Castles Ever After 02 Say Yes to the Marquess (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

C
lio held her breath. For a brief, terrifying moment, nothing happened.

He made no sound. No movement. No reaction at all.

Not even a blink.

And then, in a heartbeat, he had her pressed against the door. Her spine met the wood with a teeth-rattling urgency. His hands slid to her backside, and he lifted her, molding her body to his.

His words were a low growl against her lips. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

She slid her hands to his hair, smiling so broadly it was difficult to kiss him back. “I was hoping you’d do this.”

He kissed her. Hungrily, at first. Then sweetly. More sweetly than ever before, sipping at her top lip, then the bottom. Teasing her tongue with his. Murmuring soft words she couldn’t make out, but didn’t need to, really. Stroking her cheek with the backs of his fingers and taking all the time he wished. Because now they didn’t need to rush. They needn’t worry about any interruption.

At last, it was only the two of them.

All too soon, he pulled away. “We should w—”

“No.” Panicked, she pressed her fingers over his lips, pursed as they were on the brink of destroying her. “Don’t say that word. I’ll take any other word beginning with W, but not that one. Writhe, wash, wiggle, whip . . .”

He looked a bit alarmed at that last option.

“It’s an example. You know what I mean. The next word out of your mouth had better be anything but ‘wait.’ ”

She removed her fingers.

His thumbs traced soothing circles on her lower back. “Warm. We should warm you up. Get you something to eat.”

“Oh. Well, that’s fine. And much better than any of my suggestions.”

“No doubt. I’ll get you a blanket, and then we’ll see about peeling off this silk.” As he lowered her to the floor, his face went suddenly, direly grave. “You’ll have to marry me, you know.”

Yes.

She did know.

In that moment, Clio looked inside her heart. It was the clearest glimpse she’d ever had. She saw the entirety of her future.
Their
future. The castle, the brewery. Children. Christmases and Easters and summer rain.

They’d always have rain.

“There’s no way around it,” he said, backing away and going to the bed. “It might not be what you wanted, but . . . You came after me in the rain, all wet and shivering. And I should have sent you back, but I’m too impulsive for anyone’s good. Especially yours.”

Oh, drat. He was hurt. She should have just blurted out the word yes, but she hadn’t and now he didn’t understand. He’d mistaken her pause for reluctance.

He tugged at the blankets. “I’m a fighter. If anything good remained of my reputation, last night I’ve destroyed it. The only thing I can offer you is the protection of my body.”

“Rafe . . .”

“But there’s no refusing it now.” He paused, pillow in hand, holding it like shield. “You don’t have a choice.”

“Of course I have choices. When you signed those papers, you gave me all the choices in the world. I’m a new Clio. I’m not doing anything because I have to, and I don’t care what people say. I’m certainly not going to marry you simply because you say I must.”

His fingers flexed, digging a stranglehold into the pillow.

“For heaven’s sake, that poor cushion.”

She took the pillow from his hands, and gave it an apologetic plumping before placing at the head of the bed.

“Rafe,” she said, “I’m going to marry you because I love you.”

He blinked at her, and she realized with a sudden pang in her heart that he might never have heard these words before. His mother was gone so young. No matter how his father and brother might have felt, they wouldn’t be the sort to voice it aloud. And if what he told her was true, about his history with women being shallow and unsatisfying . . .

Clio was likely the first. And the fact that she could give him this gift? Oh, it just filled her heart with joy.

She took one of his hands in both of hers. “I am madly in love with you, Rafe Brandon.”

He was quiet for a while.

“Are you feverish?” he asked.

“No.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.” She lifted his hand and pressed the back of it to her brow. “See?”

“I didn’t mean about the fever. Are you certain about me?”

Clio supposed she deserved that skepticism. As far as Rafe knew, these feelings were a recent development.

“I’m certain. It’s been coming on for some time now. I’m not even sure when it began, but . . . long before this summer. For years now, I’ve read everything I could find of your career. I cheered your successes; I worried when you were hurt. Why else would I keep reaching out with all those silly invitations and holiday greetings? I’m a nice girl, Rafe, and yes, I was raised to be the model of gentility and good breeding. But even I’m not
that
polite.”

