All About Passion

Chapter 7

“Wallace?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Get out. And take any staff in the wing with you.”

“At once, sir.”

Gyles watched the door close behind his majordomo, then started to pace, to give Wallace time to fetch Francesca’s maid and depart the private wing. He suspected his first private meeting with his wife would not be a quiet one. She was as far removed from the meek and mild-mannered as it was possible to get-

He heard a door close. He paused, then crossed to the door into Francesca’s bedchamber. He reached for the handle, then stopped. Had she realized the door was there-that it was a connecting door and not a cupboard?

Would she scream if he walked through?

Muttering a curse, he swung around and stalked to the corridor door.

In her luxurious emerald green bedchamber, Francesca sat before the dressing table and studiously brushed her hair, her eyes never leaving the door to her right, farther along the wall-the door that, so Millie had informed her, led to the earl’s bedchamber.

Through there he would come. She was ready, waiting-

A glimmer of movement caught her eye. She looked into the mirror-and smothered a shriek! Leaping up from the stool she whirled, the silver-backed brush clutched like a weapon. “What are you doing here?” Her heart thumped. “How did you get in?”

Halting three feet away, he narrowed his eyes at her. To her relief, he ignored her first witless question. “Through the door. The main one.”

He was wearing a robe nonchalantly belted over a pair of loose silk trousers. She forced her gaze past him to the corridor door, then looked back at him, at his face. “A gentleman would have knocked.”

Gyles had thought about it. “I’m your husband. I own this house. I don’t have to knock.”

The look she cast him should have withered him. Instead, it had the opposite effect. With a gesture very like a flounce, she turned and set her brush down. It clicked on the tabletop.

He had long ago observed that the best courtesans perfected the contradictory art of dressing demurely yet appearing lushly sensual. His new wife was apparently a natural in that sphere-the ivory-silk nightgown that draped her curves was in no way outrageous, yet in it she epitomized every man’s secret fantasy. The neckline was not low; it exposed very little of her breasts. Simplicity itself, the gown had no sleeves. Instead, a negligee of diaphanous gauze, liberally edged with lace, hazed the warm tone of her bare arms, the fall of lace at wrists, around the neckline and down the open front, tempting a man to reach, to touch, to brush aside and reach farther.

Her hair, fully out, was longer than he’d thought, the curling strands hanging down her back to her waist.

“Very well.” She swung to face him. Eyes glittering, she crossed her arms. He had to fight to keep his gaze on her face, away from the peaks of her breasts outlined beneath the taut silk.

“You may now explain how it was that you thought my cousin was the woman you were marrying.”

The demand, and her tone, refocused his mind wonderfully. When he didn’t immediately respond, she flung out her hands. “How could you have made such a mistake?”

“Very easily. I had perfectly reasonable grounds to imagine your cousin was the lady for whom I was offering.”

Her eyes, her expression dared him to convince her. He mentally gritted his teeth. “The day I made my offer, I walked to the stable via the shrubbery.”

She nodded exaggeratedly. “I remember that quite well.”

“Before I met you, I saw your cousin sitting in the walled garden reading a book. I don’t think she saw me.”

“She often sits there.”

“While I was watching, some woman called your name.”

“Ester called me. I heard her and came running-”

“When Ester called, Franni reacted. She shut her book, gathered her shawl.”

Francesca grimaced. “She’s childish-always curious. If someone’s called, she’ll come to find out why. But surely, just from that, you didn’t assume-”

“Ester called again. ‘Francesca-Franni’-and Franni answered, ‘I’m here.’ Naturally, I assumed Franni was a diminutive of Francesca. I was convinced she was you.”

She studied him. Her anger faded; worry clouded her eyes. “You said you met Franni-walked with her-twice. What did you say to her?”

He set his jaw. “I swore on my honor I said nothing-” He broke off when she waved the words aside.

“I accept that you didn’t mention your offer, but Franni, as I said-you heard what Charles said-she’s childish. She exaggerates wildly.” Her hands gestured; her eyes willed him to understand. “What did you speak with her about?”

He frowned. “Why is it important?”

She pressed her lips together, then gave in. “Franni mentioned she had a gentleman caller, one who called twice. She interpreted his visits as meaning he would offer for her. She told me this days ago. I couldn’t get her to reveal anything more-she’s often secretive. And often what she’s sure happened is pure fantasy.”

His frowned deepened; she hurried on, “I don’t even know if the man she was thinking of was you, but it might have been, and she might have…”

“Imagined the rest.” Gyles thought back. “I introduced myself as Gyles Rawlings, a distant-” He broke off. Francesca’s eyes had widened. “What?”

“I-we-Ester, Charles, and I-always spoke of you as Chillingworth. When we arrived here, your mother and the others did the same, at least in Franni’s hearing. She might not have realized-”

“Who I was before the ceremony? That might explain her reaction. Sheer surprise makes more sense than her having read anything into our meetings.”

“Those meetings?”

