Lords of Conquest Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  He ached—quite literally—with the need to possess her. If he’d ever been more aroused than at this moment, he couldn’t remember it. All his former doubts and misgivings evaporated in the scalding heat of their mutual need. The urge to untie his braies and take what they both wanted was powerful, but stronger still was the need to prolong this temporary respite, this isolated moment in time—to rejoice in this wonderment, this sense of revelation, to let the magic spin itself out. A quick coupling wouldn’t do. He wanted to discover her, consume her, join with her... make love to her, body and mind, heart and soul.

  And, too, Faithe of Hauekleah wasn’t one of his whores, accustomed to taking the full, violent measure of a man’s animal passions. She might not look and act like a highborn lady, but that’s exactly what she was, and he must heed his father’s counsel and take her with care. He had no idea how it had been between her and Caedmon, but he could surmise that she’d not been ill used sexually. Although her feelings toward her first husband seemed lukewarm, she regarded him, still, with sisterly affection. Most likely he’d been very much the gentleman in bed, and so Luke must endeavor to be the same. After all they’d been through, he was not disposed to jeopardize this delicate moment by venting his lust like some rutting beast.

  He skimmed his hands lightly over her face, her throat, her breasts. Faithe breathed his name, and other words he couldn’t make out. Drawn, for some reason, to her delicate little navel, he probed the tiny indentation with a fingertip. A kind of kittenish growl rose from her, and her hips moved—just slightly, but enough to spark a hot, answering pulse in his loins.

  “What else?” she whispered. His confusion must have shown on his face, because she added, “What else have you wanted?”

  He met her gaze for a long, breathless moment, and then he smoothed his hand downward, over her lower belly, until he felt, beneath the homespun, a subtle swell. She bit her lip as he moved his hand slowly—so slowly—over this place of heady mystery. His breath and hers came faster and faster. He felt the little ridge of bone beneath the soft flesh, traced the tight cleft with his fingertips.

  She was damp; he felt it even through the kirtle. Suddenly impatient, he whipped her skirt up and lay next to her; she turned to face him. Luke pushed a thigh between hers to urge them apart, and they locked their legs together as naturally as longtime lovers. He searched her eyes as he slid his fingers deep into her exceedingly narrow entrance. Her gaze lost its focus, and she sucked in a tremulous breath. He stroked her with slow, inquisitive fingers, enthralled by her slippery heat.

  Curving his other hand around the back of her neck, he coaxed her closer and took her mouth in a hungry, lingering kiss, all the whole caressing her intimately, reveling in her breathless sighs, her little gasps of pleasure. He felt her hand fluttering between them, untying his shirt all the way down the front. She glided her fingers through the hair on his chest and whispered against his lips, “What else, Luke?”

  He hesitated only briefly, loath to ask too much of her, but so desirous of her touch. Taking her free hand in his, he guided it between his legs, pressing it to his aching shaft, hoping it wouldn’t offend her. Although she’d touched him this way once before, that had been playacting—part of her misguided effort to seduce him. To his relief and gratification, her fingers curled automatically around him through his thin braies; he wore no drawers, because of the heat. A spasm of pleasure sucked the breath from his lungs. He was as hard as a column of steel. She drew her hand up and down his length, squeezing with just the right pressure, and he groaned helplessly.

  “Ah, Faithe...” Luke rocked his hips in time with her caress. “Yes.” He explored her until she moved in rhythm with him. With his free arm, he pulled her to him, crushing her breasts, warm and heavy and damp with sweat, against his chest. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling her scent, moaning her name as his body tightened, strained, trembled.

  She trembled, too. Her legs, tangled with his, quivered like bowstrings, and her breath came in soft pants. “Luke... oh, God, Luke.”

  Now. He rolled her onto her back in the straw, cradled between her legs.

  “Yes!” She slid her hands down to his waist and pulled him against her. Her responsiveness surprised and delighted him. Holding himself stiff-armed above her, he went to undo the drawstring of his braies just as she did. Their hands fumbled together, and they laughed in breathy frustration.