She took his hand and kissed it. “I love you. And I understand if it’s difficult for you to believe that fully today. But it’s just as well. It’s a short little phrase. I can repeat it as many times as it takes. You can practice taking it the way you take jabs.” She raised her fists the way he’d taught her and boxed his shoulder. “I
love
you. I
love
you. I—”

He caught her in his arms. His eyes were fierce. “Clio, no. You have to stop.”

“I won’t stop. Not even a heavyweight champion of England is strong enough to make me.” Giddy with the power of it, she laced her arms around his neck. “I love you. Take that.”

Oh, Rafe intended to take it, all right.

He was going to take it, hold it tight with both hands, and never, ever let go.

“On second thought, never mind the blankets,” he said. “I’m going to warm you myself.”

“I like that idea.”

So did he.

He put his hands on her waist and turned her so that she faced away from him. And then, for the second time that week, he set about the task of unbuttoning and unlacing her.

But it was so much different this time.

This time, she was his.

He’d been waiting a long time to have someone who belonged to him. Someone he could care for, unreservedly. Honestly. With every part of himself, not just the brutish, broken bits.

“Eat something while I do this,” he told her. “We can’t have you swooning again.”

She reached for a roll and broke off a piece. “If you didn’t want to make me swoon,” she said with her mouth full, “you should not have been so dashing.”

“You’ve little room to talk, in this gown.” He unbuttoned the last of the closures and cleaved the damp silk from her back. “When I first saw you in that ballroom, I thought
I
might faint.”

He pushed the gown down to her waist and over her hips, helping her step out of it. Then he set to unlacing her corset and untying the tapes of her petticoats. Wet knots were trickier than dry ones, but he finally managed to work them loose.

She turned to face him, clad in only a damp, tissue-thin linen shift. It clung to her, pasted to her every curve—all but translucent. Holy God. His gaze wandered from her hardened nipples, to the sweet flare of her hips, to the dark amber triangle of shadow guarding her sex.

If he hadn’t been jerked back to awareness by her sudden shiver, he could have stood there gawping all night.

“Sorry,” he said. He needed to hurry this, or she’d catch a chill. “Why don’t you do the rest yourself and climb into bed. I’ll take care of myself and join you.”

She nodded, and he turned away, dropping into a chair by the fire so he could remove his boots. After those were dispatched, he stood and worked on the rest. In a matter of seconds, he’d stripped off his waistcoat and shirt, then shucked his trousers. Holding his clothing in a ball before him, he turned.

Clio lay nestled in the bed linens, her hair unbound and falling about her shoulders in damp waves. So lovely. She looked like a painting one might find in a Venetian palace.

And this picture of feminine delicacy was staring at him. The way a stray cat might eye joints of meat in the marketplace.

“I . . .” She looked abashed at being caught, but she didn’t look away.

He tossed the balled-up clothing aside and spread his hands, as if to say:
Go ahead; look your fill.

Her gaze flirted with his shoulders and abdomen, but quickly dropped to his most vital parts. Her cheeks turned an entirely new, rather alarming, shade of pink. He didn’t even know how to name that shade of pink. It might not have existed in nature until tonight.

“I don’t know what I was expecting.” She hooked one finger on her teeth, pensive. “You’re a large man. Everywhere. It stands to reason that you’d be . . . large . . . there, too.”

He scratched the back of his neck, trying not to laugh. He wasn’t freakishly big. Just on the larger side. But her unintentional compliments—and that fierce blush creeping up to her hairline—were only making matters worse. He was rapidly growing even larger.

She stretched a hand forward, tentative. “May I . . . ?”

As if he’d say no.

He moved closer to the bed, his cock jutting out before him like the prow of a ship. He was certain he’d never been harder in his life.

She touched him with one fingertip—one single fingertip, skimming him from shaft to tip—and his whole body went up in flames.

She tilted her head. “Are you very sure that this will—”

“Yes.”

“All of it?”

“In time.” He joined her on the bed, coaxing her to lie back on the mattress. “We’ll take it as slow as you like. If you want me to stop, you’ve only to say the word.”

