Already His (The Caversham Chronicles - Book Two) (37 page)

His eyes closed and he sighed. “You’re not being unreasonable,” he said. “I... don’t know... how to say the words. They aren’t easy for me. But if you’d give me a chance, I could show you.”

Her whole body trembled with fear or joy, she was unsure which. But it didn’t matter. He
did
love her.

“Then maybe we’d better seek a more comfortable setting, don’t you think?”

She nodded and felt heat rush to her cheeks. He lifted her in his arms and moved to carry her from the library up to his room.

“Stop Michael! Put me down. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Shh.... You’ll wake the staff.”

Elise thought he was certainly very strong to carry her such a long way, because she was no petite miss, she was nearly as tall as he. She giggled softly, not wanting to call attention to their antics. For someone about to sleep with her lover for the first time, she wasn’t worried that he would hurt her in the bed, but that he might hurt himself on the way to it.

Tucking her face into his neck self-consciously, she begged him not to drop her on the way up the steps. She also stilled her feet under her so as not to hit the wall, stair rail, or heaven forbid knock a bust or vase over.

Until now she fretted about her height and lack of feminine endowments. But Michael’s words moments earlier made her feel more desired and wanted than ever.

He adjusted her in his arms to open the door to his bedroom and kicked it shut with his foot. He carried her to the dais where his massive bed beckoned, one corner turned down for him. When he lowered her to stand before him, she didn’t have much time to look around because he’d taken her lips again in a kiss that stirred the flame burning in her, causing her to tremble in his arms.

His hands and mouth were everywhere at once. He trailed hot, wet kisses on her face, neck, and most especially in the valley between her breasts, causing the heat to spread down to her lower belly. She felt his hands work the buttons on the side of her breeches. The leather parted and his fingers worked into the waistband, opening them wider. He pushed them down, along with her silk drawers, leaving her bare below her waist. Her linen shirt was next as he raised it and her chemise over her head, baring her to him completely. At first she wanted to hide herself from his molten hazel gaze, and when she tried to raise her hands, he stopped her.

“No,” he whispered, his voice sounding as shaky as she felt right then. “Don’t hide yourself. I want to see you.” Wherever his eyes roved over her flesh, she burned. He sat on the bed and removed his boots.

She stood there and waited, watching him, with nothing to cover herself except her hands, and he wouldn’t let her. She watched him hurriedly fuss with his clothing. He threw the cravat and shirt behind him and her pulse began to quicken. When he loosened the top two buttons on his trousers, she gave a little squeak and he chuckled. Without his ever touching her, her entire body felt as though it would combust from the heat of his hazel-eyed gaze.

Reaching out for her, he drew her between his legs and placed his hands on her hips and stared into her eyes and smiled.

“I know you think yourself awkwardly made, but to me you are beautiful. With perfect breasts that are not as small as you seem to think. Hmm....” He held their weight in each palm, his thumbs grazing the tips, causing a moan to escape her. He flicked his tongue over the tips of each taut nipple, and she felt her womb clench in anticipation. “Definitely made for a man’s mouth.”

“Michael, please,” she groaned. “You’re teasing me.”

He chuckled as he lifted his mouth from her breast. “I don’t mean to. It’s just I’ve waited far too long to do this.” He moved to the other breast and suckled it as well.

“Not nearly as long as I have for you to do it,” she replied, her voice barely a whisper.

His hands roved over her naked form appreciatively. He lifted her foot and caressed her from her ankle to the inside of her knee, causing her to tremble as a flood of desire drenched her core.

“Had I known that was all you wore beneath those breeches of yours, it would have driven me mad when we were at Woodhenge.”

“Would you have made me wait this long?”

“Probably not.” His fingers stroked the sensitive flesh of her thigh, moving higher, closer to his goal.

Her leg quivered as he neared her apex. “Then I should have told you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t. Your first time shouldn’t have been in a stall or hayloft. It should be—and will be—right here, in my bed.” She buckled as his fingers parted her curls, and delved into her wetness.

She held onto his shoulders for dear life as he began to move his fingers between her slick folds. Her hips rocked forward allowing him freer access, and her breaths came short and fast as he stroked her, bringing her to the edge of sanity. She couldn’t think, couldn’t focus on anything other than the sensations she was experiencing. Then, with a sharp spasm, she fell forward onto him, unable to stand any longer. He rolled her beneath him on the bed, his size and weight causing her to instinctively part her legs to cradle him. As his hands caressed her waist, belly and breasts, she lifted her mouth to his, wanting to devour him again. Their tongues dueled in passionate play. He straddled her, holding her down as he stripped away his shirt. Her hands instinctively reached out to touch the rigid muscles of his abdomen and she could have sworn he shivered as her fingers roved lower to the waistband of his trousers.

“Soon enough, my sweet.” He slid down her body to rest between her legs. Lifting her hips slightly he brought her to his mouth, just as he did that night at Woodhenge. Elise stifled a scream with the back of her hand at the enormous jolt of pleasure that raced through her body. She tried to watch, but the delirious ecstasy left her breathless. Her head fell back onto the mattress and she grasped the bed covers as she surrendered herself up to his expert ministration.

“Oh... Michael... yes.”

He lifted his head a moment and she felt his fingers enter her. “You like that, don’t you? Tell me, do you like this?” he said as his fingers pressed deep into her, making her long for something more. Her body quivered as he kept her on the crest without taking her over the edge.

She met his passionate, heavy-lidded gaze. “Yes!”

“Good, there’s more to come.”

“Please, Michael, I want it now.”

“Patience, my minx. We have all night.” Michael smiled, warming her in all the places that were chilled by his temporary absence. “I don’t want to tire you out so soon.”

