His Stolen Bride BN (19 page)

“I speak true,” he whispered, his gaze delving into the heady depths of her eyes.
“Do you know how I know that?”

She arched a pale brow. “Because you are arrogant?”

He smiled and loomed closer, a mere breath separating their bodies. “Because I see
desire shining in your eyes.” Averyl opened her mouth to rebut, but he stopped her
with a fingertip against her lips. “’Tis the truth. And I feel it in your mouth when
we kiss.” His whisper filled the charged air between them. “Surrender to that desire.”

She turned away. “My surrender matters not. You will take what you want, regardless
of my feelings.”

He reached for her shoulders, surprised to feel her trembling, and whispered in her
ear. “Nay, I will take you with every regard for your feelings. With every hope you
admit you want to feel my mouth on yours, my body against yours.”

Beside her, Drake watched her cheeks flush red. “I will not listen to your pretty
lies.”

His grip on her tightened. The charged energy leaping between them multiplied. “I
do not waste my breath on lies.”

The more Drake held her, the more he ached to have her. Yet as she spoke, the more
he feared his hasty possession tonight would pain her, not in body but in heart.

Before he could dwell on the unpleasant reality, his lips covered hers, softly demanding
of her sweetness. She resisted, her warm fingers splayed against his chest as if to
ward him off. Refusing defeat, Drake renewed his onslaught, reaping of the honeyed
harvest of her mouth. He gave desire free rein, drinking of her lips, drawing her
stiff form closer.

His pulse leapt. His skin came alive with sensations of warmth and velvet. The faint
scent of spiced flowers, of Highland rain, registered as he groaned and wrapped his
fingers in her silken tresses, flowing loose and enticing. She could tempt the most
pious of monks.

With a pained cry, Averyl moved to push him away. Drake held fast, possessing her
mouth again, tasting, teasing.

Tearing her mouth away, she breathed, “Why?”

Drake let her gaze delve into her—deep—willing her to understand what he could not
deny. “I want this. I want you.”

Then he possessed her lips again, plundering.

Averyl’s hands crept from his chest to his shoulder, then about his neck. Her mouth
softened to him slowly. He courted, waiting for her trust, her need. She gave it in
inches, melting against him, admitting desire. Drake rejoiced in each small surrender,
in the long, velvety union of their mouths.

The kiss seized his breath. As if she knew her power, Averyl shyly touched her tongue
to the curve of his lower lip, inciting a shiver.

Tilting her face up to his, he deepened their kiss and inhaled the feminine allure
of her skin. Desire rose within him like the heat of an August noon. His tongue mated
with hers, encouraging and insisting. Averyl returned every nuance of his kiss and
heightened the flame of his need.

Their lips met again, urgency spiraling. Drake clutched a handful of her chemise and
used it to draw her close enough to feel every inch of his want. She melted into him,
her fervor heating the air between them, stirring his lust-filled body.

He lowered his mouth to her neck, where he nibbled his way across her scented skin.
Her soft taste sent a rain of sensation straight down to his aching shaft.

As he picked up hints of her essence with his tongue, she intoxicated him. Again,
he devoured her mouth. Her fervent response held a heady mix of female innocence and
a natural instinct to bewitch. And God knew, Drake was only too willing to fall beneath
her spell.

Keeping her mouth captive to his, Drake lifted her against him, cradling her knees
into the crook of his arms. The feel of her small, passionate form against him, seemingly
so willing, sent his lust careening out of control.

Drake crossed the room with Averyl in his arms and set her upon the soft bed, where
he planned to claim her this night until they both cried exhaustion. Laying her down,
he followed her to the soft mattress, taking her mouth once more. She met his unrelenting
demand as if she already understood the desperation of desire.

Averyl moaned in his arms, and Drake felt her cry deep within him. He could wait no
longer to have her, all of her.

With a brush of his hand, her shift fell from her shoulder. He gazed upon her milky
flesh, the slopes of her shoulders, the soft rise of her breasts. He worshipped the
flesh he exposed with his mouth, lips breathing over soft skin.

