Chapter Nine
Never having been with a man, Emily didn’t know what to expect. Lucas kissed her as he had before, but this time there were no gentle preparations. He plunged his tongue into her mouth, exploring her, tasting her, feasting on her as if she were his last meal.
While his actions didn’t frighten her, she felt a small sense of trepidation, right until his tongue brushed against hers. Then she felt only heat and something aching inside her. Something that urged her to wrap her arms around him again and hold him close.
He shifted until they were both stretched out on the bed. Still kissing, he ran his hands up and down her bare arms. A thousand shivers rippled through her. A thousand places of heat burned on her skin. She felt both awkward and perfectly at home. She was in his arms; nothing could possibly go wrong.
At the same time a voice in her head screamed that she was lying on a bed with a man. She was barely covered by her undergarments, he wore only trousers and it was still the afternoon. Emily ignored the voice. Lucas was her husband and she loved him. Everything they would do together would be exactly right.
So she concentrated on the glorious feel of his kiss and the way his hands moving against her skin made her want to purr like a cat. She enjoyed gathering the courage to touch him back, to explore his arms and shoulders, noticing that his skin felt different from her own and that she could feel the twisting, rippling movement of his powerful muscles.
He shifted again and she found herself on her back. He continued to kiss her, but his hand moved at the same time, distracting her. He slid from the arm at her side to her waist. The layer of her chemise was thin enough that it was as if she weren’t wearing clothing at all. She sucked in a breath. Anticipation and fear filled her in equal measure.
A short time ago, she’d brazenly put her husband’s hand on her chest. She’d been so intent on staying brave that she’d barely registered his touch. Now her entire being focused on that hand moving closer and closer. She felt it pass over her ribs, then settle on her…bosom.
He covered her completely. She felt heat and pressure, then a wonderful aching sort of shivering pleasure that she’d never felt before. He moved his hand so that his fingers and thumb brushed against the tip. Fire shot through her. She broke their kiss and gasped, clutching him, barely able to breathe.
“Lucas!”
He chuckled and kissed her throat. “I thought you might like that.”
Like? Like did not begin to explain what she was feeling. She started to tell him that, but he kept on touching her and speaking was impossible.
As his fingers continued to make her gasp, he kissed along her neck and onto the skin above her chemise. Warm, wet trails of kisses, she thought dreamily, and the tickling of his mustache. It was all better than she’d imagined. Not that she’d let herself think about such things. Lower and lower until he kissed her other bosom. Her eyes shot open and she nearly sat up in surprise. He took her in his mouth!
Emily wanted to protest. This couldn’t be right or natural. It had to be some horrible…
She sank onto the mattress and breathed what she thought might be her last. If she were to die now, life would have been perfect. His fingers touching one tight peak, while his lips caressed the other. Liquid heat poured through her, making her limbs impossibly heavy and her head spin.
“Sweet Em,” he breathed against her skin. “You shiver when I touch you.”
“I know. Touch me more.”
She was instantly shocked by what she’d said, but he only laughed. Before she knew what he was about, he’d slipped his hand down to the waistband of her pantaloons and had worked his way under them. He was touching bare skin and moving lower.
Her eyes popped open. Suddenly she knew he was going to touch her there, between her limbs, and it could not happen. She would not allow it. They might be married, but that didn’t give him the right to…
“Relax,” he murmured in her ear, then licked her lobe. “I’m not going to hurt you. If you think me touching your breasts is good, this is much, much better.”
Her mind screamed silently. Breasts? Had he really said breasts? She’d never even allowed herself to think the word. Next thing she knew, he’d be calling her limbs legs and naming who knows what body parts. She simply couldn’t allow it. They would have to stop right now.
She opened her mouth to tell him, but at that same moment, his fingers parted her most private place and touched a tiny spot of exquisite sensation. She nearly screamed aloud. Amazing feelings shot through her, making her limbs tremble and her feet burn. She clutched at him, mystified and drowning.
“Lucas?”
“Hush, Emily. Trust me.”
He kissed her mouth, then returned his attentions to her bosoms, all the while continuing to touch her down there. Over and over. He’d taken control of her body. She couldn’t do anything but accept the amazing experience of being so completely out of control. It was as if he were drawing her up a hill. Higher and higher and yet…
“It’s all right,” he whispered in her ear. “Just let it happen.”
She had no idea what he was talking about. None at all. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. Not when she couldn’t really think about anything but how his touch felt and why no one had ever explained this to her before.
And then it didn’t matter. It was as if she’d shattered, much like a large glass window. She felt herself separating into dozens of pieces. Or maybe…
It didn’t matter, she thought again hazily, losing her ability to do anything but get lost in the waves that rushed through her. She might have spoken, might have called out. And then she was falling and falling and Lucas was there to catch her and hold her close.
When she could finally breathe again, and open her eyes, she found him staring down at her. His handsome face, so familiar, so beloved.
“I want you,” he told her.
