Max sent this one to the boundary as well, for four. The deficit had shrunk to eleven. “Why did you put him ninth?” Amelia was shrieking at George Tucker. “We’ve never had such a cricketer!”
Max passed Bianca again on the pitch. “Tolerable?” she said, brows raised.
He winked. “Not done yet, love.”
After a hurried conference, Mannox sent a new fellow to bowl. Tall Bob the bargeman, Bianca had called him. His wrists stuck out of his sleeves, and he moved with a rolling stride that seemed aimless and slow.
The sight of those wrists, though, put Max in mind of Wimbourne. The duke had bowled enthusiastically at Oxford, and his long, loose limbs enabled him to put a twisting spin on the ball. Wimbourne’s balls were liable to sink and hit the dirt, or sneak under the bat and take the wicket. Max had only figured out how to hit Wimbourne by watching the man’s thumb.
And thanks be to God, Tall Bob bowled the same way. His thumb rolled over the top of the ball, sending it spinning down toward the ground—and the wicket. Max blocked two, watching carefully to learn the man’s movement.
The next ball he lifted as one might launch a tennis ball, up, up, into the setting sun and over the boundary for another six. The Perusia side was making so much noise he could hardly hear Mannox screaming at his players in the field.
Tall Bob’s next ball was thrown even harder. Max gripped the bat, and stepped into his swing with all his strength. He’d never hit a ball that hard in his life, but he’d got under it, sending it more up than out. Up it went, and out—Tom Mannox was racing backward, toward the boundary—Max held his breath and unconsciously waved one arm, urging the ball to fly a little farther—and the ball bounced off Mannox’s outstretched hands to land on the grass outside the rope as Mannox himself sprawled face first into the grass.
The game was won.
Bianca bolted up the pitch, shrieking, “You did it! You did it!” Max flipped aside his bat and caught her as she flung herself into his arms.
“We did it,” he said roughly, and then he kissed her, hard, on the mouth, not caring that half of Marslip was watching, that the players streaming forward to celebrate were gasping in scandalized astonishment, or that Mannox and all his side were protesting loudly to the umpires that the last ball had not actually cleared the boundary.
Bianca was kissing him back. Hungrily, desperately, her fingers in his hair and her body straining against his.
By God, he loved her. He was mad for her. And tonight he was going to make love to her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bianca wasn’t sure how they got home to Poplar House. The thrill of defeating Mannox—for the first time in four years—carried her in a blaze of elation through the celebration at the Two Foxes, through the triumphal procession back to Perusia Hall, even through her father coming out to hear the news and bringing out a barrel of ale and tapping it, no matter that he was contributing to the drinking that would idle his factory another day. Papa hated to lose at anything to Mannox. When Max gave him the small pottery vase that was the victor’s right—which Tom Mannox had handed over very ungraciously at the Foxes—Papa lifted it above his head with a shout of victory, and the crowd of his workmen and neighbors roared back.
Then she and Max were stumbling home, arm in arm, a little bit tipsy and still reveling in the victory. The servants at Poplar House had heard the news as well, and they were waiting to give one last cheer. The stable lads wanted Max to relate every bowl and strike, and Bianca went inside to do the same for Jennie, who had gone home early to see her mother and was beside herself, in tears to have missed the match.
By the time she finished the tale, Jennie had brushed out her hair and helped her change into her nightdress. Bianca dismissed her but was too excited still to sleep. She paced her room restlessly, recalling in exquisite detail how Max had looked with his bat at the ready, how easily he’d sent that last ball for six, how he’d snatched her off her feet at the end and kissed her.
That was why her heart hadn’t yet slowed down: the way he’d turned to her, his arms open and ready to catch her, the way he shared his triumph with her, the way he kissed her as if he didn’t give a damn who saw.
When she finally heard his voice in the adjoining room, she flung open the door without so much as a knock. “Why didn’t you tell me you could bat like that?”
