Dangerous to Hold (28 page)

“Oh, Marcus,” she said in a shaken whisper. “Oh, Marcus.”

Marcus saw the confusion in her eyes, heard the pulse of desire in her voice, and he took instant advantage. “Lie with me,” he said, and with eyes on hers, he brought her down to lie with him.

He began to caress her, only this time with less restraint, using his lips and tongue in his war to master her senses. He wasn’t going to give her time to think. He wasn’t going to give her time to change her mind. When she began to tremble beneath him, crying his name, he rose above her.

He planted himself firmly between her thighs but he didn’t take her, not yet. He waited until her lashes lifted and those expressive blue eyes were fastened on his. He gave her a moment so that there could be no misunderstanding between them. This was what they both wanted.

“Ah, Cat,” he said, then he took her mouth in a voracious kiss just as he took her body.

She jerked and cried out, protesting the painful intrusion. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to stop but he ignored the press of her hands as she tried to push him away. When he felt her sheath grow moist and supple around him, he drove into her, embedding himself deep inside her.

She moaned, and he kissed her. “It’s all right,” he said in a soothing whisper. “It’s all right.”

She was feeling numb and a little battered from the force of his entry. His words hardly soothed her. Marcus saw the sizzle in her eyes, but he didn’t give her time to speak. He began to move, slowly at first, then with increasing confidence as he felt her move with him, instinctively enticing him to a greater passion. He wanted to go slowly, to give her pleasure so that next time she would be eager for his lovemaking, but his body had been too long denied. He began thrusting heavily.

As he withdrew, then lunged again, filling her completely, scorching waves of sensation drowned her in pleasure. Her skin was hot; an ache grew in her loins. Her
awareness was centered on his movements as he drove into her. She felt herself hover on a crest, reaching for something that was beyond her ken.

Marcus could hold off no longer. He kissed her fiercely, hotly, then cupping his hands around her bottom, he lifted her to him and drove into her again and again. At the last, when his climax burst upon him, he emptied himself deep inside her in hard convulsive thrusts.

In the long silence that followed, Catherine lay beneath him like a stone. She couldn’t summon the energy to throw him off. She felt bruised and shaken, but most of all she felt cheated by a tantalizing promise that had never materialized. She’d abandoned the prohibitions of a lifetime to reach for something that apparently didn’t exist … and now that she’d recovered her senses, she was beginning to burn with an odd mixture of shame and embarrassment. How had it happened? What could she say to him? She was sprawled on the bed, legs splayed wide, with Marcus planted solidly between her thighs, and his huge sex still buried inside her. She was ruined and all because she had wanted to be nice to him! She hadn’t understood anything. Seduction didn’t come from the outside, but from within.

Marcus shifted his weight to allow her to draw breath. He knew there was a big smile on his face. When she sniffed, he lavished her with soft kisses. “It will be better next time,” he promised.

He was roused from his inertia by a sharp blow to the ribs. Groaning, uncoupling their bodies, he rolled to his side. Catherine lost no time in slipping from the bed. When she saw the streaks of blood on her thighs, she let out a long teary sob, then dived for her robe. Having belted it, she turned to face him.

He’d raised to his elbows, but he made no move to cover his nakedness. Catherine emitted a soft sound, reached for the clothes which were thrown haphazardly on the floor, and threw him his shirt.

“Have you no modesty?” she hissed.

His brows rose, but he answered her mildly. “With you? None whatsoever. You may not believe this now, but
the day will come when you won’t be modest with me either.”

She waited until he’d donned his shirt, then she said in a low, passionate voice, “Have you any idea what we did here tonight?”

His mouth curved in a slow, sensual smile. “Why don’t you remind me?”

It was all she could do to look at him, knowing that only moments before she had lain naked in his arms. She cleared her throat. “What we have done by consummating our marriage is complicate things beyond belief.”

“I didn’t ‘consummate our marriage,’ as you put it.”

“What did you do?”

“I had you,” he said bluntly. “At long last, I had you. God, I don’t mind telling you that you had me worried for a time. I thought, hoped, you had a passionate nature, but a man can never really be sure until he takes his woman to bed. You, my pet, were worth the wait.”

Marcus didn’t see the effect his words had on her. He had vaulted from the bed and was adding coal to the blazing fire in the grate. He was in the mood to hum a bawdy ditty he’d picked up while soldiering in France, but he refrained, not wanting to sound too smug in case it got her dander up. But he was smug. A woman like Catherine didn’t surrender herself to a man unless that man meant something to her. And just to make sure she understood what he had claimed not minutes before in that very bed, he was going to claim it again and again until the memory of this night was impressed upon her for all time. It was going to be a long night. Time and enough when dawn came to talk things out. His smile intensified.

She tried not to sound surly. “I’ll wager you’ve said that to a goodly number of women in your time.”

“What?”

“That she’s worth the wait,”

He came to her and looped his arms around her shoulders. “You’re wrong, love. No woman ever made me wait before.”

“What colossal conceit!”

He grinned. “I’m being honest.”

“You should try for modesty, Marcus.”

He cocked his head, trying to gauge her expression, then he said very seriously, very quietly, “I’m not going to justify my past, not to you, not to anyone. So don’t ask me.”

She pushed out of his arms. “I’m sure your past is fascinating, Marcus, but frankly, I’m not interested. It’s the future that concerns me. Now that you know about
El Grande
and me, there are things we should discuss, but not now, not right this minute.” She pressed a hand to her temples. “I have a headache. This has been a harrowing night, to say the least. I’d be obliged if you would get dressed and leave me in peace to sort things through.”

He jerked her back when she tried to slip by him. His eyes moved over her slowly, observing the flushed cheeks, the glitter in her eyes, the provocative tilt to her chin. “You’re not sorting anything through,” he said. “Everything is out of your hands. From now on, I’m the one who will be making the decisions. Not you, and not
El Grande.
Do you understand, Cat?”

