A Breath of Scandal: The Reckless Brides (38 page)

Will shucked off his own jacket as he came to her. He reached out to tug the hem of her linen shirt free of her waistband. She gathered up the material and pulled it over her head, and then let it fall down to the floor. “You’re falling behind,” she joked to cover the heat that surged across her skin as she stood before him half naked.

“Are you sure?” he asked quietly, all trace of the laughing, devil-may-care rascal gone from his face.

“Yes.” There was no other answer. There never had been.

Chapter Twenty-two

“My sweet Preston.” He kissed her gently before he scooped her up and laid her carefully upon the soft mattress. He came down next to her, and his hands immediately began roaming over her torso, lightly skimming over the length of her body, up and down her arms, around her face and into her hair. Each touch, each whisper of his breath along her skin wound down through her belly until the sweet tension coiled throughout her body.

He speared his fingers through her hair, pulling out pins, unraveling her braid and spreading the long strands out around her head. He buried his face in it, inhaling deeply.

“Pres,” he whispered into her ear. “My God, Preston, how I have wanted you. How I have thought and thought of this moment.”

His fingers traced the contour of her lips. He was so tender under all that brash, careless charm. The glorious tension pulsed upward through her veins, leaping and tumbling up her heart. She thought he might say something else, but after a long moment he simply closed his eyes and, breathing deeply, lowered his head to hers.

He kissed her again, with slow, careful kisses, taking his time and relaxing into her embrace. Antigone’s eyes fluttered closed as she let the soft, slippery sensations wash over the surface of her skin. Will’s hands heated her wherever they touched, gliding over the curve of her hip and smoothing down around her bottom.

His lips were at her ear, even as his hands cupped her, the words the same evocative murmur. “My sweet Preston. So lush, so sweet.”

She needed little else to inflame her. The heat of his hands, the touch of his tongue at her ear, were all she needed to set the inexorable tide of recklessness rising within her. She opened her eyes and inched closer, wanting and needing to see more of him. She reached up to touch his dear, dear face, holding his rough cheeks in her hands, guiding her thumbs across the strong planes of his cheekbones as she set herself to memorizing each and every facet of his handsome face.

This was Will, with the fair, glowing skin and deep blue eyes. This was the man she had chosen—was choosing now. Antigone ran her fingers up the sides of his suntanned temples to trace the faint lines of his scowl, so familiar and dear to her now. Her hands delved into his short locks, and she could feel the strong cords of muscles in his neck as she pulled herself back up to his mouth.

She wanted to be closer. She wanted to consume and be consumed by him. She slanted her mouth across his, deepening the kiss, heedless of restraint. She wanted and needed to feel the heat of his skin next to hers, to feel the comforting strength of his body wrap around her, and chase away the last vestiges of the cold inside.

Antigone abandoned herself up to the glorious recklessness. When their tongues met and tangled in her mouth, she gasped aloud with pleasure and relief from the sheer joy of the sensations streaking across her skin like lightning. Even her hands felt hot and tingly as she ran them over his body, so different from her own. His skin was golden and warm where his unbuttoned collar of his linen shirt revealed his throat. The muscles in his neck and shoulders flexed as she kneaded her fingers into his taut flesh. She ran her hands down his neck and onto the sleek sculpted curves of his chest, marveling in the difference of texture and feel from her own skin. His chest was sprinkled with golden hair that lightly abraded the sensitive tips of her fingers and palms.

Her breath began to come faster, in audible pants that should have embarrassed her, but she was beyond embarrassment, beyond even the recall of sanity. Will was here, next to her, and she would have him now. Now, before he changed his mind. Before anything or anyone else could come between them, or stop them. She would have this one perfect night, so she could live off its memory for years to come.

Antigone trailed her hands down his long torso, to the edge of his breeches, growing anxious to hurry him along. She clutched ineffectively at the buttons on the close, grazing her fingers across the growing bulge at the apex of his thighs.

“Easy, sweet,” he whispered on a low laugh, covering her hands with his own. How could he be so calm when she felt nearly wild with urgency? She wanted it over and done with and, just as he had said that terrible night in the mews, made irrevocable.