He looked up. His dark hair was wild around his face, having escaped the tie long ago. He had never put his coat and waistcoat back on, and his sleeves were still rolled up over his forearms, as when he’d strode to the crease like Colossus and punished Tom Mannox’s bowling with savage precision.
“You never asked about my cricket abilities,” he replied to her question. He motioned at Lawrence, and the valet withdrew silently.
Bianca gave an incredulous laugh. “I never thought to!”
He grinned as he pulled loose his neckcloth. It was limp and bedraggled, and he threw it on the chair. “Now you know.”
“What else have you kept from me?” she demanded. “Are you a master at chess? A skilled archer? Will I discover you’re a sculptor or a celebrated musician?”
He leaned back, spreading wide his well-muscled arms. “Will you? Only if you look hard enough, I suppose.”
She raised her brows. She did look. She liked to look at him; it had vexed her from the start, but now she gave in and openly admired him. As beautiful as he’d been in London, sleek and dangerous in his black domino on his knees in front of her, this Max—rumpled and sweaty and unabashedly male—obliterated her remaining resistance.
With a clink she set down the cup of tea Jennie had brought, and closed the door to her bedroom. “How closely should I look?”
His eyes were almost black. “As closely as you want,” he replied in a low voice.
She laid her palm on his chest, feeling the beat of his heart. “You promised I could touch, too.”
His expression didn’t falter, but his breathing sped up. “Yes.”
Bianca undid the remaining button at his throat, then paused. “Don’t you want to touch me? Or kiss me?”
“I want you to want me,” he growled. “I want to hear you say you want to be here, in my bed, for the rest of this night and every other night of our marriage.” He inhaled roughly as her eyes widened. “Until then, I don’t dare touch you or kiss you, because I might combust on the spot if I can’t have all of you.”
No one had ever spoken to her like that. No one had ever looked at her this way. It made her feel wild and beautiful and powerful, that this man wanted her. She had wondered why, after Vauxhall, he hadn’t pursued her, why he hadn’t pressed her for more even as he watched her with banked desire in his eyes. After Vauxhall, he could have persuaded her, far more easily than she would have admitted to anyone.
Someday you’ll come to me . . .
Deliberately, with both hands, she pushed his shirt open and pressed her lips to his bare chest. “Yes,” she whispered. “I want you.”
His chest heaved. He lifted her face and kissed her, lightly at first but quickly growing feverish. Bianca kissed him back, sucking on his tongue and holding on to his shirt as if for dear life.
Suddenly she couldn’t be too close to him. She was on her toes, clinging to him, meeting his ravenous kisses with her own. She barely felt him strip off her dressing gown, though she quaked when his broad hands stroked firmly down her back, lifting her against him.
She yanked at his shirt, wanting to touch him as promised, and when she got it loose, Max broke the kiss long enough to whip it over his head. Bianca slid her hands over his bare chest, marveling at the heat pulsing from him. No cold stone statue, as Lady Dalway and Mrs. Farquhar had tittered over in the gallery, but a hot-blooded man of firm muscle and ragged breath, pulling loose the tie of her nightgown and cupping his hand around her bare breast.
Bianca gasped, her hands closing convulsively on Max’s arms.
“You can stop me with a word,” he breathed against her temple, h
is thumb rolling over her nipple.
Bianca raised her head and looked him in the face. “More,” she whispered.
It took mere moments to strip him of his breeches and drawers. Max muttered curses as he peeled off his stockings, his eyes fixed on her as she shrugged off the nightgown. The sharp burst of embarrassment, to be naked in front of a man, lasted only until Max’s scorching gaze slid over her. He flung aside his second stocking, and caught her to him with a groan of joy.
Together they tumbled onto the bed. Bianca couldn’t touch him enough, and she wasn’t shy about urging him to do the same. Her body remembered, intimately, every wicked thing he’d done to her in Vauxhall, and wanted all of it, all over again. He was the one who laughed quietly and whispered that there was no rush, he meant to please her from now until dawn. But when she spread her legs in mute, shameless appeal, he went still, and his languid whispers grew short, and when he slid down and put his mouth on her, Bianca gripped his hair in both hands and begged for more.
