His balls tightened, warning him that it had indeed been too long since he’d had a woman. Though he wanted to prolong this torture for both of them, he wasn’t going to come on her thigh like some callow lad. There would be more time for exploring her. A lifetime, unless the person who’d had him beaten senseless had his druthers.
A chill skittered over him as he kissed his way back up her body. He wouldn’t allow ugliness to intrude on them now. This moment, this joining, was theirs alone. Battling demons could bloody well wait for another day. He kissed the place where her shoulder and throat met, dragged his mouth back to her ear. His fingers dipped into her slick, hot folds, building the pleasure he’d begun with his mouth into a crescendo.
“Spend for me, little dove,” he said into her ear.
She clutched at his shoulders, her body writhing and twisting beneath his. He knew that she was close. He tongued the sensitive place behind her ear and she shattered, crying out, shaking with the power of her release. With his free hand, he delved into her immaculate hairstyle, plucking all the pins he could feel until her long curls fell to her shoulders, unimpeded and glorious.
“Yes, love,” he whispered in encouragement when she began a tentative exploration of him. “Touch me. I’m yours.”
Her touch feathered over his chest, down his back to his buttocks. She kissed his cheek, his clenched jaw, his hair. “Wicked man,” she said against his throat. But there was no reproach in her tone. Only wonder mingled with desire.
He knew because he felt an echoing blend of the two himself, along with a fierce and unrepentant need to possess her. He couldn’t wait any longer. He positioned himself between her thighs, pressing his rigid cock to her slick entrance. “It will hurt, little dove. Only the first time.”
She shifted against him, bringing them closer together. “I’m yours,” she said then, repeating his words to her.
And he broke. He thrust into her in one swift stroke, tearing past her barrier. Clara stiffened in his arms and cried out. It took every shred of self-control he possessed to hold still and allow her to adjust to this new invasion. The primal impulses inside him screamed to conquer. She was so damn tight and wet.
He kissed her then, plundering her mouth as he longed to the rest of her, before breaking away. “I’m sorry, love.” Of course he never wanted to hurt her. He’d never taken a virgin before, hadn’t been one himself in more years than he could recall. His body and his mind were at war.
“Don’t be.” She moved, drawing him deeper inside her. Her breath hitched, the only sign of her discomfort. “I want this.”
Her reassurance was all he needed to hear. His hand caught in the heavy skeins of her hair, his fingers tightening instinctively, holding her still so that he could gaze down into her arresting beauty. He was no novice to fucking. Pretty nothings clamored in his mind, so many silver words he could string together and seduce her with. But as he sank deeper inside her tight sheath, his entire being splintered.
Suddenly, he was jagged fragments of himself. The old Julian, the experienced rake, the man who’d earned his keep by fucking his way through the ton, dissipated. All he was left with was what she’d fashioned him, a man desperate to claim the only woman he’d ever want.
So many wicked, seductive poetries he could have unleashed. And instead, only one word filled his mind as he thrust into her, giving in to a primitive urge. Mine. He tightened his grip on her hair, making certain she met his gaze, making certain she understood the finality of their union. There would not be a Virginia for her now, not unless they went together. Not from this moment forward. “Mine,” he said.
She arched into him, her fingernails raking scorching lines up his back, then to his neck, before finally settling on his skull. Her fingers tightened in his hair, holding him in a mimicry of the way he held her. “Mine,” she repeated back to him before leaning up on her elbows to close the distance between them. They kissed, open mouthed and mutually ravenous. She dropped her head back to the pillow, falling away from him, breathing heavy. “Mine.”
Yes.
He was hers. Nothing had ever seemed so right or true. A growl in his throat, he took her mouth with his, just as he sank inside her soft, wet heat once more. Hard and fast and deep, he went, and then he did the one thing he’d never done with another woman before. He spent inside her.
e strode down the hall, away from her, and a hollowness filled her breast. The grim disquiet of mourning infected her. She felt for a moment as if she watched his funeral procession, as though this was the last time she’d ever see him. And she couldn’t see his beautiful face, that wicked smile, the knowing light in his eyes. She didn’t even have so much as a lock of his hair to remember him by.
