A Breath of Scandal: The Reckless Brides (39 page)

Antigone’s heart expanded and filled with something deeper and more profound, something more exalted than mere physical bliss, and she kissed him back with all the love and heart-wrenching, bittersweet happiness she felt. But kisses alone, no matter how glorious, were not enough.

She ran her hands down his smooth chest and then lower, curiously seeking his sex.

“Oh, God, yes,” he bit off, the words deep and guttural with gratification.

“Will, please.”

He kissed her more deeply as her hand settled firmly about him, hungrily delving into her mouth with his tongue, until she felt the urgent press of his pelvis against hers, and he pushed her legs wide with his knees.

Then, he replaced her hand with his own, and she felt the blunt push of his manhood as he guided himself into her quivering flesh.

Antigone felt an uncomfortable, burning sensation. She tensed and gritted her teeth as he pushed more deeply into her, stretching her past where she wanted to go.

“Easy. Slowly, love. Handsomely now,” he whispered. His voice was tense and controlled.

There was nothing easy or handsome about it. It was hardly comfortable. Antigone heard her breath begin to come in harsh, shallow pants, and her hands rose to his face, seeking the reassurance of his lopsided smile.

“Sweet Pres. Oh, my girl,” he whispered at her ear. “Easy, love. It’s over.”

“Oh,” she said, at first relieved, and then disappointed. What happened to all the wonderful, fun, slippery sensations? What about that feeling that had tingled under her skin everywhere?

She could feel his warm laugh reverberate through her from the place where their bodies joined. “Not
over
over, you hoyden.” He smiled down at her, and rubbed his nose against her cheeks where her dimples should be. “Only the bad part is over. It won’t hurt anymore, I promise.”

He lowered his head to her breast, and took her nipple into his mouth in a way that made her forget the discomfort, and had her thinking of slippery things again. A little frisson of something hot and itchy crept through her. No, not itchy, but more like a craving, a craving for something more.

“That’s it. Relax.”

She didn’t want to relax. She wanted more.

His hand replaced his mouth at her breast, and Antigone pulled his mouth back to hers, kissing him back, sliding her tongue with his, wondering at the taste, the smell, the feel of him around her. Her body began to move in response, her hips shifting restively beneath him. He pressed up higher on his arms, taking his weight off her, and flexed his hip muscles against her.

Oh, sweet heavens, yes, that was better.

“Will.” She breathed his name as if it were a prayer.

“Yes, that’s it. Tell me, show me what you like.”

She wiggled closer in response, arching her pelvis toward him, and he nudged his hips against her again, and lowered his head to her breast, suckling her in time with the pulse of his body into her center. Antigone felt the erotic cadence catch hold inside her, urging her hips to move in time to meet his. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the rhythm, and the wonderful, powerful sensations skating under her sensitized skin. Her palms tingled with the need to touch him, to worship his body and his love. She ran her hands up the living sculpture of his sleek, powerful arms, kneading the sinuous muscles there, before riding upward around his neck, over his wide shoulders, and down onto the sculpted plain of his chest. Her own god beneath her hands, to worship and glorify like a heedless pagan, drunk on the addictive bliss.

She danced her inquisitive fingers across his curiously flat nipples, and he made an inarticulate sound nearer to pleasure than pain.

Antigone opened her eyes to see him rising above her, his teeth gritted and bared in something too much like anguish. “Will?” She whispered her question.

“Do that again.”

“This?” She ran her hands across his chest again, slower this time, her fingers tracing over his nipples in imitation of the way he had touched hers. “Do you like that?”

“Yes. Like that.” He rose higher upon his knees, pulling her tight against him before he let go of her hips, and molded his hands to cup her breasts. He flicked the tight rosy peaks with his callused thumbs.

A carnal sound of encouragement and need broke from her mouth on a cry. Her eyes crashed shut as she felt the first wave of pleasure push deep into her belly. Her eyes flew open as she felt him capture her hands again, but she relaxed as he brought them to her breasts.