“The first time I walked with her all we spoke of was the dogs. I asked if they were hers. She said they just lived there. I later made a comment about their spots, with which she agreed. Then I left her. The next day, she was absorbed with trees. She was asking which was which.” He shook his head. “I think I answered twice. Other than that, and saying good-bye, I can’t recall saying anything more.”

He studied Francesca’s face. “If your cousin imagined anything, it was unfounded. Neither you nor I can do anything about that. You said yourself you don’t know if it was me she was referring to or some other. Or no one. You don’t know if that’s why she reacted in the chapel as she did. It might, as Charles suggested, simply be overexcitement.”

Francesca held his gaze. He was right-there was nothing either of them could do, at least not at present. He reached for her-she whisked away.

“Your mistake over Franni is only the first bone we have between us, my lord.” She caught his eye as she paced around him. “I wish to understand why, imagining you were offering for Franni, you were so…”-she gestured-“intent on me.” She was sure he’d understand her allusion; the hardening of his already hard face confirmed he did. Swinging to face him, she spread her arms wide. “If you thought she was me, who did you think I was?”

His eyes narrowed to slate shards. His gaze flashed over her-she felt it like a touch, a brush of long fingers over her bare skin. Beneath her gown, her skin flickered. She suppressed a shiver and kept her gaze on his eyes.

“I thought”-the words were bitten off-“that you were a gypsy. Too consciously well endowed and far too bold to be a young lady.” He took a prowling step toward her. “I thought you a bold and eager companion.”

She tilted her head defiantly. “I know well what you were thinking, my lord.” She made no effort to retreat as he prowled closer.

“I know you do. You were thinking along the same lines.” He halted before her. Lifting one hand, he traced a finger along her jaw, then slid it beneath and tipped her face to his. His eyes held hers. “Can you deny it?”

Francesca let her lips curve. “No. But then I hadn’t come directly from offering for another.”

Gyles realized his misstep, but she didn’t let him retreat.

“How dare you!” Eyes blazing, she jabbed a finger into his chest. “How dare you make an offer for me, and then, within minutes, think, consider, and even start planning on taking another woman as your mistress?”

“That other woman was you!”

“You didn’t know that!” She jabbed him again. He took a step back and she was on him like a whirlwind. “You came after me, looking for me in the orchard-you kissed me-you almost seduced me!”

She was so much shorter and slighter than he, yet her fury burned like a flame. Hands, arms, her whole body was afire; she came at him, and he backed, step by step, before the sheer rage in her eyes.

“You left the woman you thought was your intended, and you deliberately sought me out to-”

“You were very ready to be seduced-”

“Of course I was! I knew who you were-you’d offered for me! I thought you wanted me-me, your intended bride!”

“I did want you-”

She cut him off with a torrent of Italian. He spoke the language fluently, but at the rate she spoke, he could make out less than one word in ten. Words like “arrogant,” and something he thought approximated “swine,” and one or two others gave him an idea of her tack, but not enough of the context for him to defend himself.

“Slow down-I can’t understand you.”

Her eyes flamed. “You can’t understand me? You were set on marrying a lady you’d deliberately barely exchanged two words with! It’s I who cannot understand you!”

She reverted to Italian, a flow of impassioned outpourings that, like a physical tide, swept them both along. Her gestures, always dramatic, became more emphatic, more violent. He continued to retreat while he struggled to find some point to seize long enough to gain his footing. She darted this way, then that, hands flinging wildly about.

He suddenly realized she’d opened the corridor door and backed him to the threshold. Grabbing the door’s edge, he halted. “Francesca!”

The exclamation was designed to jerk her reins, to shake her to reality.

It only evoked another furious spate of Italian. She flung up a hand as if to slap him-she didn’t-she wouldn’t have connected-it was just another histrionic gesture conveying her contempt, but he ducked back, stepped back, let go of the door.

Then he was in the corridor and she was in the doorway, hands on her hips, her breasts rising and falling, her black hair a silken jumble against the ivory of her gown. Green fire burned in her eyes.

She was so vividly, vitally, intensely beautiful, he literally couldn’t breathe.

“And then,” she said, reverting to English, “when you’ve managed to answer that, you can explain why it was, in the forest that morning, you stopped! And again in the stables-was it only last night? You want me, my lord, yet you don’t! You didn’t want me as your bride, but you thought to have me as your mistress. You thought to seduce me-then when you succeeded you turned away!” She flung up her hands. “How can you explain that?”

She paused, the silence dramatic after her tirade. Breasts heaving, she kept her eyes locked on his.

Then she drew in a long breath, drew herself up and lifted her chin. “You put it so succinctly last night. You don’t want me, you don’t need me-you only desire me. Not, however, sufficiently deeply to bother consummating a relationship. And now we’re married. You might think on that.”

She turned away. “Good night.”

He swore and leaped for the door. It slammed shut in his face. The lock snibbed as his hand closed on the knob.

The oath he uttered was not a polite one. He glared at the door. He could hear Fate laughing.

He’d plotted and planned to gain a meek and mild bride.

And landed himself with a virago.

Francesca didn’t waste any time staring at the locked door. She raced across the room to the door from his bedroom-only to skid to a horrified stop. The door had no lock.

