Читать книгу Regency Vows: A Gentleman 'Til Midnight / The Trouble with Honour / An Improper Arrangement / A Wedding By Dawn / The Devil Takes a Bride / A Promise by Daylight - Julia London, Alison DeLaine - Страница 40
ОглавлениеJUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, a knock sounded at the door of her bedchamber.
The sound caught Katherine standing with her hands pressed against the cool, bare stone of her bedroom wall. In the quiet room with her palms against rock, she could almost feel Dunscore’s heartbeat. It pulsed through her as though they were one.
She ignored the knock and let her hands fall. Went to stab at the fire, watching the sparks fly, calling up memories of her life—her real life. The one she’d built herself, not the one of her girlhood fantasies. William, grinning in the sunshine while porpoises played in the water. Young rigger Danby, dangling from the main yard after slipping from the footrope and nearly causing her to succumb in a fit of apoplexy in the process. That hot rush of anticipation that gripped her when she sighted a corsair xebec through her glass.
The sound of Anne’s screams above the cannonfire, and the knowledge that one small mistake—one single misstep—could change her life forever. Or end it completely.
Jab. Jab. She attacked a burning log until it fell into crumbling, hot orange pieces. That was why she was giving up her freedom. For Anne’s sake. And marrying Lord Deal was the most tolerable answer.
There was a second knock, more insistent this time.
It is the answer only because you refused a proposal from the man on the other side of that door.
Proposal? Ha. What she had refused was a lust-drunk misjudgment that had tumbled from his lips in a moment of passion.
A third knock, and this time, the hushed bark of her name. She unlatched the door and opened it a crack. “You’ve already received all the hospitality I plan to offer, Captain.”
“Open the bloody door.” The hallway was nearly dark, but the glow from her room lit the murderous expression on his face. He stood there in only his breeches and shirt—no waistcoat, no stockings, no shoes. Nerves tangled in her belly even as her ire rose.
“Devil take you,” she said, and started to shut the door, only to have him shove it open. “Get out!” she hissed, fearful of waking anyone.
“Are you engaged to him?” he demanded.
“That’s none of your concern.”
“Everything about you is my concern.”
He grabbed her around the waist and crushed his mouth on to hers. The shock of instant fire in her blood had her gasping against him even as she tried to push him away, but he was immovable and her parted lips only gave his tongue free entrance into her mouth. He smelled like spicy soap and tasted of temptation. She felt him try to push the door closed and she tightened her hand around the latch to prevent him. He turned her back against the door and used their bodies to push it shut.
“Leave,” she gasped, and cursed him. He only kissed her more savagely, and even her outrage could not fight the fire that tore across her skin. She shoved at him and pulled him closer all at the same time, and suddenly it was like the first time they’d touched in her cabin aboard the Possession, except this time there was no reason to stop.
“I ask you again,” he said harshly. “Are you engaged to Deal?”
“I shan’t reveal the intimacies of my relationship with Henry.” His face was so close her lips brushed his when she spoke.
James barked a laugh. “Intimacies.” He kissed her again, deeply. “That man has as much desire to be your lover as he does to tup a wild boar. He looks on you quite as his own granddaughter.”
She couldn’t force him to leave, but she could goad him. “Perhaps. But he’s agreed to help me nonetheless.” She paused. “In every way.”
This time James’s kiss was ruthless. She knew she’d said those words to push him over the edge of control, so he would make love to her and leave her no choice but to give in to what her body desperately wanted. He did not disappoint. He tore away her nightdress, and as his hands took possession of her breasts she imagined how it would be if things were different. She imagined him lifting her gently and carrying her to the bed.
Instead, he pinched her nipples and bit her neck. She swallowed a scream of intense pleasure and fisted her hands in his shirt. Ran her palms down his solid chest, his hard stomach, to the thick bulge at the front of his breeches. Impatiently he worked the placket and freed himself. He was hot—satin and iron in her hands. She stroked his length with both hands and he groaned. She loved the power her touch had over him and she stroked him again and again while he worshiped her breasts, suckled her already-puckered nipples, molded her flesh in his hands.
But then he moved lower, out of her reach, burning his mouth across her belly, pushing her legs apart with his hands.
She balked, but he was having none of it. He dipped his tongue into her navel and drew a hot, moist line with it to the top of her woman’s hair, as though he was going to—
Oh.
