Danger's Kiss (29 page)

He exhaled forcefully, prisoner to her will, and his breath sent hot shivers over her skin.

Her eyelids grew heavy as she reveled in the warmth of his palm.  His fingers perfectly cradled the curve of her breast as she clasped his hand close to her heart.  Nothing had ever felt so divine.

Then he began to caress her of his own free will.

With a tenderness she’d never expected, he moved his thumb lightly across her skin.  He squeezed her breast ever so gently, and she gasped at the gentle friction of his callused fingers as they grazed her nipple.  Yet despite the subtlety of his touch, her body responded with breathtaking haste.

Every nerve seemed to come alive at once.  Lust set fire to her flesh and flooded her veins with molten need.  She moaned as desire washed over her like a burning wave.

She could summon neither the resolve nor the strength to stop him.  His touch did more than slake the curious thirst within her.  It increased her longing.

With a ragged sigh of need, she leaned toward him, breaching the gap between them to press hungry lips to his.

She’d tasted desperation before.  Men often stole kisses from her with frantic haste, sure they’d be punished in the next moment for their trespass.  And they always were.

But this...this was more than desperation.  This was aching need, deep-seated desire, a perilous emotion far too powerful to fight.  It was like being pulled into a whirlpool.

Yet she had no desire to resist.  It was a current in which she’d gladly drown.

He kissed her with commanding fervency, parting her lips with his, nudging her jaw open, delving within the most intimate hollows of her mouth.

When his tongue brushed hers, it was as if a whip cracked and slithered down her body, for she felt its electric lash sizzle along every fiber.  Her ears thrummed.  Her nipples stung.  Her heart throbbed.  And a spark of need flared between her thighs.

She wanted...

Bloody hell, she didn’t know what she wanted.

Breathless with kissing, yet hungry for more, Desirée knelt within the circle of his legs, combing her fingers through his hair, slanting his head to better access his mouth.  Their tongues tangled, and she groaned against his lips.  Sweet Mary, she’d never tasted sweeter ambrosia.

Now his hands roamed over her breasts, squeezing, stroking, plucking at her nipples until she gasped with longing.  In answer, she let her hands drift down to spread across his wide shoulders, where a light film of sweat glistened.

He eased her down until she sat across his thigh, then slid his hand purposefully down the outside of her bodice to her waist.  He turned his hand so his fingers pointed downward and continued on, and Desirée held her breath as he drew closer and closer to the place where she ached the most.

She had never let a man touch her there, though many had tried.  It had become instinctive for her to clap her legs shut at the first sign of such intent.  This time, however, beneath the onslaught of Nicholas’s fierce kisses and arousing caresses, her muscles grew mutinous, and her thighs fell open in welcome.

When he delved between her legs, she arched toward his palm, and it seemed her body exploded with fever.  She pressed hard against him, desperate to relieve the throbbing there.

He rubbed slowly up and down, and she angled her hips to accommodate him, while they gasped against each other’s mouths.

Gradually, he drew the fabric of her dress up, baring her legs, and she could no more prevent him than she could prevent drifting clouds from exposing the face of the moon.

When his fingers contacted her naked flesh, a wave of fresh heat swept through her, flushing her cheeks, snatching her breath, searing her loins.  She cried out with the shock of it, and for one awful instant, he drew back his hand.

Nicholas ground his teeth.  He knew he’d gone too far.  Hell, he’d gone too far when he’d kissed her that first time.  He should never have let her touch him.  But she’d been impossible to resist.  It had been too long since he’d had a woman.  And he’d never had a woman so beautiful.  And willing.  And hot-blooded.

But now he’d come too far...too far to stop.  Already she was gasping in complaint, her brow furrowed with yearning.  In another moment, she’d be seizing him by his shirt and demanding he continue.  He couldn’t leave her unsatisfied.  He had to finish what he’d started.  He only hoped he remembered how.

He licked his first two fingers, instantly aroused by the womanly taste upon them, while she regarded him in heavy-lidded wonder.  Then he slipped his hand back into the sweet folds guarding her womb, sliding gently along her most sensitive parts.

With a cry of wonder, she collapsed against his shoulder.  He cradled her head with his free hand, resting his cheek against her silky hair while he continued to rub tenderly between her thighs.  He squeezed his eyes shut, whispering soft encouragement, listening to her wordless syllables of passion as she rocked her hips in response to his touch.

She moaned faintly beneath his caress, as if he tortured her, and he could tell she’d not long endure his excruciating ministrations before she surrendered.

Yet it was a kind of torture that tormented him, as well.  Her every gasp seemed to draw breath from his lungs.  Every squeeze of her fingers awakened his flesh.  Each sigh she spent against his ear sent a shiver of longing through his bones.  God help him, he hoped she’d finish quickly, for his braies were near to bursting, and he didn’t know how long he could languish on this rack of lust.

Nor how much ale would be required to kill his pain.

Another moment, he thought, as she tensed upon his thigh, and it would be over.  Another moment, and he’d be free.

But he didn’t count on Desirée’s penchant for mischief.  By the time she reached down between his legs, brazenly caressing him, it was too late for him to rein in the unruly beast of desire.

Desirée didn’t know what drove her to such boldness.  But Nicholas’s groan of pleasurable pain as she stroked his swollen staff sent her over the edge.

She’d never felt such a strong surge of sensation.  It was as startling as a dip in a midwinter pond, rendering her breathless.  And yet in the next moment, it seemed she was immersed in the most warm and wonderful bath.  She shuddered with the power of release, crying out in amazement.