She looked around, then ran to the escritoire. Lifting the chair before it, she rushed to jam it under the doorknob.

Standing back, she studied her handiwork. It looked far too flimsy for her peace of mind.

A chest of drawers stood to one side of the doorway; she stepped to its side, drew in a deep breath, and pushed with all her might. It shifted an inch. Encouraged, she tamped down her welling panic and pushed again. The other end of the chest hit the doorframe.

Muttering a curse, she hurried to that end, reached across and tried to jerk the corner free-

Hard hands closed about her waist.

She screamed with sheer shock. But she recognized the hands-they’d been flirting with her waist for the past hours. Her fright drowned beneath a wave of fresh fury. He juggled her, turned her-locked his hands about her waist and hoisted her up-up above his head.

Shocked anew, she grabbed handfuls of his hair-not to pull but to steady herself. His eyes flashed a warning-she ignored it, too busy trying to fathom how he’d got in.

“The other door-the one to your sitting room.”

She looked across the room, and for the first time saw the door in the opposite wall.

“I take it you haven’t admired the decor yet.”

His urbane tone did nothing to calm her. Releasing one hand, she glanced down. He started walking, carrying her like some dangerous captured prize, high above his head at arm’s length.

“What are you doing?” She tried to look around but couldn’t. She thought he was making for the bed.

“Getting these proceedings back on track.”

The steel beneath his words didn’t escape her. “And what track is that?”

He stopped walking and went to look up, but couldn’t-she had to release her hold on his hair. Reluctantly, she did. She tried to brace her hands on his forearms, but there was nothing she could hook her fingers in-the sleeves of his robe had fallen to his shoulders. Precariously balanced high above the floor, she was forced to put her trust in him, in his strength, to hold her steady.

Tipping back his head, he looked into her face. Not a single tremor disturbed the locked muscles of his arms-he was supporting her without effort.

She met his eyes. They were stormy, turbulent-intent.

After a moment, he spoke. “We’re married. This is our wedding night.”

A shiver slithered down her spine. Some age-old instinct warned her against replying, against uttering any contemptuous quip, any taunt. She needed to be on the ground, no longer his captive, to continue their battle. She waited, breathing rapidly. His gaze locked with hers, slowly, very slowly, he lowered her.

His hands were level with his chest, her hands had just touched his shoulders, her toes still a foot off the ground, when she felt his muscles bunch, his fingers grip.

He flung her back.

She fell full length in the middle of the huge bed. She caught her breath on a gasp and scrambled to sit up-

Gyles shrugged off his robe and went for her.

She clutched frantically but couldn’t gain purchase on the slippery satin. He drew her back down, tangling her legs with his. When she continued to struggle, he caught her hands, trapped them both in one of his and anchored them above her head, then lifted over her and lowered his body to hers.

His weight subdued her, trapped her beneath him. Propped on his forearms, he met her gaze-wary but still furious.

Her breasts rose and fell against his chest, her body lay firm and supple beneath his. He shut his senses to her distractions. In a minute, he’d indulge, but first… ”You were right the first time, when we first met, as to what I thought of you.”

Francesca held his gaze and tried to read his eyes; their dark turbulence defeated her. His expression was graven, one she didn’t recognize, yet some part of her did-some part of her responded. To the look in his eyes, to the harsh set of his lips, to the dark, gravelly rasp of his voice.

“I desired you-I still do.” His glance strayed to the ripe mounds of her breasts. He sank against her; she felt his erection rigid against her thigh.

“Whenever I see you, all I can think of is being inside you.” With his free hand, he traced the neckline of her gown, from her shoulder to the center front, where tiny buttons held it closed. One flick and the first button popped free. “Now we’re married, I’ll get to indulge that desire every day, every morning and every night.”

He continued to unbutton her gown.

There was no doubt in her mind which track he was on. She dragged in a short breath. “You don’t want me. You don’t need me.”

He raised his eyes and met hers. He inclined his head. “I don’t want you. I don’t need you. But by heaven I desire you.” He slid one finger beneath her gaping gown and traced her upper breast-they both felt the quiver that raced through her. “And you desire me.”

She knew what he intended, what he would do, knew she had no defense. But it was not what she wanted-not like this. “You don’t want me as your wife. You didn’t want to marry me.”

“No.” He shifted his weight, reaching for buttons lower down. “But I did.”

The last button slid free; her gown gaped to her waist, the silk less sumptuous than the skin it concealed. Gyles slid his hand beneath the gown’s edge, cupped her breast, and circled the peak with his thumb. “Which brings us to where we are.” He met her gaze. “To this.”

He circled her nipple again and felt her spine tense. Saw in her eyes, darkened and wide, the knowledge that she wouldn’t-couldn’t-win the prize she’d set her heart on. And understood why she’d been so disappointed. So very angry.

He bent over her. “Everything I promised, you will have.”

But nothing more.

The vow hung between them, unsaid but implicit.