She gasped when his tongue found her slit. His hands held her in place, urging her legs apart. Letting her thighs fall open while he tasted her most secret places was an act of submission she almost couldn’t bear—there was nowhere to hide. His tongue feasted on her pleasure spot and found her entrance, thrusting inside. He found another pleasure spot there—one she hadn’t known existed.
Her control fled. She strained her legs wide, submission forgotten, trying to push herself closer to that wicked tongue. Pleasure ripped through her in breathless convulsions. He made an inarticulate sound against her flesh as her body clenched hard, hard, hard in release.
He stood up, and she felt his erection against her.
Already she wanted the rest of him. “I don’t think I can stand,” she whispered.
“I have no intention of letting you try,” he rasped against her ear as he lifted her up. “Wrap your legs around me, Katherine.”
She did, and cried out into his kiss when he entered her in one thick stroke. He turned with her in his arms and carried her to the bed with their bodies joined, hiking one knee onto the mattress as he laid her down.
His eyes lit with unholy fire. “I don’t want to be outside you even long enough to shed my clothes,” he told her fiercely, already finding a rhythm, thrusting long and deep. She worked the buttons on his shirt, desperate to touch him the way she hadn’t been able to in her coach.
After a moment he cursed. “Damn these breeches,” he growled, and withdrew from her completely to strip them off and yank his shirt over his head. His full erection glistened with her own moisture. In a heartbeat he fell over her and pierced her again, stretching her, filling her, sliding deep.
It wasn’t enough. She returned his kiss madly, running her hands down his back, digging her fingers into his pumping buttocks, tilting and lifting her hips to meet his thrusts. He made an inarticulate sound against her mouth and rolled with her so she straddled him, with her hair spilling over them and his hands grasping her hips as he thrust up, up, up. Restless need coiled inside her, tightening, building. He lifted his head and caught her right nipple with his teeth, sucking hard, and her release exploded violently. Every intimate muscle convulsed around him as he kept thrusting, pushing, until finally she felt him let go, too.
Her body was still shuddering when he rolled them back and lay with his full weight on top of her and his length still buried in her. He pressed hot kisses to her jaw, her throat, her collarbone. She hooked her legs around his as if, somehow, it would pull him closer.
He lifted his head and looked hard into her eyes. “Did you really believe,” he breathed raggedly, “that I would sit idly by and allow you to marry another man?”
Her pulse leaped. With his body buried in hers, all her defenses were down. But something had caught her eye that was impossible to miss: a simple necklace of twine and beads circling his neck.
She ran her finger along the beads. “You still wear it.”
He searched her face, her eyes, and said nothing. Suddenly she wanted to cry. She traced the curve of his lips, and he caught her fingertip in his teeth. “And you have fresh bruises,” she said.
“Your guard dog is nothing if not tenacious. Apparently someone told him that I compromised you.” The corners of his eyes creased, and he arched a brow. “You surprise me, Katherine.”
“Phil waylaid me the moment I returned from the hearing.” And she was going to get an earful about her loose tongue.
“With your hair falling down and your lips red and swollen.”
“I didn’t stand a chance.”
“I would imagine not.” He kissed her again. Deeply. Thoroughly.
Her tongue trembled with things she wanted to tell him—things she didn’t know how to put words to. Even if she could find the words, she wasn’t sure she would speak them.
You fill me. Not just physically. He filled her heart. Her breath.
“William should not have hit you,” she said between kisses.
“I deserved it. I should never have let you out of my sight.” With his elbows braced on either side of her, he framed her face in his strong hands. “Understand me well—I do not intend to do so again. God, Katherine—” He breathed the words against her mouth, and she looked into his eyes. They were so beautiful, so green, and filled with the fierce possession of a man who had what he wanted.
What if...
She gripped his solid buttocks and urged him closer, as though it was possible for him to be even deeper inside her than he already was. As though she could have more of him. He groaned and held her even more tightly.
“James,” she whispered, wanting to hear his name on her lips. Her own name echoed back on his breath.
What if...
She threaded her legs through his and pressed her mouth to the cords of his neck while he held her as though she were the only woman in the world.
He’d made it clear he wanted her for himself, and now she felt herself falling, tumbling out of control.
What if she let herself surrender?