  “Let me,” he said hoarsely. She nodded and sank into the straw, her eyes closed, her bare chest heaving. Luke didn’t think he’d ever seen a more alluring sight.

  He reached for the drawstring as a volley of thunder shook the barn and lightning illuminated their little stall. The cold white light flickered over the face of the woman lying before him. An ugly memory stabbed Luke in the gut, and he stumbled backward, squeezing his eyes shut. “Jesu!”

  His mind’s eye conjured the face in the straw, adding a trickle of blood from the slack mouth. He saw the tangled red hair, the beard, the lifeless, half-open eyes—a fleeting image, there and gone in a blink of lightning. He smelled the dead Saxon, felt, all over again, the sick jolt of realization. What have I done?

  “Nay.” He ground his fists against his forehead, as if that would obliterate the image of the man he had slain—of Caedmon, a good man fallen victim to the Black Dragon’s ungovernable rage. I grieved for him... I cried until I had no more tears. “Nay...”

  Why now, in this timeless, enchanted moment, when he thought he’d been granted a brief reprieve from his greatest sin, did he have to relive it? Cruel timing, just when he was about to... had been about to...

  “Christ.” It would be a pointless effort now, his erection having waned.

  “Luke?”

  He opened his eyes and saw her sitting up and looking at him, her gaze full of concern. With one hand she held her kirtle closed; the other reached for him. He instinctively recoiled from her touch.

  “Luke?” Thunder exploded again, accompanied by a burst of lightning. Her beautiful face tightened with worry. She moved toward him, her arm outstretched.

  He stood abruptly. “I have to go.”

  Her eyes were huge. “Go?”

  “Faithe...” He dragged his hand through his hair, loosening it from its braid. What could he say? How could he possibly make this all right?

  For an endless moment she stared at him, wide-eyed in the heavy darkness. And then her face took on a horrible stillness. The light left her eyes, her throat moved convulsively.

  “Faithe.” Why was this happening? What could he do? What could he possibly say? He went to her and knelt in the straw, reaching out to gather her up while his mind raced to find words, any words, to explain why he couldn’t do this.

  “Nay!” She jerked away from him, backing up hurriedly and gaining her feet as she clutched the bodice of her kirtle with both hands. “Don’t touch me.” It wasn’t her anger that twisted the knife in his gut, but the chill in her gaze, a detachment that had never been there before. He’d pushed her too far. She was closing herself off to him.

  “Oh, God, Faithe.” Luke rose on unsteady legs, raking the hair out of his eyes. He’d never begged in his life, but he begged now, in a raw, choked voice. “Don’t do this. Please. I couldn’t bear it. I need you.”

  “You need no one. You’ve never needed anyone, least of all me.”

  His chest shook with a kind of tragic laughter. Not need her? She’d given him his heart; she was his heart. She’d made him human again. Without her, he’d revert into the beast he’d once been. “Dear God, Faithe, if you knew how untrue that was...”

  “Then why can’t you—” Her voice caught in her throat. “Why?” Her chin wobbled; her eyes shimmered. “Why? I don’t understand. Explain it to me. Can you just explain it to me?”

  “Don’t cry,” he said gruffly, taking a wary step toward her.

  She sidestepped him and lifted her chin, making a heartbreaking effort to compose herself. “Fear not, my lord. I’ll make every eff
ort not to cry in front of you again.”

  “Faithe...” He buried his face in his hands. God, think of something to say. You can’t lose her. You can’t let this happen.

  “You wanted me to trust you,” she said in a wavering voice. When he uncovered his face, she was studying him with that dreadfully remote gaze, one fist keeping her kirtle together, the other clutching her skirt. Unshed tears pooled in her eyes. “You didn’t want me on just any terms. You wanted me willing. You wanted me to want you. You said... you said our marriage may have been a coldhearted arrangement, but that didn’t mean it had to be a coldhearted marriage. And I believed you.” A huff of bleak laughter escaped her.

  “Faithe...”

  “Fool that I am, I believed you. I thought you wanted...” She faltered, covering her mouth with her hand as tears slid from her eyes.

  “I did. I do.” Luke took a step toward her, and she took a step back.