He couldn’t leave. Not now. Not ever. Her hands groped toward him but her body felt strangely heavy, as though her arms were held down by half a dozen unseen hands. Her legs too were stymied by something. She looked down for a moment to find her skirts sinking into brackish water. The hallway had turned into a sea.
Julian floated away from her, effortlessly gliding into the far shadows while she remained trapped, unable to follow. She tried to call out to him, but no sound emerged from her mouth.
Julian, she wanted to say. Julian, wait!
But all that left her lips was an animalistic noise of fear. Desperation coursed through her. He was leaving her, headed straight into the dark web of the dangers that had already attempted to claim him.
To kill him.
But she would not allow him to die. By sheer force of will, she escaped from the rushing sea waters, and they receded abruptly, giving way once more to the hall and its familiar, threadbare carpet. She gathered her soaked skirts in her arms and ran to him, attempting to stay his progress, to keep him safe. Finally, he was within reach. Her hands clawed through the air but she couldn’t touch him. She watched in horror as he pitched forward.
He tumbled down the curved staircase, end over end. Horror stole her breath. She tried to scream as she chased down the steps after him. His descent was too quick, and she too slow. By the time she reached him, he lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs.
No! She clutched at him. There was so much blood. Everywhere. Red and copper-scented just as she remembered, hot and sticky on her hands. My God. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t bear it…
Clara woke with a start, disoriented, a terrified scream strangling her throat.
“Clara?” Julian’s low voice, gentle with concern, pierced the haze of half-wakefulness muddling her mind.
Sweet relief washed over her. It had all been a horrible nightmare. Awareness pierced the panic that immobilized her. He was safe, thank God. Alive and warm and here with her, his big body radiating heat into hers beneath the bedcoverings. Her hands fluttered to his broad shoulders, clutching him. Vital and real and more handsome than ever.
It occurred to her then that neither of them wore a stitch of clothing, their naked skins pressing together. The realization dashed some of her shock away, replacing it with remembrance of the wicked things he’d done to her. She drank in the sight of him, feeling simultaneously hot and cold. Cold from the awful dream. Hot from the man hovering over her.
He cupped her face and swept an errant curl from her brow. “Was it a nightmare, little dove?”
“Yes.” She still reeled from the aftereffects, the rational part of her knowing none of it had been true —a mere affectation of her mind, which had been so troubled ever since the attempt on his life. “A horrible one. You were…” she trailed off. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words aloud.
“I’m here.” He gathered her to him, folding her against the hard sinews of his chest as if she were a small child who needed solace. “I’m here now.”
His unprecedented tenderness made her want to weep. It was a side of him she’d never seen. Hadn’t known existed. But the ugliness of her dream still tore through her, leaving her stomach knotted, her mouth dry.
“You don’t understan
d.” She pressed her face into his bare skin, breathing deeply of his divine scent, cologne and man and something that was undefinably him. “There was so much blood, just like when you were attacked.” She swallowed against a sob as emotions she’d kept firmly at bay threatened to emerge. She would not cry, would not be weak. Not now, not after what they’d shared.
He’d made love to her. Taken her maidenhead. She’d fallen asleep afterward, lulled into a peaceful, sated slumber by the intense pleasure he’d shown her. How disparate that she should wake again plagued by the violence that had befallen him.
Because fear was an angry beast, hammering inside her chest. Reminding her that whoever had tried to take his life would try again. He wasn’t safe. And perhaps neither was she. Those chilling realizations curled inside her heart like vines fashioned of ice. And after today, she was inextricably bound to him in the most permanent sense. No longer did she intend to leave him or annul their marriage. Something shifted inside her as she clung to him, foreign emotions sliding into place like the pieces of a puzzle. She feared for him.
