All About Passion (18 page)

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 slackness 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.

Chapter 8

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It was full light when he awoke and reached for her.

And realized she no longer lay beside him.

Gyles opened his eyes and stared, then groggily glared at the rumpled space where his eager new wife should have lain, warm and soft and ready to be aroused…

He bit back a groan, turned onto his back, and slung one arm across his eyes. Damn the woman!

Half a minute later, he lifted his arm, lifted his head, and looked about the room. He sat up, then thrust back the covers and stalked to the door to her sitting room. He flung the door open. The room was empty. Not even a maid to send into hysterics.

Cursing, he shut the door, crossed the room, and righted the chair his loving bride had placed before the door to his room with the fell intention of keeping him out. Memories of the argument that had given rise to that event followed him into his room.

Five minutes later, fully dressed, he was striding across the lawns to the stables, no longer so sure of his victory of the night. Time and again he'd underestimated her, misjudged the way her mind worked. He'd thought last night would have smoothed their path, but had it? Or had he sunk himself deeper in the mire?

If he had, given her temper, given her resolution, what might she do?

Reaching the stables, he went quickly down the aisle to the mare's box. The mare was in it; she lifted her head and stared him.

Gyles humphed and whirled.

"Shall I saddle up for you, m'lord?"

Jacobs, his head stableman, came trotting up from the tack room.

"Has anyone gone out this morning?" Jacobs would never imagine he was asking after his new wife.

"No, but I heard most of the visitors are gone."

"Most, yes. I wondered if her ladyship's uncle had gone out. He must be inside." Dismissing Jacobs, Gyles strode back to the house.

He tried to put himself in "her ladyship's" shoes, tried to imagine, if he were her, where he might go. To no avail—he had no idea what she might be thinking, feeling. Was she happy with their marriage, smugly content after last night? Ready to make the best of it, calmly resigned to the fact? Or was she sad, dismayed, even distraught that what she'd hoped would not be?

That he'd never in his life spent so much as a minute worrying about any woman's thoughts, much less her feelings, he shrugged aside as irrelevant. The gypsy was his wife—she was different. He paused at the end of the yew walk to draw in a deeper breath, to ease the nonsensical fear that was closing about his chest. Hands on his hips, he tipped his head back.

And saw her.

On the battlements of the nearest tower.

He reached the house in seconds and raced through the corridors to the tower stair. By then, a sliver of sanity had punctured his fear. The gypsy was neither weak nor fragile. What exactly was he thinking?

He climbed the stairs at a normal pace, making no effort to be silent. Regardless of the fact that the battlements were quite safe, he didn't want to frighten her by suddenly appearing beside her. One arm on the stone coping, she was leaning on the battlements, looking out over the park. She turned her head as he opened the tower room door and stepped onto the wooden walk. Far from being shocked, he had the impression she was not surprised to see him.

He was the one surprised.

He hadn't previously seen her in an ordinary gown—seen her as he would see her every day for the rest of his life. Taking in the simple voile gown, noting how it lovingly displayed her ample charms, how the soft material caressed her hips and thighs, the single flounce flirting about her ankles, he was acutely aware of the body the gown concealed. The lush body he'd enjoyed throughout the night. Noting the black curls piled artlessly atop her head, tumbling about her ears and nape, noting how large and vivid were her eyes, how perfectly lashed, noticing anew the lushness of her lips, he wondered what he would have done, said, how he would have reacted if he'd seen her this way before he'd married her. He had to question his sanity in wedding her.

And knew he wouldn't have it any other way.

"I wondered where you were." He walked toward her, halting a yard away. She looked back at the vista of treetops. "I came up here for the views and fresh air." After an instant, she added, "It seemed a good place to think."

He wasn't sure he wanted her to think, nor that he would like what she was thinking.

"The estate extends more to the east and west, I presume?"

"Yes. The escarpment's the northern boundary."