  She rubbed her cheeks with her sleeve. “Perhaps you actually believe that. But I’m not so deluded, not anymore. How can our marriage be anything but coldhearted? You haven’t got it in you to make it otherwise.”

  “You’re wrong, Faithe.”

  “Am I? I took you at your word, Luke. I took a chance. I opened myself to you. I gave you everything that was in me, more than I’ve ever given anyone, simply because you asked for it. You made me take off my armor, but yours is welded on tight. That’s why you can’t...” She glanced toward the nest of straw where they had lain. “You don’t want me that close to you. Deep inside you, there’s a place I’ll never touch. But you touched me, Luke.” Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks, hated tears that she couldn’t bear to shed in his presence, but couldn’t seem to stop. “You made me fall in love with you.”

  She loved him. She loved him! Joy and despair warred dizzily within him.

  “That was cruel of you,” she added grimly. “You didn’t have to make me love you.” She tried to sweep past him. He grabbed her arm. “Let me go!”

  “I can’t.” He knew if he let her go now, it would never be the same between them. They would have crossed a line, shattered the fragile bond they’d forged. That bond was all he had; his whole world was built around it. He couldn’t lose it.

  “What do you want from me, Luke?” She tried to wrestle out of his grasp. “How much more do you mean to take from me? When will it be enough?”

  “Faithe, be still. Let me try to explain—”

  “Your words mean naught to me. Actions are more telling by far.”

  He nodded slowly. “You’re right. I’ve been a fool.” His sins be damned. Caedmon be damned. All Luke had been and done, all his remorse and torment, all that had gone before be damned and forgotten. The only thing that mattered now was Faithe and him, and he could think of only one way to renew their delicate bond. Why resist anymore what he wanted so desperately—what they both wanted? Banding his arms around her, he bent his head to kiss her, but she wrested it to the side.

  “Save your kisses. Let me go!”

  “Nay. You’re not leaving here until I’ve convinced you—”

  A thunderclap crashed overhead, accompanied by a sputter of lightning; they both started. Faithe took advantage of the diversion to extract herself from his grip. Turning, she fled toward the entrance to the stall, but Luke leapt upon her before she could slip through.

  “Let me go!” She fought him, lashing out wildly, raining frenzied punches on him until he pinioned her arms. Her fury took him aback; he must have mishandled things very badly to have driven her to this. Now he had to try and repair the damage, if only she would let him.

  “Stop this!” he demanded, but she squirmed and kicked until he lost his balance, toppling over with his arms locked around her. He deliberately twisted as they went down, landing on his back in order to take the brunt of the fall himself, but the gesture was lost on her. She was like a savage thing, enraged and determined to get free.

  He wrapped an arm around her waist and grabbed both flailing fists in one of his as she grappled with him. Her kirtle fell open as she struggled to rise off him, her breasts brushing heavily against his bare chest, along with the cold scrape of the keys. As she thrashed to get free, her hair fell across his face, inundating him with her scent; her hips ground against his. His body responded with a mindless resurgence of arousal, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “Be still!” he growled.

  “Burn in hell!”

  “I’m quite sure I will.” He rolled her onto her back and pressed her into the straw. Pinning her wrists above her head with one hand, he closed the other around her face, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Faithe, listen to me.”

  She whipped back and forth beneath him, oblivious to the effect this was having on him. He was painfully erect beneath his braies, and it was all he could do to keep from thrusting against her.

  “Let me go! I hate you!”

  He brought his face close to hers to be heard over the rumbling of the thunder. The soft weight of her breasts, the silk of her skin, the scent and warmth of her, nearly robbed him of his self-control. “I love you.”

  That seemed to confound her for a moment. She gazed searchingly into his eyes, then shook her head. “You don’t love me.”

  “God help me, I do,” he rasped. “I do.”

  “You don’t know the meaning of love.”

  “Not before, perhaps, but I do now. I love you, Faithe, and I can’t let you leave here thinking otherwise. I can’t lose you now. Christ, ‘twould kill me.” He kissed her quickly, before she could object, a fierce kiss of possession that she didn’t return.