And what of Virginia? A voice inside her asked. What of her dreams of returning to her homeland? Of her desire to live her life on her own terms? Would she sacrifice everything for a man she still scarcely knew? How could she bear to remain in a society she deplored for its inflexibility and unwillingness to accept change?
The questions clamoring to life within her mingled with the fear, chilling her even more. In her emotion-charged response to his attack, she’d forgotten to consider how she—with her rebellious nature and defiant spirit—could possibly be a true countess. If he expected her to develop a sudden affinity for proper manners, needlework, and vapid conversation, he’d be doomed to disappointment. She had every intention of pursuing her cause in England the same as she would have in Virginia. Women everywhere deserved the right to vote.
He seemed to sense her inner turmoil, for he withdrew to look down at her, an equally uncharacteristic sadness darkening his eyes and expression. “I’m truly sorry to be the cause of your nightmares, little dove.”
But he wasn’t the cause of the panic flashing through her now. What had happened to him was. She couldn’t explain it, not even to herself, but the sight of him bloodied and laid low would haunt her forever. It had changed her irrevocably, and she was ill equipped to manage the aftereffects.
She held the bedclothes to her chest, seeking to put a mind-clearing barrier between them, and struggled to give voice to her misgivings. “It isn’t you that’s the cause. It’s what happened to you.”
His jaw hardened, but he grazed a finger over her cheekbone, belying the tenseness of his posture with such gentleness. “I’ve had enemies before, and yet here I am.”
“Enemies who attempted to smash your skull in?” she demanded, the rawness of her emotions colliding with the reverberations of her dream. He had yet to acknowledge the seriousness of what had occurred. He had nearly been murdered, for God’s sake. Before his own home. Beaten senseless, his broken body left to bleed out on the streets.
He flashed a wicked grin, ever his enigmatic self, and caught her hand in his, guiding it to the healing wound on the back of his head. “Not smashed, love. See? Perfectly intact, if ever it indeed was.”
She was grateful his wound had not been as grievous as it could have been and that he had not suffered infection or worse. But he seemed determined to tone down both the severity of his attack and the danger facing him. She meant to point as much out to him, to dress him down with precise words of condescension.
Instead, she allowed her emotions to once more get the best of her. “Do you not think whoever tried to kill you will realize he failed and try again? What if he succeeds the next time? What then?”
His grin turned wry and he released her hand. “Then you’ll be free to return to your beloved Virginia, won’t you? Perhaps you ought to relinquish your wifely concern. It seems my demise would do you a good turn.”
No it most certainly would not. The thought of him gone from her life forever—of the world without his engaging wit, magnetism, without him—seemed the most egregious thing imaginable. “How can you be so flippant about your own life?”
“Come now, little dove.” He trailed a finger over her collarbone, studying her in that penetrating way of his. “Am I meant to sit about crying in a corner? Don’t mistake just who it is that you married. I’m a man who has devoted his life to not giving a damn about anything, especially not my own worthless hide.”
Her heart gave a pang in her chest at hearing him speak about himself in such terms. What could have happened to him in his life to make him feel so contemptible? Perhaps it was the newness of the intimacy they’d shared. Perhaps it was the result of finally acknowledging she couldn’t turn away from the path she’d chosen. She’d sealed her fate when she’d lain with him. He’d seen, touched, and kissed her everywhere. He’d been inside her, had spent his seed within her. Even now she could be carrying his child.
The thought sent an odd, tingling warmth pervading her entire body. She stayed him when he would have trailed his touch lower, over the aching curve of her breast. She searched his shuttered gaze, wishing she could see within their blue depths an inkling of his innermost thoughts. “You are not worthless.”
