“You’re still certain?” he asked. Challenged.
She set her jaw and nodded. “The only one hesitating is you.”
His mouth quirked, though there was a dark storm in his eyes. He stroked her again with his fingertip. She arched up, heels digging in around his hips as he touched her so intimately. How could something that set her on fire be something she craved so deeply and powerfully?
He pressed his thumbs against her outer lips and gently massaged her until they parted, revealing the entrance to her core. She sat up, her hand coming to settle against his thick hair. “Rook,” she whispered.
His eyes lifted and he was no longer teasing her when he whispered, “I’ll stop if you want me to, Anne.”
She shook her head and caught her breath at his dark gaze staring up at her from such an intimate position. “Don’t stop. I just…I’m…I am…”
“You don’t have to say it,” he reassured her as he lowered his head again. “Just feel it.”
His tongue touched her, and she cried out. The feel of him against her tender flesh was a shock both emotionally and physically. He was licking her, over and over, gentle at first, allowing her body to grow accustomed to this intimate invasion. But as the crackle of electric heat whizzed through her veins, he increased the pressure of his tongue, flattening it against her entrance, pushing it inside of her, stroking his nose along the bundle of nerves at the top of her sex. She jolted and cried out again, and he darted his tongue up to circle her in a smooth, steady rhythm that pushed pleasure through her entire body.
“Rook!” she cried out again, clinging to the coverlet, pushing against his mouth.
He glanced up, breaking contact for a moment so he could look at her. “Constantine,” he panted.
Her eyes went wide as they stared at each other. So the name he gave the day before had been his true one. And now he was asking her to say it, to moan it, to cry it out as he returned his mouth to her sex and sucked her clitoris.
She obliged, repeating his name as she lifted her body and ground against him. They moved together, one body, her cries increasing, his tongue doing the same, and at last the pleasure he built burst like a dam with too much behind it. She trembled, her body spasming against his mouth as wave after wave of unbelievable pleasure slammed into her body. He licked her through it all, offering no respite until she went weak against the pillows, sweat on her brow and legs shaking with release.
He crawled up the length of her body, nuzzling her stomach, caressing her breast with his rough cheek until he was face to face with her. He leaned in and kissed her, letting her taste the sweet and salty flavor of her own orgasm.
Then he pulled away, his face still close to hers. “I want you, Anne. More than I have ever wanted anything in my life. But I am not worthy.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but he dropped his finger on her lips gently. “I’m a villain, even if I walked away from my past. I’m not good. I don’t deserve your body, I didn’t deserve your pleasure. I won’t deserve your innocence.”
“Constantine,” she whispered, hating how broken his expression was. Hating that he believed all these things to be true. Hating that they might be, for she didn’t know the lengths he’d gone to, even if she couldn’t picture him as a true villain.
He flinched at the use of his name, as if he didn’t want to grant her that intimacy now that he was no longer between her legs. He shook his head. “I will take you if you offer yourself to me again.”
“Then take me,” she murmured.
He laughed, but it was pained. “No, you need to think a little harder about the consequences of what you want. Truly think about it, Anne. Think about the kind of man you want to share that gift with. And I’ll ask you tomorrow night what your thoughts are.”
He kissed her again, this time more gently, and rolled away from her. He pulled the covers up, put his back to her and that was the end of the discussion.
She stared at that muscular back, eyes wide and utterly confused about what had just happened. She’d seen the irrefutable evidence of his desire and he’d given her pleasure she never could have imagined even in her wildest, hottest dreams. And now he was…snoring?
Was he snoring? As if it meant nothing. As if his declaration that he would have her if she asked him just one more time didn’t hang in the air all around her. She flopped a hand over her eyes and let out her breath in a long, frustrated stream.
He had shattered her into a thousand beautiful pieces and she knew she’d never be fully the same again. She didn’t want to be the same. She wanted him. Only it was more than wanting now, wasn’t it? It had gone beyond wanting what felt like a long time ago, not just days.
She was beginning to feel connected to Rook…Constantine. And that was what she had to ponder. Because if he took her, there would always be a part of her that belonged to him. And that was more terrifying a prospect than anything else.
Chapter 11
Rook had had many women. Sex was something he enjoyed—it was something he sought when his body needed it, and it was something he knew he was good at. He couldn’t be satisfied if his partner wasn’t equally or more so, and he’d developed every talent he could to ensure a woman who left his bed left flushed with pleasure.
But he’d never felt anything in his thirty years that compared to the need that burned within him for Anne Shelley. He’d pretended to be asleep last night after he brought her to explosive completion in that bed, but he hadn’t slept. He’d stared at the wall, his throbbing cock punishment for going too far, and he’d just…thought about her.
Not about taking her, though those fantasies were in full force, it seemed, at every moment. But of being with her. Of making her laugh, of hearing her whoop of accomplishment when she found a clam in the sand or hit a target with a knife. He thought of her strength of character and her good heart and her focused drive to pursue what she wanted.