The words made her shiver again. He wanted her. He wanted to claim her as his own. At last she would know all the secrets. She smiled and held out her arms.
“Yes,” she told him. “Want me and have me.”
He was touching her again. Her breasts, her hips. He pulled off her chemise and her pantaloons, until she was naked. Then he rose and slipped off his trousers.
She stared at him, taking in the broad shoulders, the flat stomach, then moving her gaze lower, following the arrow of dark hair leading to his maleness. He was thick and swollen, jutting out from his body. She swallowed.
“It’s not as big as a horse’s,” she blurted before she could bite back the words.
Lucas laughed. “Were you worried about that?”
“A little. I’ve never seen a man, but I’ve seen a stallion. I tried to consider the size difference between a horse and a man, assuming that part of him would be equally reduced. But I could never figure it out.”
“Now you don’t have to.”
He slipped next to her on the bed and drew her close. She felt his arousal brushing her belly. He was velvety soft, yet hard and jutting.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
She nodded.
He kissed her deeply, then drew away. “When you part your legs for me, I’ll settle between them.” He trailed his fingers across her belly and between her curls again. She felt the tingles return. “I’ll enter you here.”
A single finger demonstrated the journey.
“Will it hurt?”
“Yes. The first time. You’ll probably bleed. But after that, it will get better. Soon you’ll be experiencing the same reaction when I’m inside you as when I touched you.”
She thought about how wonderful that had been and wanted him to get started with her lessons. But more important than that, she wanted to hold his words close to her. Because they implied he would be sharing her bed for a long, long time.
Contentment filled her. She loved this man and she wanted to be his wife in every sense of the word.
Silently she parted her legs. Lucas moved bet
ween them. He kissed her slowly, deeply, nearly making her forget what they were about to do. Then she felt his hardness probing. Instinctively she drew back her knees. He pushed in, filling her.
The sensation was uncomfortable. She felt trapped by his weight. Before she could protest, he shifted so that he could reach between them. He stroked that one amazing spot again and made her gasp. She quickly found herself caught up in the same journey, rising higher and higher. But before she could reach her completion, he began to move into her.
There was a bit of pressure, followed by a sharp pain. Emily clung to him knowing that she had been irrevocably changed. She smiled.
“Make me yours,” she whispered to the man she loved.
Lucas had intended to go slowly, to try to make Emily experience bliss again. But the combination of her tightness, her perfect body and her words made it impossible. Everything about her aroused him. Her pale skin, the taste of her sweet breasts, the way she’d responded to him, so naturally and easily, finding paradise on her first attempt. He suspected he could make her experience it again now, except he didn’t have that kind of control. Not with her.
He thrust into her and felt the pressure building.
“I can’t hold on,” he breathed. “Em, I—”
“It’s all right. I’ll be here, holding you.”
He gave in to the need, filling her again and again until he lost himself inside of her.
They must have both fallen asleep, because the next thing Lucas knew, he awakened in a darkened room. He recognized the scent and feel of the woman next to him. Emily.
He rolled onto his back and stared up into the darkness. In one single moment, he’d changed her forever. He’d taken away her innocence and made an annulment impossible. If he were a drinking man, this would be a fine time to get drunk. How could he have been with her?
How could he not?
Lucas exhaled slowly and knew that there was no way he could have resisted her. She was nothing like the practiced women at Miss Cherry’s. She was innocent and untouched. Yet her eagerness, her responses had all reduced him to a man overwhelmed by desire. Even when he’d seen the light burning in her eyes and had known that she had come to care about him, he couldn’t resist her. He couldn’t have stopped their intimacies if the price had been his life.
And now he had to pay the price for that. He—with the dark stain upon his soul—had taken her greatest gift. He who knew what it all meant, had given in. Not being able to resist her wasn’t an excuse. He wasn’t worthy of her. Telling her the truth and having her still want him spoke of her greatness and her forgiving spirit, but did nothing to assuage his sins. If anything they were greater now.
He wanted to wake her by shaking her and demanding to know what she’d been thinking. Didn’t she realize that he wasn’t allowed to be happy? Did she know that he would never subject her to the horror that was his life as he lived out his punishment of having killed for reasons of cowardice?
But even as he longed to push her away, to turn his back on her, he needed as much to hold her close. To feel her body next to his, to taste all of her, to have her confess her feelings.
He was more of a bastard than he’d thought.
“Lucas?”
Her quiet voice filled the dark room. He turned and saw that she’d awakened and was studying him.
She was barely visible in the dimness, so he fumbled with the lantern on the small table next to the bed. As he held the match to the wick, he swore to himself that he would not destroy this for her. He could not take back their joining, so he would do whatever he could to make the memory a good one. Later, when she’d recovered, he would explain that he could never be with her again that way and, that for him, nothing had changed. They might not be able to annul the marriage, instead they would divorce.
But that was for another time. When he finished with the lamp, he smiled at her. “You’re naked,” he said in a teasing voice.
