quickening again in that place where her body arched up against his.
“Well, Mrs. Cameron. You are a woman in luck, because it just so happens there is much more. And given that you are such a quick study, I think I can manage another lesson.”
Epilogue
CAROLINE KNEW SHE would never forget her first journey by coach—even though she desperately wanted to.
The leather-lined interior carried hints of the sweat and cigar smoke left by the previous occupants, who had thankfully disembarked in Ullapool. The wheels found every rut in the road, making her joints unhinge with frightening regularity. The cramped wooden cabin brought to mind a coffin, being pulled at the mercy of wild-eyed horses that might or might not stop when ordered.
All solid arguments to stay in Brighton.
Of course, as Caroline and David’s primary home was to be in Scotland, at least for the foreseeable future, the torturous coach ride was proving unavoidable.
They had spent a memorable two months in Brighton, swimming every day, exploring the fashionable parts of the city. They’d visited the theater. Walked in the botanical gardens. Gone to the Brighthelmston Races and bet on a losing horse. She was now thoroughly introduced to the wonders of a marriage bed, and was blushingly aware of the more daring guidance in the book she had once studied for inspiration.
But with the arrival of October’s gray skies and colder weather had come the inevitable. The baroness had returned to Scotland w
eeks ago, and Caroline knew David worried about his mother’s health. In the end, Caroline had not just wanted to come to Moraig—she had insisted upon it. She only prayed that what awaited them in Scotland held the same degree of happiness they had left behind in Brighton.
However, judging by the dreary view out of her window of endless hills and towering pines, Scotland’s change in scenery was proving a disappointment, at best.
“Just another few miles now, love. The view opens up over this next ridge.”
David’s voice near her right ear pulled her from her thoughts. Given the option of viewing her new husband’s smile or another few miles of pine-topped forests, the choice was clear. She turned away from the window and tilted her face up to welcome a quick kiss. “I’ll feel better once we’ve stopped.”
He went a step further than the chaste brush of lips she thought he would offer, lifting her bodily onto his lap with her back to his chest as the coach began to lurch up yet another hill. “I’ve a mind to use the last half hour to put that worried frown to rest,” he whispered in one ear. His words were stern, though his voice was wrapped in warmth. His fingers traced a wicked pattern between her shoulder blades. “What has you so tied up in knots, lass? Are you missing your family so very much?”
She leaned her back against him, enjoying the way the word “lass” lingered in her ears. “No.” Mama and Penelope had seemed happy enough to see her off, and they were planning to visit Moraig in the spring. She reached up a hand to finger the starched edge of his necktie where it pressed against her hair. “You are my family now, and I am content as long as I am with you.”
“Is it my family then, who has that worry line etched between your eyes? You know they love you too.”
She laughed. “They scarcely know me, David. We spent little more than a week with them in August, after the wedding. Surely ‘love’ is a little too strong a sentiment to apply here.” Although, she knew they liked her. Against all expectations—against all logic—they seemed to accept their son’s eccentric choice of wife with open arms, a fact for which she was grateful.
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