She’d seen past his mask and had hopes that he would not, could not, fulfill. Passion and desire he would give her, but passion and desire were not love-none knew that better than he.

He lowered his head and felt her tense. A fraught second ensued-he waited, gave her the moment to gauge the situation, to make her decision. Then she eased beneath him, accepting, all resistance flowing from her.

He closed the last inch; his lips hovered over hers, and they parted.

“I’m sorry.”

He whispered the words against her lips, then covered them. He was sorry for disappointing her, sorry for his mistake. But not sorry that he had her, at last, beneath him.

She met his lips with hers, yet she made no demands. Her body lay responsive yet passive beneath his.

Last night, she’d been frantic, eager; now, sunk in the emerald satin of their marriage bed, she was, not physically reserved-her body wouldn’t permit that-but mentally hesitant, reticent. Even reluctant.

Releasing her hands, he drew her into his arms, settling her against him, half beneath him, his hands skating over her face, over her curves.

He’d sworn he wouldn’t woo her, and he hadn’t. But now she was his, he was conscious of a primal need to win her, to overcome her reluctance to give herself, surrender all of herself to him. Too many women had arched beneath him for him not to know the difference between absolute surrender and the mere sharing of bodies for mutual pleasure. He knew which he wanted from his gypsy, from his suddenly elusive bride. So despite the fact he was aching, that his body wanted nothing more than to simply bury himself in her, to slake the lust that had been building for too long, he turned his mind and his considerable talents to a seduction he’d never imagined pursuing.

He’d never imagined seducing his wife.

He kissed her gently, slowly, deliberately drawing out the simple caress. Braced for an onslaught, for a ruthless claiming, Francesca was disarmed. But not taken in. She knew he was doing it deliberately, that for some unfathomable reason he’d decided he wanted more from her than a simple joining. He lay stretched along and alongside her, caging her, his strength palpable, in no way disguised. His expertise screamed in his every touch. He had the power to compel her-to make her body want him, to make her burn with desire.

As she kissed him back, tentatively, uncertain just where this was leading, she scanned back through the careful explanations of his requirements, his explicitly stated needs of this marriage. All he needed to do to achieve his desired ends was impregnate her.

Why, then, this?

She didn’t know the answer. If she followed his lead, she shortly wouldn’t be able to think, yet the temptation to learn whatever it was he would teach her, to discover whatever it was he wished of her, swelled and grew.

Tonight, she would be his wife in fact as well as name-that was indisputable. She’d thought it would be accomplished via a passionate but distant act-thought that’s what he’d had in mind, the track he would unquestionably take.

It seemed she’d been wrong. There could be only one destination tonight, but the path he’d chosen was different and infinitely more appealing than the one she’d assumed he’d hurry her down.

She was, she decided, more than willing to follow his unexpected tack.

He’d been indulging her with warm, simple, reassuring kisses. Now his lips firmed, harder, more demanding. She opened her mouth to him, welcomed him in, gave him what he wanted. Shuddered when he took it. The pleasure he knew well how to press on her swept her wits aside. She let them go, let them slide away as she drew him deep and tuned her mind to passion.

His, and hers. The combination was powerful, dizzying. At this much slower pace, they had time to pause, to knowingly adjust, to better align one with the other. In the depths of her satin-draped bed, passion, desire, and need became physical realities, tangible qualities they weighed and traded and balanced between them.

They stepped out of time, and it lost all meaning. The only point of relevance was the journey they’d embarked on-nothing else mattered. Their kisses deepened, his tongue sliding over hers, tangling, enticing, caressing. Enflaming. Their exchanges grew hotter, more intimate. One hand cradling his lean cheek, she gave herself up to the spiraling heat, to the burgeoning need.

Their lips parted. They drew back to breathe, to catch their breath. Eyes met. The lamp on her dressing table still burned, casting golden light from a distance. Enough for them to see, to search each other’s eyes, to take stock. To wordlessly agree that they’d explored that vista long enough and were ready to move on.

His hand had cupped her breast throughout, his fingers lying passive as they’d kissed. He withdrew his hand from beneath the silk and reached for the gown’s shoulder. He pushed it aside. She met his eyes, then ducked her shoulder. He drew the gown and negligee down; she lifted her arm and slid it free, watching his face, watching the dark glow in his eyes.

He shifted back, and they repeated the exercise, freeing her other arm. He drew the gown down until she was bare to the waist. She had never been ashamed of her body, knew she had no reason to be. One hand resting on his shoulder, the other curled about his nape, she watched him look, survey-then he looked up and met her gaze.

Emotion flashed between them, quicksilver understanding. Her vulnerability. His possessiveness.

His gaze returned to her breasts and he settled beside her. She felt his gaze, felt her flesh react-instinctively, she tensed. But he only raised a hand and, exquisitely gently, brushed the underside of her breast.

He said nothing. Nor did she. Yet he seemed to understand her sudden uncertainty, born of the previous night, a conviction that if he suckled her breast, she would lose all ability to function beyond the dictates of rampant desire. He made no move to lower his head but, instead, traced, caressed and fondled her flesh, every touch a practiced pleasure.