“Touch yourself,” he urged. “Just with your fingertips. So you can do this for yourself when I’m not here.” His hands guided hers, teaching her how to best evoke the pleasurable feelings curling low within herself. And by watching him as she did so, she learned that he liked watching her pleasure herself as well, that his breath became even more shallow, and his eyes glazed with that strange haze of intensity as he watched her.

In response he ran his hands down over her hips and around to her bottom. He traced the curve of the taut globes with his palms, kneading her flesh as he rose up upon his knees. She watched his hands round to her hips and pull her up high against him. She felt a jolt of such intense, joyous pleasure streak through her, and something inside, some last vestige of restraint came untethered and ran riot—a heady, insistent, intoxicating mixture of pain and pleasure that rose higher with each escalating thrust. His body surged into her, stronger and stronger, feeding the need, stoking the fiery heat that built where their bodies touched.

Antigone felt herself slipping away, losing herself to the inexorable whirl of sensations. She clutched at the sheets, fisting up the smooth, fine linen, trying to anchor herself against the relentless onslaught of pressure and pleasure.

Oh, she wanted. She wanted, she wanted. She had to get it.

She planted her feet flat against the sheet and angled her body higher, trying desperately to appease the furious, itchy need, but he was rocking into her now with such force that she slipped, her feet sliding out from under her.

“No,” she cried, desperate to regain her hold on the heat, to make her way back to the pleasure that throbbed with needy greed within her body.

Will reached away and grabbed a pillow from the headboard and stuffed it under her bottom, leveraging her up. But it wasn’t enough—he was too tall and the feeling was slipping away. She made a sound of frustrated anguish and pushed her thighs higher, clutching at him in desperation.

Will made an echoing sound of frustration very near to a curse, and shoved the pillow away. Then he drove the breath from her lungs with the simple efficacy of lifting her legs flat against his chest.

The sharp, aching pleasure bolted back through her. She heard a high keening moan and knew it came from her, that it was a sound of approval as much as distress, because it felt so good, too good—a pleasure so intense it was almost pain.

But Will was relentless. He leaned into the strength of her legs and she watched him, rising above her with such strength and beauty that her heart constricted. She felt him, apart from her and yet in her all at the same time, and she knew in that instant what it meant to be undone—to let go of every last tie to reality, and give way to the glorious physical wash of upending emotion that shot through her.

She closed her eyes and felt him stroke his hand down her belly, into the thatch of curls shielding the place where they were joined. He teased his fingers through the hair, then slipped his fingers lower, ever so slightly lower, to the sensitive engorged flesh below.

Antigone cried out and bucked up hard. It was too much and not enough all at the same time. She felt her head begin to thrash against the sheets, from side to side. But Will wouldn’t let up. He pulled her back hard against him, holding her hips still against him as he surged inside her. He held her just so, so that something changed and sharpened, and it felt good, so good. She felt like she was going to break into a hundred pieces of bliss.

And then she did. And he grabbed her neck and pulled her to his mouth just as she screamed.

Heat and joy and peace and relief cascaded through her body in rushing, tumbling waves, leaving the glorious serene warmth behind.

And then, in the next second, it was he who tensed, and with a sound that was both joy and anguish, pushed himself into the heat, into her, one last time.

Antigone felt strange and weightless, as if she couldn’t feel the sheets or mattress beneath her, as if all the feeling had drained from her body, leaving her pleasantly, gloriously numb. She watched with a sort of detached amusement as Will let go of her and sat back on his heels, slipping away from her body. He looked dazed and disoriented as he tried to catch his breath.

The two of them were huffing and puffing like two racehorses who had just run the Derby, winded and spent. She felt her lips curve into a broad smile, heard the puff of laughter that blew across her lips.

“Laughing? Are you laughing at me?”

She heard the wicked amusement in his voice. “No, goodness no. That was … ‘glorious’ doesn’t seem adequate.”

“It’s not.” He reached out to stroke her thigh as he collapsed down alongside her. “But you’re quite glorious, as well.” He hooked his hand around her belly and turned her to her back, pulling her snugly against his chest. “Preston, my appalling Preston,” he whispered against her hair.