“I love you wild like this,” he said in a guttural whisper, sucking at the flesh of her inner thigh. “And this.” His fingers were inside her, tormenting her. “And this.” He moved over her, pausing to lick her breast until she shivered. “And this . . .” He shifted his hips and edged inside her.
She strained against him. She had thought of this every night. “Max,” she pleaded. “More.”
He pushed forward in a sudden motion. For a moment he was still, and then he let out his breath and began to move, riding her with long hard thrusts that made her gasp. His hands roved, stroking, squeezing, holding her in place for his ravishment.
She came, almost too soon. She had wanted him so much, and been so worked up by the cricket, he hardly had to do anything to make her succumb to that tidal wave of feeling. She clung to him as her body convulsed, and she sobbed against his chest.
Max held her tightly until the storm subsided, then pushed up onto one arm. “That was for you, darling,” he whispered, smiling down at her with predatory intent. “This one shall be for us.”
“What?” She could barely speak, her toes still cramped and her heart still pumping furiously.
He lowered his head until his nose touched hers. “Now I intend to pleasure you thoroughly.”
Bianca couldn’t comprehend his words. She was already glowing. What else could he possibly do?
He showed her. Even though he was still hard and thick inside her—and reminded her how hard and how thick, with long languid thrusts of his hips—it was his hands and mouth that laid waste to her body. Tears ran down her face as he suckled at her breasts. He bid her hold her own knees apart to bare herself for his touch as he kept up his relentless, maddening strokes into her while he parted those damp curls and made her shake and twist.
“Max,” she sobbed, lifting her hips to meet him in desperation.
“Yes, darling?” He nipped at her throat, his fingers driving her mad.
“I want you,” she babbled. “God help me, I do—I want you, I want this, please—”
He rose up, hooking first one then the other of her legs around his waist. He braced his arms on either side of her head and gazed fiercely down at her. The tendons in his neck stood out, and his arms were like iron. “Touch yourself,” he commanded between his teeth. “As I did.”
She blushed furiously but did it; her body was throbbing too urgently not to. She slid both hands down her belly and did as he told her.
Max growled; his eyes glittered in the lamplight, and his hair fell in damp ebony waves around his face. His thrusts grew hard, sharper and faster. Bianca’s breath solidified in her chest as she stared at him, at his beautiful face so ferociously hungry for her, stroking herself until another climax came upon her.
At her first convulsion, Max sucked in a deep breath and drove all the way inside her, holding her until she collapsed, utterly spent, beneath him, as he shuddered in his own release.
Sometime later he slid trembling arms around her and rolled them both over, leaving her draped atop him. He was still inside her, and when she moved a little, his entire body quivered. But he pressed a kiss to the top of her head and folded his arms around her, and Bianca thought she had never felt so blissful in her life.
Eventually, even pressed up against the heat of him, she grew cold. When she shivered, he raised his head. With a low whisper, he sat up and eased her off him. Bianca huddled against the pillows and watched as he got up, naked, and moved about the room, putting out the lamps and closing the window against the night air. Then he flung back the blankets and held out one hand, inviting her to stay.
Without hesitation she did so, and he slid under the covers, lying on his side, facing her.
“Why didn’t you seduce me like that in London?” she whispered, tracing one finger down his chin.
His mouth curved. “Who seduced whom, madam? You came into my room, you unbuttoned my shirt, you kissed me.”
She smiled. “I did. You’re fiendishly handsome, you know.”
His amusement faded into a brooding, almost wistful look. “But not half as beautiful as you, love.” She pursed up her mouth at that empty flattery, and he laid one finger on her lips, as if to forestall any argument. “By God above, I mean that. You have an inner fire that makes you entrancing. Everyone in London saw it. Why do you think Serafina Dalway and Clara Farquhar put you in that dress for Vauxhall? They were laughing at me the whole night, knowing my brain was melting with lust every time I looked at you.”