Gradually, she relaxed. The unexpected vulnerability eased, teased away by his caresses, by the languid sea of desire that slowly enveloped her, not with a rush but with a gentle lapping. She’d expected to feel cool. Instead, her skin had flushed, lightly fevered, not yet aflame, but the embers were glowing. With the pads of his fingers, he circled her nipples but never touched, never tweaked, and in some intuitive part of her mind, she knew.

When he next met her eyes, his were very dark; she wondered what hers were like. Whatever he read in them seemed to satisfy. He bent his head, touched his lips to hers, and murmured, “Trust me.”

His lips slid from hers to trace over her jaw, down her throat. He found the throbbing pulse at its base and licked, laved. Then he suckled there, and she felt heat flare. He pressed closer-

Her whole body reacted, arching. Fingers digging into his shoulder, she gasped.

He lifted his head.

Hands at his shoulders, she pushed. “Your chest.”

He eased back and looked down. She ran her hands down, fingers splayed, pressing her palms to the heavy muscles. “You’re so hot.”

The sudden touch, skin to skin, the abrasion of the rough hair that ran across his chest, had made her nerves jerk and spasm. Silk-soft and sensitized, her skin seemed more reactive to touch than ever before.

The effect had reached her palms. She ran them over his chest, wondering at the sensations, at the heat, the resilence of muscles under taut skin, at the raspy tickle of his hair. She discovered the flat disc of his nipple and was interested to see its tip was as tightly furled as hers.

He shifted as her finger traced. “You’ll get used to it.”

His chest? Or the heightened tactile sensitivity?

Not in the next decade. She didn’t say the words, but the thought must have flashed through her eyes.

He raised a brow at her. “Where were we?”

He lowered his head, and she gasped again, but the sensation of his chest pressed to her breasts was no longer such a shock. His mouth was warm at the base of her throat, then shifted along her collarbone, then swept over the upper curves of her breasts.

Heat flared anew, following the trail of his lips, ignited by their touch, then spreading in warm waves beneath her skin. He licked and laved until her breasts were swollen, but he consistently avoided the tightly ruched peaks. Until they pulsed with an ache she could no longer deny.

The fingers of one hand were tangled in his hair, her other hand flat against his chest, braced against the certainty of what was to come, when she felt his warm breath wash over one tight peak, then he lowered his head and took it into the scalding heat of his mouth.

She’d expected the same flash of sensation she’d felt last night, but while the jolt of pleasure was certainly there, it didn’t, this time, rip her awareness away. He suckled, and flames pulsed through her, poured down her veins, pooled deep inside, but the heat was all pleasure, and she welcomed it, drank it in, wallowed in the warmth.

He encouraged her. It was as if her body had come to sensate life, could now experience more, appreciate more. He gave her the sensation and the time to enjoy it. With a grateful murmur, she relaxed in his arms, let her body flow on the tide he conjured, and thought of how to thank him. Relaxing her hands, she sent them wandering, over the outer edges of his ears, stroking his throat, spreading out to encompass the width of his shoulders, reaching around to stroke the muscles of his back.

How long they flowed with that particular tide, she had no idea. They experimented, testing, learning, seeking each other’s pleasure, enjoying the other’s gifting. Soft murmurs, low growls of appreciation, became their currency, a flicker of lids, a clash of eyes slowly drowning, a brush of dry lips, a tangle of hot tongues.

She was hot and restless when he drew her gown from her and slipped from her arms, his mouth a brand trailing over her skin. Over her midriff, her waist. Over her flickering stomach to the thatch of curls at its base.

She caught her breath and reached for him. “No. Please.”

He raised his head, met her eyes. Over her breasts, rising and falling. Through the mad thud of her heart in her ears, she tried to think-tried to find words.

“It won’t be like last time.” His voice was so deep she could barely catch the words. “It won’t end that way.” His gaze remained locked on her eyes. “I need to taste you.”

If he’d used any other word, she might have refused him, but there was a raw hunger in his eyes that was impossible to mistake. A novel sense of power, tantalizing in its newness, its unexpectedness, flowed through her.

He closed his hand about her knee, then pushed gently-and she permitted it, let him part her thighs. She watched as he lifted over her other leg, pressing that aside, too, settling between. Then she let her head fall back, and steeled herself against madness.

But her mind wasn’t, this time, overwhelmed. She was awash with passion, fevered, floating, senses heightened yet fully aware. Her body seemed no longer hers but theirs, as was his, vessels for their mutual pleasure. It no longer felt so shocking to feel his lips touch her there, to receive his kisses, to feel the hot wetness of his tongue as he traced and stroked, as he caressed, then lightly suckled. Her heart leapt, her chest seized; she swallowed her gasp, felt the tug on her nerves, the dizzying whirl of her senses.

Then felt the lap and probe of his tongue. Every touch sent her senses spiraling, nerves tightening, skin tingling. Pleasure blossomed once more, but on a different plane, one more intimate, more… sharing.