Antigone smiled in wonder at the strange scratchy feeling of his chest against her back and closed her eyes in contentment. She felt so happy, so safe in his arms, that she wanted to stay and savor the moment for just a while longer. She took a deep breath and felt his breathing slip into the shallow regularity that signaled he was already asleep.

She curled herself tight against him, and stayed awake for a long time, listening and feeling and thinking of the wonderful strangeness of the heat and scent and texture of the man surrounding her. It was overwhelming and yet not enough, knowing that this night, these last minutes, would have to last her the rest of forever.

Chapter Twenty-three

Antigone dreamt of sunshine and calendula flowers and Will, and awoke in the gray morning light, to find her beloved wide awake and watching her with his beautiful, deep blue eyes from an inch away, as if he had been waiting for her to wake up.

His smile was gentle and warm, and utterly delighted that she had finally decided to join him in wakefulness. He lifted a strand of hair from her eyes. “Good morning.”

“Is it good?” she asked, though it was, in fact, heavenly to wake up in Will’s bed, curled up next to him, with all his deliciously safe warmth. But that was also the problem. She was in his bed, in his father’s house, and that couldn’t be particularly good. And it certainly wasn’t safe.

But he was giving her that lazy, mobile smile that made her feel as if the sun were shining directly on her. “You tell me.” He kept stroking her hair, brushing it back out of her face as if he liked the way it felt sliding through his fingers. “For my part, I’ve never felt better. But how are you?”

“I’m fine.” Antigone felt heat creep up her cheeks. She was too active—too athletic, he had called her—and had been riding astride for far too long to feel even the slightest remaining twinge of physical discomfort, but her conscience was another matter entirely. She had spent the night making love to him in his parents’ home, and if the clock over the mantel was correct, they were in grave danger of being discovered. “Oh, Lord. What on earth is your mother going to think? What if one of your brothers told her I was here, and she couldn’t find me? What if she came here? How would that reflect on Cassandra?” She pushed herself upright, clutching the linen sheet to her chest, and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “I have to get up.”

“Not at all. Calm yourself, Preston, my love.” Will’s big palm began to rub warm, lulling circles into her lower back. “I locked the door. I learned that precaution very early in my association with you. Why don’t you come back here, and let me wake you properly?”

But Antigone was already scrambling out of bed. “I need to get out of here.” She had to at least remove to another room—a guest chamber from whence she could reemerge with reputation semiintact. She hadn’t gone to all this trouble to get Cassandra engaged only to ruin it by turning up in Will Jellicoe’s bed.

Will propped himself against the headboard, and regarded her with a patient smile. “I’ve decided not to take this as an insult to my manhood, but as a testament to your heretofore hidden, maidenly sensibilities. Who knew you, of all people, would turn missish?”

“I can’t think of a more appropriate time,” she admonished. “How can you be so nonchalant? Why aren’t you helping me?” But when she tried to take the sheets with her to gather up her clothes, he held on.

“Because I have the key, and I’ve decided I’m not going to let you out until I’ve had my devious way with—” He broke off and turned his head to the curtained windows, listening.

And then Antigone heard it, too—the jangle of harness, the screech of the iron gates, and the heavy clattering of hooves and the rumbling of carriage wheels in the drive outside. The hoarse voice of Broad Ham rose through the walls, bawling at the horses, accompanied by the sharp, staccato cracks of his whip.

Will was instantly up, snatching his breeches on, and crossing to the front window. He drew the curtain back to look over the yard and out to the drive. Over his shoulder, Antigone could see the large town carriage, its glossy black sides spattered with mud, careering to a stop with a raucous spray of gravel as Broad Ham sawed on the reins to bring the team of four, blowing and shifting in quivering exhaustion, to a halt at the front steps.

Antigone crept closer behind Will as he threw open the window, straining to look and listen. The door to the carriage banged open before the running footman could reach it, and Earl Sanderson jumped out.

“William,” he cried as he came up the steps of the house. “I must have William. We have not a moment to lose!”

Will heeded his father’s call instantly, and crossed directly to the door, hastily unlocked it, and went pelting down the stairs wearing only his breeches.