Finally, he pushed her chemise to her waist, sending his tingling palm over the small
mound of her breast. He moaned as she arched into his touch. Drake closed his eyes
at the dizzying feel of her beneath his hands, feeling lust pound in his body more
strongly than the beat of his racing heart.

He leaned toward her, watching her watch him. Desire pulsed in the air, potent, fast,
consuming. Its rhythm doubled, pounded, when his mouth closed around the waiting tip
of her breast and she cried out.

The green of her eyes flared with surprise and want. He stared at her, need roiling
within him. Could one woman be so sweet? Could she truly make all those before seem
like pale imitations? Aye, he thought as his hand grazed the curve of her waist, then
drifted down to the arch of her hip, removing her silken shift in the process.

On fire, he reached for her hands and brought them to his shirt. “Undress me?”

At his ragged request, she lifted her eyes to him in uncertainty. She hesitated, biting
her lip, swollen from his kiss. Cheeks red, breath fast, she stared, her gaze roving
over his shoulders, his chest. Drake sat still, waiting, praying.

Suddenly, her fingers were in motion, working at his shirt. Inch by inch, she exposed
his flesh. Her eyes widened before she consumed him in a heavy-lidded gaze of sultry
wonder. He watched the rise and fall of her chest, heard her ragged breathing. Satisfaction
seeped into him.

She pushed one side of the shirt off his shoulder. Drake trembled at the feathered
texture of her touch, so light yet inescapable. Impatient, he jerked the garment over
his head.

Slowly, she lifted shaking fingertips to the center of his chest, just below the gleam
of his father’s cross. The heat of her touch scorched him.

Talons of fire licking at him, Drake seized her mouth again, this time with a fervency
he did not try to restrain. He whispered wicked suggestions, needful moans, as he
touched her. Across her abdomen and the curve of her buttocks, around the heat of
her thighs—anywhere she would have him. She gasped, arched, sighed—set him aflame.

Again, he devoured her mouth, begging and demanding her response at once, until he
felt certain she understood he intended to possess each warm inch of her.

Averyl did not shy away. Indeed, she returned his caress with a sweep of her glance,
followed by the lingering touch of her hands up his arms, across his shoulders, until
her fingers cascaded down his belly. Drake sucked in a deep breath of heat. With a
gaze of eyes so green, she held his stare, as her fingertips made their way across
the arch of his brow, the angles of his cheeks, over the sensitive curve of his lip.
Drake had never imagined such a caress could make him ache with such hardness.

Knowing he could passively endure her touch no more, Drake rolled her beneath him,
eager to feel her soft body. Her harsh breathing matched his own, as did the want
in her eyes.

Yet for all Averyl’s beguiling ways, she was innocence personified. Like Eve before
her fated walk though Eden, sensual but untouched. Pure and unspoiled.

Until this night. Until him.

The thought slammed into him. He swallowed hard to push it away.

If he took her now to satisfy his lust and revenge, aye, ’twould ease his aching manhood.
But her virginity would be sacrificed on the altar of revenge. Even from afar, Murdoch
would sully the one thing Drake wanted perfect between them. And she would come to
hate him for the deed.

He lay motionless atop her, enduring her frown of curiosity. Still, he did not move.

Claiming her now would be tantamount to thieving the one gift he could not replace,
a gift he had no right to since he did not intend to remain her husband. Knowing this,
could he defile her in the name of vengeance, make her a bride of hatred?

His mind raced. Her surrender was so clear it seemed tangible. She desired him. Was
that not enough? Could he not find good in the union of their bodies, without a thought
to the past? Or the future?

Into her eyes he gazed, seeing need and trust shining from their deep hazel depths.
Could he really use her so ill?

Drake fought the answer, but it lay like a serpent, coiling about his need.

“I cannot do this.” He cursed roundly, then rolled away from her warm nudity.

“Cannot what?” Shock wound through her voice.

Drake reached for his shirt and breeches. Calling himself every kind of a fool, he
thrust the garments into place. “I cannot touch you, not like this. I will not.”

Before he could hear her reply, see the questions gathering in her wide eyes, Drake
fled, slamming the door behind him.