He thought of all the things that would make it so easy to do more than merely want her. And he thought of all the ugly reasons he would never earn the right to do so.
He frowned as they picked up their pace on the road. They’d risen early, gathered their things and been riding ever since. The morning had been difficult, with spattering rain and muddy, rutty roads to manage. But after their brief stop for a cold lunch, the weather and the roads had improved. They wouldn’t reach Gretna Green tonight, but they would only be a day’s ride from it.
A day’s ride from a potential separation he didn’t want to think about.
She shifted, seemingly as anxious as he was if her expression was any indication. She had grown quieter as the day grew long, and he had to wonder if she was pondering his statement that he would ask her again tonight if she wanted to give herself to him.
That he would not resist if the answer was yes.
“Why Constantine?” she finally blurted out with a quick side glance for him.
He jolted at the question and the way she’d said his name yet again. He’d asked her to do it while he pleasured her because he didn’t want to be the man who had done those things that made her an impossible dream. Now when she said it, the sound of each vowel and consonant in her husky voice put him on edge.
“Why…what?” he asked, trying to focus.
“Your name,” she clarified with a small laugh at his misunderstanding. “It’s so…it’s such a big name. Why did she pick it?”
“You have a lot of interest in my names,” he said, trying to keep his voice light, maintain distance by being playful.
She arched a brow at him. “How could I not be when—”
She trailed off and he stared straight ahead. “When I ravished you?”
“Er, no. Well, yes, I suppose that should make a person interested in a name, but I meant more that we’ve become…friends. Haven’t we, Rook…Constantine…Rook?”
He smiled despite himself at her stammering confusion about what name should be his. He rather liked both coming from her lips, even th
ough he hated each name for various reasons.
“If you are offering to be my friend, I certainly recognize that is a gift,” he said with a slight incline of his head. He pondered the question again for a moment. Ran through every reason he had not to answer it. Then he did it anyway. “My mother earned her living on her back and was often dismissed for being nothing because of it.”
He saw her glance at him, but couldn’t tell her reaction to the statement that his mother had been a lightskirt. So he continued on, “She had a brilliant mind. She loved to read, which is where I learned. History, especially, fascinated her. And she loved Scotland—she grew up here. Not far from my island, actually. Constantine was the name of two kings of Scotland. I suppose she had loftier goals for me than I had for myself.”
“It’s a fine name,” she said softly.
“Finer than I deserve, considering what she would think of the path I took.” He stared straight ahead at the road, trying to picture the mother he’d lost so long ago that he could hardly remember the color of her hair or the sound of her voice.
“It sounds like you picked a path which allowed you to survive, and I’m sure that’s what she would want for you,” Anne said slowly. “You said she died when you were quite young.”
He drew a shaky breath. He never spoke about this, not with anyone. Not even Ellis, though his cousin knew the particulars. But now he found himself wanting to tell Anne about his mother. For himself, but also to help her better understand the decision she was making by giving herself to someone from such a different world.
“She had a protector, or he called himself that.”
“Like Mr. Talon,” Anne whispered with a shiver.
He flinched. “Yes, I admit Talon put me to mind of the bastard who affiliated himself with my mother. Perhaps that was part of why I reacted so strongly. My mother’s man managed who she spent her time with. He controlled her money, though that just meant stealing it and drinking and gambling it away.” He shook his head. “He beat her when he thought she deserved it. He beat me because he hated that I existed and proved the bitterest consequences of what she did. And perhaps because she loved me and didn’t love him.”
Anne’s sharp catch of breath drew his attention back to her. She was watching him as she rode, her face pink and her eyes filled with unshed tears at his story.
“She got sick,” he said softly. “And that meant she couldn’t work. And that meant she was of no value to him anymore. He tried to get me to work for him instead. He didn’t care how he got his money, he just wanted it.”
“You were a child!” she burst out. “You mean he wanted you to—”
He turned his face and tried not to think about the truth even as he explained it to this woman who was so far removed from that bitter world.
“There are men with…appetites—” He cut himself off because it was too much for her. Too much for him. “It never happened because of my cousin. Ellis was older, ten to my six years. He somehow heard about the bastard’s plan and suddenly he was there. He told me to run away with him, that I had smaller hands so I could get into tight spaces to steal better. I ran. I never saw my mother again.” He cleared his throat, wishing he could clear the emotion that burned in him. “She died a few weeks later.”
“Constantine,” Anne whispered, pulling her horse to the right off the road and into a field that ran alongside it. She got off, patting the animal absently before she paced into the field without care for the water that clung to the vegetation and dampened her skirts.
He followed, for what choice did he have, and got off his own mount. He watched her as he stretched his back and waited for her disgust or her judgment about the terrible story he’d told. When she faced him, though, it was none of those things he saw.
She moved toward him in three long steps and reached up to cup his cheeks. “What you went through is something I cannot even imagine, having been raised in my ivory tower in a place so far from where you began.”