His expression hardened, a grim cast calling the angles of his features into relief. “I was a whore. There’s no need to mince words or pretend. That is who I am, a man who sold his body and his soul. That is who you see before you now, the man who used his pretty face to assuage the ruin his bastard of a father left him in. You cannot do the things I did, Clara, and give a damn about yourself. And I cannot undo them now. They’re forever a part of me.”
She recognized the emotion coloring his voice for the first time. Not just scorn directed at himself, but shame. He was embarrassed by the things he had done to keep penury at bay. Clara wanted to weep for him, but she knew that would only shame him further.
Instead, she held his face in her hands as he had so recently done to her, relinquishing her hold on his hand and the bedclothes she’d primly attempted to pull between their naked bodies. “You did what you needed to do. You kept your sisters well taken care of. You kept your home. Stop punishing yourself for the past.”
Freed of her staying grasp, his hand was once again at liberty to continue its wicked travel. He cupped her breast, making her nipple pebble into his palm. His gaze lowered to her mouth. “Watch yourself, little dove. You make it sound as if you care.”
His words hit her with the force of a blow, for they pierced the confusion and emotion muddling her brain and made her recognize the truth for what it was. She did care. Of course she cared for him. If she wasn’t careful, in fact, she could love him.
How stunning. How terrifying. She’d never contemplated falling in love with the Earl of Ravenscroft. He was wicked and sleek and beautiful and altogether dark and dangerous. But he was also good. He cared for his sisters. He had been gentle with her, had taken pains to inflict as little pain on her as possible. Perhaps he could learn to care for her in time as well.
Her heart hammered in her breast and she wondered if he could feel it. “I do care,” she told him, tamping down her pride. For he needed to hear it from her now. “I care for you, Julian.”
“Ah, a common neophyte mistake, confusing lust for something else.” He rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger with expert attention. “Soon you’ll learn the way of things.”
She ignored the bloom of heat his ministrations sent directly to her core. He could not deflect her so easily. “Why do you think I’m here now?”
He tugged on the hardened bud. “Because I excel at fucking. Let me show you more, love. I’ll make you come with my tongue alone. I’ll sink it deep inside you and find a secret place you never dreamed existed. It’ll make you go wild.”
Traitorous heat slid through her, wetness and hunger pooling deep within the flesh he’d so recently claimed. It would be so easy to give in
to him, to allow him to pleasure her and close her mind to the dangers surrounding them. To only feel, to bask in his seduction and forget all else. But that would be weak and wrong, for he meant so much more to her than his undeniable prowess. There was a physical pull between them but there was also something else. Something deeper and stronger.
“No.” She would not allow him to dismiss her feelings for him. To suggest she’d change the course of her entire life merely because he was a skilled lover was an insult to the both of them. “I’m here because I care. For the past few years, I’ve devoted my life to returning home. Everything I’ve done—every scandal and worry I’ve caused my family, every madcap plan I’ve devised—has been with one goal in mind. To return to Virginia and the land I love. I never strayed from my course. I never intended to have anything more than a marriage in name only with you. But then I saw you bloodied and broken, and I realized that I couldn’t bear to lose you. I care, Julian. Do not dare to insult me by suggesting I’m too naïve to understand the difference.”
There. The words left her in a great rush, before she could rethink them or attempt to lessen her admission of the extent to which he had made her fall beneath his spell. Her chest heaved. He hadn’t stopped toying with her nipple, but the rest of him remained oddly still. She was reminded again of her early impression of him. A rattler. Sleek and powerful and ready to strike. His gaze, formerly pinned to her mouth, met hers at last. She couldn’t read the emotion simmering in the fathomless blue depths.
His silence made her flush. She felt as though all of her was displayed before him along with her body, her weaknesses and faults, her every desire and longing, before him to judge. She’d never felt such a depth of feeling, such a confused, wonderful and awful mixture of hope and dread pent up within her. He could cut her down with a word. He could render her mindless with a touch.
Restless Rake (Heart's Temptation Book 5) Page 18