For a long while after, there was no sound in the room but the crackling of the fire and the mingled rasping of their breath as she recovered from her lust and fed his.

It was strangely empowering, holding a fearsome, powerful lawman literally by the ballocks.  Yet she felt only a keen desire to return his favor, to give him such pleasure as he’d afforded her.

She knew what to do.  She’d watched harlots in alleyways.  It was a simple thing.

Reluctantly moving away from his cradling hand, she urged him gently backward until he leaned against the wall, then knelt before him.

While he looked on with a clenched jaw and a furrowed brow, she gave him a sultry smile and began to unlace his braies.  His head fell back, hitting the wall with a soft thud, as he let her have her way with him.

He watched her through his lashes as she carefully freed his cock.  For all its size, it was much more delicate than she’d imagined.  It emerged from a lush nest of black curls, its skin warm and smooth and vibrant.  When she ran her thumb over his length, it responded with a gentle lunge.

Mimicking his earlier gesture, she ran her tongue slowly over her fingers to moisten them, then took him tenderly within her palm.

Nicholas groaned in helpless pleasure as she sheathed him in her hand.  He felt both strong and vulnerable within her palm, and she savored his pulsing length for a moment.  Then she began to slide tenderly over his flesh.  His hips thrust upward, guiding her movements, and she quickly learned the rhythm of his desire.  Soon his fingers clawed at the floor, and his head rolled from side to side.

It was a heady thrill, arousing him to such a state.  Indeed, watching him writhe in the sweet torment of passion was heating her own blood.  Again.  Like a glutton getting up from one feast only to demand another, her body craved him once more.

For one wild and mindless moment, she wondered what he would do if she tossed aside all caution, threw herself at him, and took him into her aching womb right then and there.

Fortunately, she wasn’t given another instant to consider it.  With a primal cry, he stiffened, arching into her hand again and again, spilling forth his seed.

He finally collapsed against the wall, huffing like a winded stallion.

As Desirée gazed upon his damp brow, his flaring nostrils, his heaving chest, she felt an inexplicable wave of happiness.  She’d done it.  She’d given pleasure to the shire-reeve of Kent.

She smiled, as content as a kitten with a bowl of cream, and her voice was throatier than she expected when she murmured, “Oh, this is far more entertaining than draughts.”

Nicholas couldn’t help but chuckle at her remark, but he knew he’d made a horrible mistake.  He never should have taken such liberties.  Nor allowed such from her.

For Desirée, he was likely one in a long line of men who’d accepted her favors.

But for Nicholas, who couldn’t remember the last time he’d pleasured a woman in his arms nor the last time a woman had pleasured him, it would be an eternity before he’d forget the sweet throes of her release and the thundering power of his.

She might consider the evening’s frolic merely an entertaining diversion, but Nicholas could not.  One day, Desirée would walk out of his cottage and out of his life, with no regret.  But as for Nicholas, God curse his foolish heart, he’d never forget her.  Somehow he’d fallen hopelessly in love with the wench.

T
he midnight moon spied upon Philomena through a rip in the clouds as she reclined in the steaming rose-scented bath.  Though she’d endured twice-daily baths of scalding water, laced with assorted oils and spices, trying to wash away the horrible stench of the gaol, they weren’t working.  Her visit two days ago had left an odor of excrement and filth in her nostrils that she couldn’t completely get rid of, no matter how hard she scrubbed.

Her frustration only mounted with each passing hour that the cursed key remained missing.

No doubt the four men trapped here in her solar were grateful she was presently soaking in a tub.  Otherwise, she’d have the lot of them hanging from meat hooks on the wall.

Godfry she’d leave alone for now.  The split-lipped steward had already done his duty, rounding up the master of the mews and his two accomplices.

“Odger,” she crooned.

“Aye, my lady.”  Odger trembled, fidgeting with the hat in his hands, looking as out of place in her chamber as one of his birds.

“You betrayed my trust.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

His gaze kept dropping to her breasts, as if he’d never seen a naked woman before.  She half smiled.  He’d probably never seen one as lovely as she.

“And yet you did.”

“The wench stabbed me, my lady,” he said, yanking down his shirt to show her the wound in his shoulder.  “I thought ‘twas best to send someone she didn’t know.”

“Well, aren’t you clever?”  She lifted the rag out of her bath, closed her eyes, and squeezed it, letting the hot water rain down upon her bosom.  “Except that the men you enlisted are bumbling fools with the combined wit of a flea.”

As if to verify her reference, one of the Johns slapped at his own neck, making Odger jump.

She perused the men through slit eyes.  What a sorry bunch they were.  Godfry looked as if he might burst into tears at any moment.  Odger’s nerves were as strained as a primed bow.  One of the Johns kept voraciously licking his lips as he stared at her, and the other glared fixedly at the wall.

“Nonetheless,” she allowed, “they’ve brought me a valuable piece of information.  And now, since you’ve mustered them into your legion, I think ‘tis only fitting they finish the battle.”

None of the half-wits appreciated her clever analogy.  She sighed and dropped the rag into the water.  She supposed she’d have to be straightforward.

“I want that wench.  I don’t care how you get her.  Just bring her back to Torteval by tomorrow.”

“But she’s livin’ with Nicholas Grimshaw,” Odger said.

“The shire-reeve,” one of the Johns clarified.