Averyl opened her eyes to find Drake sitting beside her bed, staring. Though she heard
the bustle and voices of the townspeople on the street below and saw the blank expression
Drake wore, remembrances of the previous night rushed upon her mind like a blizzard—cold
and unavoidable. ’Twas impossible to forget a rejection so painful.

Closing her eyes, she held fresh tears at bay. How easily Drake had walked away from
her and their marriage bed. In no other way could he have told her so clearly she
lacked beauty. All his pretty words and past denials to the contrary had been exposed
as falsehoods. Lies surely designed to subdue her while he exacted revenge on the
man she’d sought to marry. And like a fool, she had willingly played his pawn last
night—nay, his whore—panting and aching at his touch.

When she opened her eyes, she wanted to look anywhere but at his tall, unreachable
figure and the inky waves of his hair but he and his unerring stare would see her
cowardice if she surrendered again to her hurt. Instead, Averyl brought the blankets
beneath her chin and glared.

The withdrawal on Drake’s sharp features told her naught had changed since the hours
past midnight she’d waited for his return, finally succumbing to tears of humiliation
near dawn when she realized he would not return. Aye, she had hoped to remain chaste,
but not knowing he found her unbearable.

“How soon can you dress?” he asked, his voice without inflection. “Less than the half
hour?”

Did he have nothing else to say? Nay, she thought bitterly, what would he? She sickened
him, even as a traitorous part of her pined foolishly for the burn of desire she had
felt before he abandoned her to a lonely midnight. Still she felt the slide of Drake’s
hands upon her skin, his earthy scent enveloping her, now taunting her.

She refused to be his fool any longer.

“Aye.”

“Good. Gordan and Edina are surely awaiting us to break their fast.”

Cringing at the thought of facing hosts who expected a couple in love, Averyl said,
“Eat without me. I hunger not.”

“We go together,” he contradicted. “The Gibsons will have no reason to suspect their
efforts to see us happy last eve were for naught.”

Everything within her rebelled. ’Twas humiliating enough to have her own groom profess
his revulsion of her, but to be ordered about as well… ’Twas not to be borne. “They
will surely think ill indeed, knowing you spent your night elsewhere.”

Averyl could have bitten her tongue the moment the words escaped. Drake merely stood,
rising to his imposing height above her, and raised a stiff brow.

“I was in the empty room next to this. They know naught.”

Averyl froze. Had he heard her pacing, her tears through these thin walls? She prayed
God Drake had been deaf to the misery his scorn brought.

Of course, she could have welcomed his absence if he had used his anger to take her
by force. But nay, he had nearly seduced her virtue from her, then brutally stripped
her of pride when he had turned away.

She shrugged, feigning apathy. “They are your friends, not mine. I care not what they
think.”

But she did care, not only about the Gibsons and their opinions, but about Drake.
In spite of his abduction and rejection, she felt a better—if broken—man beneath.
Aye, he was misguided, thinking revenge would bring salvation, seemed to prize the
screaming white scars upon his back as a reminder of his hate. But he was the same
man who cared about her fear of darkness. The same man who had hurt naught, except
her pride. The husband who now looked at her with dark eyes that held naught—but for
that something wild and needy he tried to hide.

Drake needy? She might well have taken a potion that sapped her logic for all she
made sense today. What a fool.

Peace, she craved just a moment of it. Of privacy, where she could collect her thoughts
without the distraction of his presence, where she would not have to remember the
soft magic of his touch—or the hard scorn of his distaste as he rolled away.

Emerging from the bed in naught but her chemise, Averyl rose and paused to grab her
dress, conscious of Drake’s watchful eyes upon her. With all due haste, she thrust
the dress over her head, then opened the door, lacing the garment as she entered the
hall.

Drake swore and rushed to her side, pulling her back into the room. He slammed the
door shut with a broad palm.

“Have you lost your senses? You cannot leave half-dressed.”

“The state of my dress matters not to you. If I were now raped by the barbarians of
last eve, ’twould matter not to you!”

He grasped her arm then spun her to face him. “Do not put false words into my mouth.
I would never let them touch you.”