Through set teeth, she said, “I won’t go on playing the part of your wife, not after what happened here tonight.”

“Cat, you
are
my wife, and there’s no getting around it.”

“And you can have me any time you want, I suppose?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“What the devil is the matter with you?” demanded Marcus, staring at the tears that were welling in her eyes.

“I’ll tell you what’s the matter with me. I hate you. That’s what’s the matter with me.”

Marcus blazed with anger. “You have a strange way of showing that you hate me.”

“You’ve had what you wanted. Now go.”

“It’s what you wanted too, isn’t it?”

“I must have been out of my mind.”

Baffled at the change in her, Marcus reached for his clothes. He glowered at them for a moment then flung
them aside. His eyes held hers. “If that was hate,” he said, “I can live with it.”

“Marcus, I’m sorry about Spain. More than sorry. But you’ve had your pound of flesh. Enough is enough.”

“So that’s it,” he said. “Cat, revenge was the last thing on my mind when I made love to you tonight.”

She was unconvinced. “Was it?”

“Please trust me, Cat.”

She couldn’t think when his hands were massaging her shoulders. She licked her lips. “I want to trust you, Marcus.”

“Cat,” he groaned, and swept her into his arms. He laid her on the bed and came down beside her.

When he kissed her, she put out a hand in a halfhearted attempt to delay things. She wasn’t sure if this was what she wanted. He captured her hand and brought it to his groin, curling her fingers around his swollen shaft. She could sense the rising need in him and it made her own need burgeon out of control. Then he wasn’t asking, he was taking, and she reveled in it.

When he tasted the surrender on her lips, without breaking the kiss, he slipped off her robe. His hands moved possessively over her body, taking, giving, and infinitely arousing. When she began to tremble, he mounted her.

This time, he was determined not to take his own pleasure till he had brought her to climax. He drew her up with the slow, steady rhythm of his body moving on hers. He kissed her endlessly, plunging his tongue deeply, carefully building the passion between them. He felt the tension grow in her, felt the tightening in her loins as he drew her to the crest. When she began to convulse beneath him, Marcus threw off his restraints. Bracing himself on his hands to make his penetration as deep as he could make it, he moved with the ferocity of a jungle cat. At the end, her shocked cry of pleasure was the sweetest sound he had ever heard.

This wasn’t the end of it. He let her sleep for a while, but he felt like a man driven. She was his. After tonight, she would never deny him again.

She wasn’t fully awake when he entered her. A flurry
of protests flew from her lips. Marcus disregarded every one of them. “So go to sleep,” he said, and worked on her till sleep was the last thing she wanted.

Much later, he decided he didn’t want a passive lover, not after she’d responded with such abandon those first few times. He showed her how to give him pleasure, then wondered if he was crazy to put so much power into her hands, when she ruthlessly used her newfound knowledge to make him writhe with wanting her.

Toward dawn, they slept. Marcus was first to awaken. He lay with his eyes closed, savoring the feel of her in his arms. When he thought about how she’d kept him at arm’s length by continually casting in his teeth the fact that he was a married man, his temper began to heat. It ebbed when he remembered the night just past. In one night, she’d gone a long way to making up for the last few months.

There were still many questions he wanted answered. The sooner he met with
El Grande
, the sooner he could begin to fit some of the pieces of the puzzle together. It exasperated him to think that it meant starting over. He’d been on the wrong track all along, and all because Catherine had lied to him. There were going to be no more lies, no more secrets between them. She was his now, and her loyalty belonged to him.

She came awake slowly. She felt his breath, his warmth. Blue eyes locked on blue eyes. He kissed her, and she slipped her arms around his neck.

“Marcus,” she said in a breathy murmur. “Marcus.”

His hand slid up her leg to her thigh. “Love me, Cat.”

She began to tremble, feeling the familiar quickening inside her. “This isn’t right,” she whispered. She wanted so much more.

“There’s no right and wrong between us. Not now.”

As his weight came down on her, she whimpered in sheer animal arousal. She had the strangest feeling of being mastered, then her own passion blazed up to match his.

When it was over, Catherine burst into tears. Marcus seemed to understand that he was the source of her unhappiness
but he did not console her or make false promises.

“From now on, we’re going to do things my way,” he said, then he began to dress.

“Tell me about
El Grande
.”

Catherine took a moment to smooth her white linen napkin over her lap before considering Marcus’s request. Three days had passed since Marcus had found her out. They were now in London, in his house in Cavendish Square, about to eat breakfast before going to Marston Abbey to meet with
El Grande.
The rest of the family was still at Wrotham.

She spooned some marmalade onto her plate. “I’ve told you all I know.”

“Then tell me again.”

Catherine knew he wasn’t deliberately trying to needle her. It was just that every time she told the story, she remembered something she hadn’t mentioned before. It was tedious, and at the same time it was unnerving. She was left with the distinct impression that Marcus was trying to trick her into revealing something she wished to conceal. And she had plenty to conceal. She did not want to tell him about Major Carruthers, and her role as a spy, making her reports to British Intelligence. Somehow, it didn’t seem so disloyal when only she and
El Grande
were involved.

When she told him about the lantern on the tower stairs, he’d seen immediately that she had kept quiet about it because she had suspected he was responsible. He’d made her describe the episode a dozen times, and had finally dismissed the idea that either a member of his family or one of the servants had done it deliberately. In his hearing, Penn had ordered one of the gillies to oil the hinges and accidents did happen. On the other hand, if it wasn’t an accident, it would have been simple for an outsider
to steal the Wrotham livery, sneak into the castle precincts, and take advantage of his opportunities.