So she knew. So she understood. He supposed he should be happy for that. It was better for her.
She lifted on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his, then wrapped her arms around him and just…held him. He stiffened, for he couldn’t recall the last time he’d been hugged. It felt so good he thought might melt into her and never be free of this.
He’d never want to be free.
She rubbed her face against his collar. “You are so remarkable. Your strength is so admirable.”
He drew back and stared down into her upturned face. She wasn’t playing him for a fool, she wasn’t placating or pitying him for his past. She looked at him and saw him and it was…terrifying.
He took a long step back and nodded. “Very good. We should move on, though. We’re close to the next village where we’ll stop for the night.”
Her lips thinned at his rejection of her support, but she didn’t confront him about it. She simply walked to where her horse was grazing in the field and patted her flank again gently.
“How far to Gretna Green after tonight?” she asked.
He focused on retying the knot on his saddlebag that was perfectly fine. Anything not to look at her and let her see into his soul again. “Ten miles or so. With these improved roads, we should have no trouble reaching the town by tomorrow afternoon.”
She nodded, but it was slow in his peripheral vision. “There will be more choices for transportation there, I think.”
He hesitated. “Yes. Post carriages, private ones. It’s a big enough city, you may even bump into acquaintances who could carry you to wherever you’d like to go.”
She looked at him long enough that he was forced to return the gaze. Her face was expressionless. Utterly flat as she whispered, “I suppose you could go home after that. Back to your life if you did not wish to carry me the rest of the way.”
He shrugged like that thought didn’t matter. “I suppose I could. We’ll have to see how things go tomorrow when we arrive.”
She winced ever so slightly. Then she swung herself up on the horse and adjusted her seat carefully. “Best be off, then.”
He followed suit and led the way back to the road. “Best be off,” he agreed.
They were quiet as they rode along, and he should have been pleased by that. But he couldn’t help but feel he’d lost an opportunity she’d been offering him. One that might not come again, except in regretful dreams when she was out of his life for good.
Anne watched Rook eat his supper from the corner of her eye, marking every movement and every expression. The rest of their journey that afternoon had gone without incident. He’d talked to her about nothing of importance, as if the conversation about his mother, about his terrible, traumatic past, had never happened.
And now she couldn’t read him. As if they didn’t know each other at all. Her heart ached for what had been lost between them. Ached for the walls he’d erected between them, ached for the fact that he’d been forced to build them at all by terrible abuse and neglect and fear.
“Tell me more about being a triplet,” he said.
She jerked her gaze up to find he had leaned back in his seat and was swirling the last sip of ale in the tankard in his hand. She shifted. “I’m not sure what you want to know. It’s just being sisters, only we are the same age and have a similar face.” She sighed. “Some would say the same face.”
He tilted his head. “That troubles you, looking like them?”
“No. I love looking like them. It’s the only life I’ve known, so it’s comforting to me to look over and see Juliana or Thomasina with an expression I recognize immediately because I’ve felt it on my own face. And it allows us to trade places, for the purpose of games or…” She shook her head as she thought of what she’d convinced Thomasina to do for her weeks ago. “Or in the case of mistakes.”
He was quiet a moment. “And what is your least favorite part of it?”
She stared at him. No one had ever asked her that before. She and her sisters were
considered an anomaly by most. Multiple births of even surviving twins were so rare. Triplets were almost impossible, a miracle upon miracles. Few people wanted to know more about them. The subject seemed to make most uncomfortable, even as they leered.
“We are seen as one person,” she said softly. “One personality. Aside from my mother, very long ago, no one outside of ourselves has ever been able to tell us apart from each other. So I’ve never been Anne Shelley. I’ve always been a Shelley Triplet. First and forever.”
“Even the man you would have married couldn’t tell you apart?” Rook asked with an incredulous expression.
“No,” she said with a sigh. “The earl didn’t care enough to try, I suppose.”
“If he didn’t make an effort to get to know you, he was a fool.” Rook leaned forward and took her hand, folding it between his before he lifted it to kiss her knuckles gently.
And suddenly everything in the room shifted with the heat of his mouth on her skin, even in this benign way. She shifted in her chair as tingles started between her legs, running through her stomach, tightening her chest.
“You must think my troubles very small and foolish,” she choked out. “Compared to yours.”
He arched a brow as he turned her hand palm up and pressed another kiss on the skin below her thumb. His tongue darted out gently and she heard a garbled sound come from her throat.
He smiled up at her. “Why compare it? I had a hard life, that is a factual truth. But I always knew who I was. And I made sure everyone else did, too. Not being separated out as an individual must have been trying. No wonder you ran. No wonder you looked for someone who saw you.”
“Pretended to see me,” she whispered. “Ellis only pretended to see me.”
His brow furrowed and he threaded his fingers between hers, stroking the length of them with his own, gliding his thumb across her palm and inside her wrist as her body screamed with fire and anticipation.
A Reckless Runaway Page 12