He stretched out next to her, drawing her body close to his chest and enfolding her in his arms. Giving her his heat. He had plenty to spare.

“Warmer?”

She nodded.

As he bent to kiss her pulse, her head rolled to one side, stretching her neck into a pale, graceful curve.

An invitation.

And this was one invitation he would never refuse.

He began at her ear and kissed down her neck, all the way to her collarbone. His hand had drifted to her breast of its own accord. While kneading one, he kissed the other, nuzzling close to her violet-scented skin.

Even if they lived and made love for fifty years—and he fervently hoped they did—Rafe didn’t think it would ever cease to astonish him, that she
wanted
this. His big, roughened body rubbing against her soft perfection.

He laid her on her back and kissed his way down her belly, pausing halfway down to prop his chin on her navel and gaze up into her face.

“I’m going to make this good for you,” he promised. “Beyond good. I want . . . I want cake sounds. No, scratch that. I want
Rafe
sounds.”

She laughed a little. But as he slid a hand up her naked thigh, her laugh became a sigh of pleasure.

“There’s my girl. That’s a start.”

He finished kissing his way down her belly, then dipped his head lower. She startled. He held her hips tight.

“It’s all right. If you trust me.”

“I trust you.”

He didn’t take that gift lightly. He stroked her first with his fingers, parting her folds with the pad of his thumb, and pushing just an inch inside. When she gasped and moaned, he took the encouragement.

He nudged her legs apart, wide enough to accommodate his shoulders. And then he sank between her thighs, laying his tongue to the very heart of her. She bucked in surprise at the first contact, but he wouldn’t be deterred. He teased her with slow, lapping strokes of his tongue. He loved the taste of her. She was so sweet, with just the right amount of tart.

“Rafe.” She touched his shoulder. “
Rafe
, are you sure—”

“It’s all right.” He spread her wide with his thumbs. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

She cried out in pleasure. Her thighs clamped together, catching his head like two sides of a vise. He wasn’t going anywhere now. So he settled into his task, teasing and tasting. Learning her every contour, her every response. Within moments, she was panting for him.

“Yes,” she moaned.

He moaned, too. His cock throbbed vainly where it lay trapped against the bedsheets.

When he couldn’t wait any longer, Rafe crawled his way up her body. Keeping his weight on his arms, he nestled his hard, aching cock in the cradle of her sex. He made no move to enter her. Not yet. He just rocked his hips back and forth, stroking her where he knew she’d like it the most. Giving them both more heat, more friction.

More teasing, maddening bliss.

“Oh,” she sighed. “Oh, Rafe.”

He loved this feeling. It wasn’t just the joy of pleasuring her—though that was brilliant, in and of itself. It was this heady, superhuman awareness, the intensity of focus that could push him out of his troubled mind and make him feel he could do
anything.
In all his life, he’d only ever felt this way when fighting.

Until now. Until her.

As he slid back and forth, he balanced on his arms above her, watching her every reaction. The steady crescendo of her pleasure was like a captivating story. One written in pink brushstrokes across her pale skin.

She was so beautiful.

And ready for him, judging by the slickness gliding between their bodies. It was a damned good thing, because he couldn’t wait much longer.

“Please,” she whimpered, fisting her hands in the bed linens. “Soon. Please.”

He took his cock in hand and positioned himself at her entrance. “Tell me you want this.”

“I want this.”

Gritting his teeth, he teased them both by sliding the tip of his erection in, then out. “Tell me you want
me.
”

Her eyes opened and locked with his. “Rafe. I want you. Only you.”

He felt like a god as he pushed into her. Omnipotent. Arrogant. Possessing the keys to Paradise.

She was wet, but so tight. What felt nigh-on glorious for him had to be hurting her. He didn’t try to sink deep all at once but instead moved forward in gentle, steady thrusts. Still, her expression tightened with every inch he advanced.

He paused. “If you’re hurting, tell me to stop.”

“Don’t stop. I love this. I love you. There’s just . . . a great deal of you to love, that’s all. Be patient.”