“Was it?” She couldn’t stop a small smile, even though it was shocking to hear him say that. “Now I’m sorry I returned the gown.”
Max gave a rough laugh. “It’s not the damned dress. I wanted you even more when you lifted your bat tonight after the short fellow hit you on the hands. You looked determined to send the next ball right into his forehead, and I’ve never been so aroused by a woman.”
Bianca snorted with laughter. “You must have played a thousand cricket matches! No one bats like that their first time. We must have seemed terribly inept to you. It was magnanimous of you to join our side at all.”
Instead of laughing, too, he grew serious. He stroked the hair back from her face, and studied her for a moment. “No,” he murmured. “Not at all. It was the finest match I’ve ever played. Not merely for the triumph of topping Mannox, as much as I relish that, but for being part of the Perusia side. I gather the same people play every year?”
“Yes,” she said, startled. “Usually. Sons replace fathers, daughters their mothers . . . We only play for that ugly redware vase, and of course pride of winning. It’s been a tradition in Marslip since my father was a young man.”
Max’s fingers tightened on her nape. “I like that,” he said softly.
It hit her that he’d never had that—a stable home where the same things happened every year, with the same people. Bianca, who had rarely left Marslip or Stoke, had found it comfortable, if a bit stale. Some years she wished they could take off a number of players and get new ones, as everyone knew everyone else so well it grew dull at times. But to a young man at the whim of family caprice and always keeping poverty at bay, it might seem utterly appealing . . .
Before she could form a reply, though, Max’s face relaxed into a grin more like himself. “Don’t say you play for only a lopsided vase and pride. I won forty pounds on that match.”
“What?” She blinked. “When? Why did you make a wager?”
He winked, pulling her back into his arms. “When you made your way to the crease, I thought to myself, she looks capable of fifty notches at least, and I wagered fifty pounds on Perusia to win. We were trailing badly at that point, so I got good odds. My fifty paid ninety.”
“You did not!”
“I did, and the winnings are in my pocket,” he countered.
“Mr. Falke ought not to have let you wager at all,” she protested, “since you were playing! And you knew how good you are!”
“If I’d fallen short he would have
happily kept my money and I wouldn’t have argued.” Max lifted one shoulder. “I didn’t cheat, and he watched me field. He knew what he was doing. It was a fair wager.”
She looked at him for a long moment before finally laying down her head with a sigh. “I suggest you savor it. He’ll never take your money again, now that he’s seen you play.”
Max grinned as he pulled her close. “I’ll gladly suffer that, for the right to play again.”
Bianca nestled against him. She felt . . . peaceful. Not only from the euphoria of winning, not only from the bliss of lovemaking, but from feeling, for the first time, truly at ease with her husband. He was so completely different to what she had thought he was, and all for the better.
Perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . this ill-begotten marriage would turn out to be a brilliant match.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Max woke, thoroughly frozen, because Bianca had stolen all the blankets.
It took him a moment to sort that out. At first he almost thought it was a dream, that he had been in an agony of arousal for so long, his mind had snapped and imagined that he’d spent the night making love to her in his bed at Poplar House, when really he was sleeping rough in a London doorway again.
The figure sprawled in his blankets, though, was no dream, but a flesh and blood woman. A naked flesh and blood woman, lying on her stomach with one arm flung across the pillows. Her long hair had come loose from the braid and trailed around her like Medusa’s, the golden-brown locks curling invitingly across the smooth expanse of her bared shoulders.
He hated to disturb her. It was early still, and from the light it looked to be a gray sort of day. But she had wound the blankets around her, and the alternative to waking her was to get up and dress. Max slid across the mattress and kissed the back of her neck.
“Wha—?” She reared up, all that hair flying. Max seized the chance to yank free a fold of blanket and press up against her. She was soft and warm, making him aware of how chilled he was.
About a Rogue EPB Page 23