He entered her as the word echoed in her brain. She gasped, tensed, pressed the back of one hand to her lips to smother the cry building in her throat. She felt him look up, then his fingers locked about her wrist and he tugged.

“There’s no one to hear.”

Just him. And Gyles definitely wanted to hear every little murmur, every gasp, every shredded whimper. Every scream.

He was operating wholly on instinct-an instinct he didn’t fully recognize or understand. He’d thought that, given he couldn’t-wouldn’t-give her his love, then the least he could do was love her-make love to her-as he had with no other woman. That was something he could give, something in return for what he wanted from her.

What he needed and would have from her.

Would take from her.

So he’d set himself the task of making the moment special, different, more intense. With her, not a difficult task. She was so very unlike any woman he’d known.

There was passion in her for the taking-a boundless, limitless sea of uninhibited warmth that was the ultimate prize for his baser self. The maurauding rapacious barbarian wanted nothing more than to seize and wallow-and there was a sneaking suspicion in his mind that his actions tonight were at least partly driven by the possibility that, if he dazzled her with delight, she would, later, be more amenable to letting him-the true him-wallow.

She was open and confident, and although patently innocent-witness her reaction to his chest-that had never happened to him before, and had left him curiously touched-yet she displayed an understanding, a sensual comprehension, at odds with that innocence.

After tonight, that innocence would be no more, and the odd contrast would disappear. The thought refocused his mind on the matter in hand-he looked into her eyes, then, retaining his hold on her wrist, reached with his other hand and trapped her free hand.

He drew her arms down, locked his hands about her wrists, then returned to the one and only distraction capable of slowing the marauding barbarian down.

She tasted of tart apples and some elusive spice. He heard her whimper as he licked and inwardly smiled. With his shoulders, he kept her thighs wide, wide enough for him to taste her as he wished, slowly, thoroughly.

He knew just how tight he was winding her, knew when to ease back, to lightly lap her swollen flesh until she calmed, knew when it was safe to slide into her honeyed warmth and feast.

The sounds she made were both balm and fiery prod to his ravenous rapacious self, a self only she had ever been able to provoke, but he was determined to prolong the pleasure of their joining, and not just for her.

He wanted to explore her, to discover as many of her secrets as he could, tonight. He didn’t know why, only that he was driven and the goal felt right. In this arena, amidst the satin sheets, instinct ruled, and ruled him absolutely.

With her, with the way she affected him, that was how it would always be. Different. More intense. More vibrantly alive.

With her, he was himself, all of his true self, no elegant mask, no screen veiling his desires.

She writhed in his hold. He kept her there, held her there, on the cusp of delight. He felt the quivering in her thighs, felt the tension that held her.

Knew it was time.

He could almost feel the reins sliding, the leashes falling away as he released her hands, twisted around and stripped off his trousers. Kicking them aside, he turned back to her, then rose to sit back on his ankles. Hands resting on his thighs, he watched her, waited for her lashes to flicker, waited to see the green glitter of her eyes.

When he did, he held out both hands. “Come.”

With his fingers, he beckoned. She stared at him, then struggled up, her tongue skating over her lips. She blinked at him, then swung around, up onto her knees, and gave him her hands. “How?”

He didn’t answer, but drew her nearer.

Her gaze fell to his groin.

He released one of her hands and reached for her hip.

She closed her hand about him.

The jolt nearly stopped his heart. Eyes closing, he groaned, and felt her fingers flutter.

He groaned again and grabbed her wrist. He’d intended to draw her hand away but her fingers closed again.

“Show me how.”

Her grip eased, tightened-he couldn’t form the words much less say them.

“Like this?”

Her sultry voice, deepened by passion, heated by desire, burned through his brain.

He managed to nod, to force his fingers to function and direct hers. He heard her chuckle, then she leaned her head against his chest. The sensation of her hair, the silky mass of curls, tumbling down his bare chest made him shudder. She tightened her fingers again and he bit back a moan.

He showed her more than he’d intended, captured by the feel of her small hand on him, by the curiosity in her touch, the wonder and wantoness behind the deed.

“Enough.” He had to stop her. Now, while he still had some semblance of control.

She let him draw her hand away, then shook off his hand. With a warm chuckle that only increased his pain, she reached for his thighs, grasping just above his knees, then ran her hands slowly upward, nearly to his groin. Her silky locks swung forward and caressed his aching flesh.

The sensation rocked him; he mentally swayed. Before he could reach for her, she leaned on his thighs and pushed away. Supple and light, she rose to her feet. Stepping lightly on the soft bedding, hands trailing his shoulders for balance, she placed her feet on either side of his spread knees, then sank down.

His hands closed about the backs of her thighs and he directed her. Held her to him, her stomach against his chest as she lowered herself against him. He supported her when she reached the point where she had to turn her feet, and change from standing to sinking down on her knees. Straddling him.

She shook her hair back, wrapped her arms about his shoulders, then set her lips to his. Her inner thighs rode across his hips; her knees hadn’t yet reached the bed. She pressed against him, pressed down, letting her weight take her to him, urging him, still holding her, to guide her the last part of the way.