  “Words,” she ground out, trying vainly to free her imprisoned hands. “Words and kisses. They mean nothing. Let me go.”

  He released her. She blinked in surprise when he raised her skirt and knelt between her legs, whispered his name in disbelief when he yanked open his braies and fell upon her.

  “Why are you doing this?” she gasped, pushing futilely against his shoulders. “Because you think I want it?”

  “We both want it. We both need it.” Luke wished she could rise above her rage and hurt long enough to see that.

  “Nay, ‘tis naught but an act of pity. Let me go!” She struck out with her fists. He grabbed them and held them tight as she bucked beneath him.

  “Don’t make me hold you down, Faithe.”

  “Let me go!”

  He shifted to position himself between her legs. “This” —he nudged her with his organ’s broad tip— “was hardly born of pity.” She felt slick and hot and very tight against him. She grew very still and closed her eyes.

  Thunder reverberated as he whispered her name. She couldn’t have heard him, yet she opened her eyes and met his gaze as quavering flashes of lightning played over her. There was a clear-eyed calm about her—an understanding, an acceptance. Thank God.

  Squeezing her hands, he flexed his hips, driving himself deep, deep inside her with one long thrust. Another blast of thunder swallowed up his shuddering groan. Faithe might have cried out; he couldn’t hear her. She threw her head back, her expression unreadable in the dark.

  For one long, heart-stopping moment she lay inert beneath him, gripping his hands as tightly as he gripped hers. She felt impossibly snug where he was buried within her, and hot. How he’d hungered for this; how often he’d awakened, soaked with sweat and shivering on the edge of ecstasy, after dreaming of this. ‘Tis no dream this time. ‘Tis very, very real.

  “I love you, Faithe,” he said shakily. “I do, I swear it to God.” He released her hands slowly, experimentally. Let her want this, Luke silently prayed. Please let her want this.

  A crack of thunder made them both flinch. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him close, her damp face pressed into the crook of his neck. Slipping an arm beneath her shoulders and curling the other around her head, he breathed incoherent words of comfort into her hair amid a flurry of kisses. She wants this. I know she wants this.

  Lightnin
g flared as the sky burst open. Rain sizzled onto the thatch—a hard, steady, cleansing rain that drained the sodden heaviness from the air. Within moments, it felt lighter, cooler; Luke could breathe deeply for the first time all day.

  Faithe’s chest rose and fell slowly. She untucked her face to look at him. Her hazel eyes were transparent in the stormy half-light. Threads of rusty gold feathered out from her enormous pupils, like veins of precious ore trapped in polished crystals. The effect was striking, but it was the human warmth in their crystalline depths—the tender reassurance—that squeezed his throat with emotion.

  She raised a tentative hand to his cheek and rubbed it lightly; his stubble rasped against her palm. His eyes stung suddenly; he shut them and lowered his forehead to hers. He tried to say her name, but choked on the simple word.

  “Shh.” She slid her hands beneath his shirt and rubbed his back and shoulders. “Shh.”

  He sank on top of her, inhaling the tranquil scents of rain and straw, almonds and thyme... listening to the rhythmic hush of her breathing, the constant pattering on the thatch... basking in the sweet, warm, limitless comfort of her body.

  To lie so peacefully within a woman’s arms, while intimately connected with her, was a novel experience for Luke. Sex had always been a quick, primitive labor of lust. None of the women he’d paid to release that lust had ever stroked his back with cool, gentle hands, or whispered soothingly into his ear. None of them had loved him. Nor had he loved them. He’d never truly made love to a woman, although he had, on occasion, called it that. He’d never lain united in quiet contentment with a woman as their breathing synchronized and their hearts beat as one. He’d never been a part of anyone else, until now.

  Her fingers drew soft, languorous circles over his shoulders and back, down the length of his spine, and beneath his loosened braies, over the slope of his buttocks. The airy massage was both pacifying and stimulating. His skin tingled all over; his body felt heavy, yet charged with sensation. As she continued this feathery touch, that sensation gravitated to where they were joined. His senses focused in on his body penetrating hers. Deep inside her, within her warmth and softness, he felt her heart pulsing in time with his.