“Handsomely, now,” he murmured, guiding her hands to clasp his firmly. “Slowly, love. We have all night.”

“Oh, please,” she heard herself beg again. The night was half over. Dawn would be upon them before they knew it. “Please.” She ignored his instruction and returned to his buttons. Her fingers were diverted by the intriguing ridge of muscle that ran along his hips and disappeared beneath his breeches.

She slid her hands down along the muscled path to the button flap, and he growled, “You
have
done with cautiously and slowly, haven’t you?”

“I’m sorry but—”

He kissed her again. “I like heedless. I like naked and heedless even better.”

He illustrated his delightful point by tracing the sensitive underside of her breasts, before his hand brushed lightly across her tight nipples. First one breast and then the other, until she felt the pink flesh contract into an almost painful burst of bliss. She gasped, a sound of need and desperation, and arched her back, pressing herself forward into his hands.

“Yes, please,” she begged again, unsure of exactly what she pleaded for. “Please, Will.”

*   *   *

For the first time in his life, Will was afraid he would be unable to keep up. Preston’s ardor was already so beautifully, marvelously, heedlessly inflamed, he doubted he could get the rest of his clothes off in time. He had anticipated a slow seduction. She was a virgin who should have needed easing into the intimacy of sex, not the woman making insistent, highly erotic sounds, and calling his name in a voice laced with desperate, carnal need. Damn his eyes, but he had never met a girl who seemed so all-fired determined to part with her virginity.

“Easy, love,” he murmured again, but she was entirely heedless. She drove her hands into his hair, and tugged his mouth down to her breast, insistent with need. A need he hastened to fulfill. He ran the edge of his tongue lightly across the sweet peak of her nipple, wetting the lovely tight bud before he abruptly nipped, abrading the sensitive flesh against the sharp edge of his teeth.

She cried out, and threw her head back, her eyes clenched shut tight to absorb the intense sensation. As he watched her, some of her wild abandon began to creep under his skin. He rasped the other peak while his hand dove down across the sleek scoop of her belly and into the nest of sandy curls between her soft thighs. She was almost keening now, urgent little panting cries that rose with each shallow, rapid breath. Her gloriously strong thighs, fit from all that riding, closed convulsively around his hand. She was strung high, tense and fighting for her desire, like a ship in a gale, every timber and line taut and shuddering as she careened though the waves.

Will rose over her, and ran his free hand all the way down her endless legs, kneading the straining muscles rhythmically until she caught the rhythm and began to move her hips in time, riding his hand as it covered her mound.

“Easy, love. Handsomely now.” He slowly slid one long finger inside and felt her inner muscles close around him, hot and slick and delicious. She was close—so close he could feel her pulsating.

God’s balls. Will sent up the blasphemous prayer as he leaned over her body to still her with his weight. She bucked again as he moved his finger within her and he threw a leg over her rising thighs. He kissed her deeply, his tongue tangling with hers in rhythm with his hands. When he felt her body ease a fraction, he eased another long finger alongside the first. A rush of heat and desire ripped into his gut at the scalding heat of her passage as it closed tightly around his fingers. He tried to move them slightly, to stretch her just a little bit more, so she would be ready for him.

Preston let out a high moan and her hips rose off the bed with the gentle pulse of his fingers. She was so bloody close, he resisted the urge to tear off his buttons and shuck off his breeches, and instead concentrated on grazing his thumb every so lightly against the sensitive nub shielded by her petal-soft flesh. She arched wildly one last time and he swallowed her cry as her climax shuddered through her.

Will kissed her again and slowly withdrew his hands from her body. She was glorious. He lay next to her and took pleasure watching her as she drifted on the ebbing tide of her ecstasy. Her skin was beautifully flushed and a light sheen of perspiration bedewed her even in the chill of the cool room.

How foolish of him to try to slow her down. Why had he not realized she would make love with the same reckless abandon that she lived, with the same impetuous passion she displayed in all facets of her life?