He did, one question coalescing in his brain even as he took charge of their kiss, took charge of their joining. He set the question aside as her slick swollen flesh met, then engulfed his throbbing erection. He eased into her, reveling in the heat, in the fascinating combination of firmness and softness with which she sheathed him. She was tight, slick, scalding hot. Her weight, and her state of arousal, would have allowed him to fill her with a single sharp thrust. Instead he went slowly, searching… reminding himself she rode daily, albeit sidesaddle…

He was deep in their kiss, half-buried in her body, when he met the resistance. The barbarian within him growled with satisfaction. He ravaged her mouth, drew her attention deep into the kiss, then, his hands locked about her hips, he lifted her just enough, then lowered her firmly, pushing deep, then deeper, rupturing the last barrier and filling her.

She pulled back from the kiss on a gasp, then made a strangled, whimpering sound and rested her forehead against his chest. She breathed deeply. Her fingers dug into his shoulders; her spine stiffened, and her body clamped hard around him, then gradually, increment by increment, eased. She was small-he wasn’t. He released her hips and wrapped his arms about her, one hand sliding beneath the veil of her hair to stroke her back.

Every muscle he possessed was quivering, straining with the need to plunder the vulnerable, heated softness of her body. Yet he forced himself to wait, to bend his head and lay his cheek on her hair and simply hold her, until her pain subsided.

He felt her draw in a shuddering breath. When she tried to shift, he locked his arms about her. “No. Wait.”

Her body hadn’t yet softened, hadn’t yet recovered from the shock. In another minute or two it would, and her ability to cope with his invasion, and the possession to come, would increase.

She was content to wait. One small hand lay, fingers spread, on his chest. He covered it with his hand, then lifted it to his lips and kissed each fingertip, drawing each into his mouth before releasing it.

He had her attention. Bending his head, he kissed her, gently at first, then increasingly passionately as she responded, as her body softened and heated anew, reacting to the caress of his hands, then the more intimate caress of his body as he rocked her.

Then she started to move, and it was he who was rocked. She’d reached up and framed his face, her forearms braced on his chest as her tongue whispered over his with promises of surrender, of the heated spoils of conquest. Using her knees on the slippery satin but even more the contact of her thighs with his, she undulated upon him. She didn’t lift and slide down as untutored ladies did. She used her whole body in a sinuous, heart-stopping, mind-numbing, senses-stealing movement that caressed him from rock-hard thighs to his lips and beyond.

She captured him, his mind, his body, his senses-all were hers to command. And command she did. He had no idea how long he simply held her, his hands splayed, one on her back, one below her waist, and took in all she lavished on him. Drank as he hadn’t drunk in years.

The movement started from her hips. She pressed down, taking him all, her inner thighs, the softness of her caressing his groin. The wave started from there and traveled her spine in a slow, controlled roll, pressing her stomach, her waist, then her chest, and finally her sumptumous breasts along his body. At the last, her mouth would press to his, open and inviting, luring him deep, then the wave would recede, slowly falling back in an even more enticing caress as she softened, body beckoning. And then it would start again.

His mind was reeling when he lifted his head and drew in a shuddering breath. Shifting one hand to the back of her head, he fisted it in her hair and drew her back so he could look into her face.

Eyes more deeply green, more intense than any emerald glinted up at him from under heavy lids.

“How did you know?” His question-the one for which he could not conceive of an answer. She’d been as innocent, as virginal, as he’d suspected, yet… she could love him like this-like a concubine from some sultan’s seraglio, skilled and practiced in the sensual arts.

He didn’t need to elaborate; her lips curved into a widening smile. “My parents.”

Dumfounded, he stared at her. “They taught you?”

She laughed, breathlessly, yet he felt the sound go through him like a shot of the finest brandy, searing straight to his gut, then sliding and pooling lower, fuel for his fire. He released her hair and she pressed to him once more. “No. I watched.” She caught his eye, her lips languidly curved. “I was an only child.” Her words were little more than a whisper, her body restless on his. “When I was young, my bedroom connected to theirs. They always left the door open, so they would hear if I called. I used to wake and go in… sometimes they didn’t… notice. After a while, I’d go back to my bed. I didn’t understand, not until later, but I remember.”

As the memories rolled through her, Francesca gave mute thanks. Without her loving parents, without their love for each other, she would never have had a chance for this. For now-for the experience of having a man like her husband at her mercy, caught by the splendor of her body, held by the promise of all she could give him. It was a heady thought, one small victory amid the defeats. One thing for which she would remember her wedding night.

Spearing her fingers through the wiry hair on his chest, she searched, then ducked her head and licked. Nipped.

His arms closed about her like the steel cage she knew they could be. He nudged her, and she lifted her head. He swooped and captured her mouth in a kiss that blazed.

One arm shifted to lock her hips to him, and she was suddenly more aware than she had been for some time of the hard, ridged strength buried inside her, of the latent power in the body she had, until then, held captive. The discovery rolled through her as he plundered her mouth, then he lifted his head, and breathed against her swollen lips, “Second act.”