“Arrrrgh! Where are you going?” she asked too quickly, then she watched, fascinated by the beauty of his nakedness as he began to removed his trousers.

“Where’s the patience I asked for?” He shoved the clothing from his body and came back to her side. His fingers traced a path from her chin over the hollow of her throat to the valley between her firm breasts, downward to her sunken navel and lower to her downy woman’s curls. Parting her, he stroked her, applying more pressure. “Hopefully this will ease the sting of your first time. I hear it is uncomfortable and I would take that pain from you if I could.”

When she was slick with her own wetness, he moved over her and slid his organ to her entrance. She was so wet, so ready. He rocked forward, introducing her to his body slowly, then backing away. Then moving deeper, and pulling away again.

“Just do it, Michael! Don’t think to make it any easier by torturing me.”

“As my lady wishes.” Taking her lips in a deep kiss, so he could swallow her scream, he drove himself home. But she didn’t cry out. He didn’t feel any anything that should have prevented him entrance.

His head fell forward, a surge of disappointment stabbed at his heart. His best friend’s sister, the woman he’d sworn to marry, kissed his forehead, then his cheek. And when her body relaxed under him, she whispered she loved him.

Bile rose up from her treachery, and something inside him died. She might love him now, but she’d loved someone else before.

E
lise felt an extreme stretching and fullness that didn’t hurt as she’d been told it would. In fact nothing in her entire life ever felt so right. So wonderful. When he pressed deeper, she moaned from the intense pleasure of it. She opened her eyes to look up to his, wondering if he felt the same pleasure she did. He didn’t look nearly as satisfied as she felt. And she noticed he’d stopped moving, holding himself deep within her. She smiled. He was being considerate of her, she knew, by allowing her time to adjust to him.

But she wanted more. Now.

She tilted her hips upward and brought her feet up to his buttocks, intending to spur him onward. The motion seated his great length within her. Her inner muscles clenched him involuntarily, pulling him in, and keeping him there.

He didn’t move and she opened her eyes, sensing something was wrong. He didn’t look right. Had she done something to displease him? “Michael? Why have you stopped?”

A myriad of emotions played across his handsome brow. He looked disappointed and at the same time, angry.

“How do you know the act is not over?” She imagined that cool, accusatory tone was one he likely used in the courtrooms.

“Because I was told there would be more....” Her voice began to quaver, but she continued. “And that I would know when the act was nearing completion because it would feel as though I’d fallen from a mountain top and soared on the wind when I climaxed.”

“Who told you these things?”

“It doesn’t matter, Michael.” She didn’t want to tell him that she’d discussed marital relations with Lia when she was at Woodhenge a couple of weeks ago. She couldn’t bear it if he thought her sister-in-law was involved in her plan to seduce him.

“You’re right.” He gave her a half-hearted smile. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” He pressed into her deep, moving his hips over her as she began to relax again and enjoy his motions.

His lovemaking took a different turn, no longer slow and kind, but more of a frenzied driving. He sought his release, she knew, because she felt her own building. Elise moved with him, arching up to him holding him with her arms and her legs, wanting to be as close to him as possible. Wanting, for some inexplicable reason, to have him hold her together as she shattered apart.

Then he drove into her deeper than before, repeatedly, pushing her closer to the edge, and finally over the precipice.

And she did soar.

Michael plunged into the deceitful vixen beneath him one last time, his orgasm coming in wave after wave of cleansing release. Realizing what he’d done, he collapsed onto her struggling to catch his breath. He caught a whiff of her lavender scent, and suddenly the smell repulsed him. He pushed away, and rolled from her and covered his eyes with his forearm suddenly overcome by his thoughts, unwilling to look at her.

“
There can be no maiden without a head lad,”
he remembered his uncle telling him one night at Woodhenge when, after several glasses of port, he’d told him of his brief marriage to a woman he loved and adored. A woman who turned out to have a traitorous heart, quite like that of the woman next to him.

Now he was destined to relive history. Except Michael hadn’t loved her as her uncle loved his wife. But he could have. He could have loved her, would have given her the world if she’d asked it of him.

She’d lain with another. Perhaps more than one, and that thought rocked him to his core. How could she? After she professed to have
loved
him all of her life, to have been waiting for
him
all of her life. He wondered who it was. Sinclair? Marlowe? No. Not someone in London, he knew, because she’d been under the watchful eye of both him and her brother the entire time. It had to be someone at Haldenwood. Could it have been a stable lad? The thought made him ill.

Whoever it was, could she now be carrying that man’s bastard? If so, she had needed to seduce him soon, to make him think this child was his.

God, he was going to be sick. He couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as her.

Too late, he realized the mistake he’d made by climaxing inside of her. Now there really was a chance she might carry his child. What was he to do? He couldn’t back out of the promise to marry her now, both families expected a wedding. If she was carrying, he’d pray like hell the child was a daughter.

If she was not carrying, could he refuse to marry her?

No. Doing so now would cost him his friendship with Ren. Just the thought that after all these years he might lose it, because of one deceitful little wench was the knife that twisted in his heart.

Then there was his mother.... He’d had to defend his choice of bride to her before she’d left Woodhenge. She’d warned him that Elise was too independent-minded and perhaps would not make the most dutiful wife. His mother might not ever say out loud that she was right, but Michael would know she thought it.

Elise stretched and turned to her side, her lithe, delectable body so enticing to look at, but her heart so treacherous as to force him to choose between true happiness with an honest woman, and life with a lying wench. One choice meant losing the best friend he’d ever had. The other meant sacrificing the opportunity for real love.

“Michael? Is something wrong?”

Her voice was so innocent, and so deceptive. He couldn’t look at her. He was afraid if he did, he might fall prey to her seductive ways and want her yet again. She was a superb actress.