Her ragged breathing began to slow and ease, gradually returning toward normal, but he wasn’t done with her yet. Not by a long, long shot. Fate had been both persistent and kind in delivering her to him, and he was damn well going to make the most of the opportunity.

He ran his hand down the long, sinuous line of her side, relishing the way her body was splayed in contented abandon across the bed. One leg was bent and falling inward, shielding from his greedy view the sandy whorl of curls atop her mound, and the other was kicked out to the side. Her arms, which only moments ago had been clutching him, now lay still and relaxed against the sheet.

He dipped his head and breathed in her familiar, evocative scent, the cold, clean fragrance of rainwater mixed with the warmth of lemon and calendula—the scent that made him feel so peaceful and conversely assured. He closed his eyes and indulged his other senses, letting his hands flow lightly over her sinuous, responsive body. Her skin felt so soft and inviting. His cock twitched insistently, as if to remind him of his own need.

He nosed her damp hair aside to kiss the sensitive hollow of her neck, and her eyes fluttered open on a beguiling, inviting sigh. She turned into his embrace, coming fully against his chest. Will wanted her so badly he ached. For her, this strangely fragile, tall slip of a lunatic girl in his arms, and he wanted to make the most of the precious time he had left with her. God knew what might come of his plans—the plans he didn’t yet know if he could bring to fruition. He had never in his life felt such a set of contradictory impulses.

But she was here, now, and they were together, and she was naked. And she was his and no one else’s.

He kissed her again, and again, his hands delving into the silky glory of her hair, sliding across his palms. He meant to kiss her lightly, to give her time to recover, but she stirred and nuzzled delightfully at his throat, and his lust and his cock rose with each supple stir of her body, every subtle rustle of the soft sheets. The fire flared, and light glanced over the dewy slide of her skin, illuminating the beautiful contours of her long, sleek body.

Merciful God, but he couldn’t wait another moment to have her.

*   *   *

Antigone came back to herself slowly, not wanting to let the sweet, wondrous sensations go, wanting to linger in the satiated twilight as long as she could. But when she felt an unwelcome chill along her side, she realized that she was alone. Will had moved away from her, off the bed. She sat up abruptly.

“Will?” she called in a voice edged with something more urgent than inquiry. He couldn’t be leaving.

“Easy, love,” he said with that ready smile, as he bent down to kiss her swollen lips. “I’m right here.”

She was about to ask him not to leave, to beg him to her stay with her, just a little while longer, when her gaze was arrested by the movement of his hands. They were on the buttons of his breeches, undoing them.

She eased back onto her elbows and watched with fascination by the low, amber light of the fire as he shucked his clothes. He didn’t rush, nor did he hide his body from her as it was slowly, beguilingly revealed. His eyes remained on her face as he leaned his hips against the footboard, bending down to yank off his boots, dropping them to the floor. He straightened and his hands went to the waistband of his breeches. He undid the remaining buttons, peeled his tight doeskin inexpressibles and drawers off, leaving them in a heap at his feet, and turned to her.

Antigone’s mouth went dry and tight at the sight. His arms and torso were sculpted, as if from warm golden marble. His skin was tanned all the way from his arms, down his chest to his waist, where the skin turned paler again. His chest was very lightly sprinkled with hair, as golden blond as his head. It glinted in the firelight, leading her eyes down to where the hair trailed lower past his waist. She could feel heat flush up her neck and across her face. And lower, where the hot pulse of bliss stirred restively.

He didn’t seem to mind her stare. When she tore her heated gaze back up to his face in embarrassment, he just looked back steadily, not laughing, certainly not expressing shock or censure. It was the look that had always held a promise to her—that look that said they were confederates, and in this together. And now he was going to fulfill that promise.

He turned to move the candle branch closer, to the small table next to the bed. “I want to see you.”

“I want to see you, too,” she agreed quietly. She smiled up at him, sure in her wants and secure in his love.

Will went momentarily still, looking down at her. Then he kissed her again, lightly tracing the indentations of her dimples with his tongue, before he followed the angled line of her jaw up to her ear. “With my body I thee worship,” he whispered against her ear.