She’d seen it before, but never felt it. Never been the woman at center stage. Tonight, she was-all that was done was done to her, to her flesh, to her body, to her senses. Since seating himself within her, he’d barely moved, letting her use her body to caress him. That changed. His hold on her was restricting, but she could still move upon him, and did, but her reason was no longer to please him, but to assuage the hunger, the need that flowered and grew within her-the need he expertly fed.

He moved with her, within her; he now controlled their dance. As he surged deep inside her, filling her, impaling her, only to retreat and do it again, she tried to cling to sanity, and failed. The unnameable need blossomed within her-she could deny it no more than she could deny him. The slickness of her body, her movements upon him an uninhibited encouragement, she strove to appease that need. And him.

She lost her rhythm and instead found his, then he held her hips down and filled her more deeply. Each thrust seemed to push farther, to penetrate her more intimately, to touch a place he’d not touched before.

Fire consumed her. It came from him. He pressed it into her, pushed it deep until she went up in flames. All but sobbing, she clung to him, willing and wanton as her body became his, his to fill and plunder and take as he wished. No matter the times she’d witnessed the heat, the staggering, exhausting glory, it had never occurred to her that it would be like this-that it involved such a giving.

She pulled back from their kiss gasping, blind with need.

He changed his grip, bent her back over one arm, then his head swooped and she felt the scalding heat of his mouth at her breast.

He suckled fiercely and she shrieked. Her body tightened, tightened again as he suckled more, and thrust deeply, hotly, inside her.

The fire imploded.

And she was no longer there, but yet she could feel. Feel the sensations, excruciatingly sharp, that lanced through her, spreading outward from her core, tensed, coiled, incandescent, locked about him. The bright rapture subsided in waves, spreading under her skin, leaving it glowing. Like ripples on her sensual pond, they fanned out, then gradually faded, leaving her floating, at peace.

Waiting.

She wasn’t capable of thinking, yet she knew. Knew there was more, that she wanted still more.

She wanted him. Not just inside her but with her.

He’d stilled, quieted; now he drew her upright and against him once more, holding her there, his hands moving over her, molding her to him.

Then his hands closed over her hips and he lifted her from him.

She made some sound-a whimper of disapproval. He answered with a harsh, very gravelly laugh.

“I want you beneath me.”

He wanted to feel her supple and pliant under him as he took her. Wanted to hear every little gasp, every moan. Wanted to know she was open and willing, her ripe body his to fill. A primitive, elemental want. A driving, almost-desperate desire. Gyles laid her down on the emerald satin, following her down, spreading her thighs wide and settling between. He filled her with a single powerful thrust, watched her body rock, watched her arch as he pressed deeper still, and she tilted her hips to take him in.

She reached for him, drawing him down to her. He went readily, hungry for the sensation of her body under his. He moved within her, upon her, and she clutched, and drew his face to hers. He met her lips, met the fire still glowing within her and stoked it back to flame.

Into an inferno.

The blaze cindered every last veil, every last vestige of his civilized facade. He plunged into her, into her mouth, into her body, with a greedy, ravenous need. He wanted, he took, and she gave. He knew when she yielded, when she surrendered completely to the moment, to the flames, to the glory, and he exulted in his victory. She opened to him, wrapped him in her arms and welcomed him in, not just into her body but into that citadel he had wanted, needed, to claim.

He was poised on the crest of delirium when the depth of that need hit him like a blow. Understanding-of himself, of that urgent fundamental want-came in a blinding revelation. But nothing, not even his deepest fears, could stop him from seizing that which he’d thought for so long he’d never seek.

She climaxed beneath him and he was with her, drinking in her cry, fleetingly glorying in her completion before following her into the void.

His victory, or hers?

Sunk beside his sleeping wife in the satin sheets of her bed, Gyles wasn’t sure. And wasn’t sure he cared. If he could have his cake and eat it, too, why should he complain?

Despite her unexpected knowledge, despite all that had occurred, only he knew what had happened. Only he knew that she was the only woman to ever touch his barbarian core, the only woman whose surrender could sate, satisfy, and fulfill his true self.

The only woman his true self wanted.

She couldn’t know, not unless he told her. Not unless he admitted the vulnerability out loud, in words.

Pigs would fly before he did.

Lifting one lid, he looked across the rumpled bed, now lit only by moonlight. She was slumped on her side, facing him. He could make out the wild tangle of her black curls, the paler band of her forehead, the small hand nestled on the pillow between them. Under the covers, he had one arm slung possessively over her waist. He left it there.

He couldn’t, in all conscience, wake her and have her again. He’d already done that once-bad form, of course, but what did a barbarian care? The memory of the way she’d turned to him, her eyes searching his in the night, then focusing on his lips, the way she’d met his kisses, then focused on him, on them, on what they would do, sent a shiver down his spine.

Closing his eye, he slumped deeper into the bed, trying to block out the scent of sated lust that hung heavily about them. Trying to ignore his arousal.

In the morning. Just because he’d surrendered on one front, didn’t mean he had to let lust rule him.