She blushed instantly and moved to cover herself. He grabbed her hands and drew them toward his mouth, then kissed her fingertips.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Shouldn’t I be the one thanking you?”
“We’re married, Emily. I don’t think thanks are required.”
She squirmed, then turned toward him. One of her legs slipped between his. “Was it all right? I don’t know anything about, well, you know.”
He wanted her again. His arousal jutted toward her, but he was careful to keep from getting too close. Instead he released her hand, then stroked her face.
“Couldn’t you tell?” he asked. “Didn’t you feel my pleasure in you?”
More color stained her cheek, but she nodded despite it. “I thought you were eager.”
He chuckled. “Eager is a good word. I was very eager.” He kissed her lightly. “And now I’ll have to sneak back into my own room, like a man leaving his mistress.”
“But you’re not leaving your mistress. I’m your wife.”
He knew that. He also knew what the soft light in her eyes meant.
“Emily…”
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Close your eyes.”
“What?”
She smiled. “Close your eyes. I want to get up and pull on my nightgown.”
“But I’ve already seen you naked.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”
He had a sudden desire to know if she was going to be prim for the rest of her life, or if she would get bold with time. Then he remembered he wasn’t going to be married to her long enough to find out. Another man would learn that about her—not him.
He obliged her by closing his eyes and felt the bed move as she rose. He kept his eyes shut, as much to please her as to hold in the pain of imagining her with another man. Someone who could be worthy. Someone who wasn’t him.
Emily had never danced much. While she’d had lessons as a girl, not many boys had offered to take her around the floor. But today that didn’t matter, because Emily was dancing all on her own.
Yesterday she’d finally learned the secrets between a man and a woman. Her body ached in places that had never experienced pain, but even the slight discomfort was welcome because now she knew. She hugged the information to her chest and smiled as she remembered how glorious it had been. After she’d pulled on a nightgown, Lucas had insisted she join him again in her bed. They’d slept in each other’s arms until he’d left her at dawn. She’d thought they might be together again, but he had not reached for her and she had not had the courage to suggest it herself.
Tonight, she thought dreamily as she tried to study her account books. Tonight he would touch her again and she would feel the heat and the desire. He would make her melt and she would then do the same to him. Even imagining what they would do was enough to make her body feel warmer than usual.
“You look happy about something.”
Emily glanced up and saw Dixie standing by the desk. She wore a low-cut yellow gown and radiated a kind of beauty that Emily could never possess. Despite that, Emily smiled. Today it didn’t matter that she wasn’t beautiful. She was pretty enough to attract her husband and that was all she needed.
“I am very content,” Emily said, trying to keep from smiling too broadly.
Dixie raised her eyebrows. “I know that look. So Lucas finally gave up trying to resist you. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
Dixie leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Lucas and I have been friends for a long time, so let me give you some advice.”
Emily remembered Dixie telling her that she and Lucas hadn’t been intimate in many years. She told herself the wise course would be to ignore the flare of jealousy and to simply listen.
“I would like that,” she said.
“Don’t let him go back to his own place tonight. Do whatever you have to so you keep him in your bed. Lucas has many ghosts from his past. The only way to defeat them is to show them for what they a
re. Just ghosts. Not living demons or anything that can hurt him.” Dixie paused. “You love him, don’t you?”
Emily felt her eyes fill with tears. She nodded. “Very much. I haven’t told him.”
“You should. Hold him and love him and never let him go until you’ve finally convinced him that he has to make peace with the past.”
“Did he tell you what happened during the war?”
Dixie shook her head. “He never speaks of it. I know that it’s bad, but he won’t tell me what happened.”
Oddly, that pleased Emily. Her husband had told her the truth.
Dixie looked her up and down. “I suggest you invite him to dinner in your room tonight. But instead of that blue dress, wear a nightgown.”
Emily gasped. “To dinner? I couldn’t.”
Dixie laughed. “Honey, if you show up in a nightgown, you’re not going to be eating dinner. Trust me.”
Lucas barely saw the small table set up in Emily’s room. The tempting aroma of dinner drifted toward him, but he wasn’t interested in food. He had to tell her the truth. He had to explain that he couldn’t be with her again, not the way he’d been with her the previous night. They weren’t really man and wife, and pretending they were would only end up hurting her.
He might not want to be married to her, but he was willing to admit that he’d come to care about her. She was important to him, and a decent woman. By marrying him, she’d done him an important service. He didn’t want to repay that by making her miserable.
He heard a noise from the corner of the room and for the first time, he realized he wasn’t alone.
“Emily,” he called.
“Yes. I’m here.”
Her words came from behind the screen. He frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“Behind the dressing screen?”
He heard a soft laugh. “Actually, yes. I had much to consider.”
“Like what?”
She stepped from behind the screen and walked toward him. “Such as whether or not I had the courage to appear before you dressed in this.”
He couldn’t speak, nor could he breathe, but he sure as hell didn’t care about either. Emily stopped in front of him and tilted her head to one side.
Shotgun Grooms Page 12
