Pale Moon Rider (16 page)

Her conscience lost whatever final chance it might have had to save her as she leaned fully into his heat and felt the thrill of desire burst like a flame deep down inside of her. The way her legs were shaking, they would not have supported her any longer on their own anyway, she reasoned, and since her hands were already twisted into the loose folds of his shirt, it was a small matter to slide them upward and wrap them around his shoulders. She heard him acknowledge her capitulation with a low groan and felt his hands shift down and circle her waist, pulling her closer, almost lifting her against him while his tongue began to plunge boldly, deeply into her mouth.

Here was the madness, she thought. Here, as she opened her mouth to him and greeted each sleek, silky thrust with a broken whimper of pleasure. Hot, bright sparks of hunger raced down her spine, and the weakness that had begun in her limbs spread upward to engulf her whole body. She tightened her arms around him, pressed her body closer to his, yielding to the promise of his embrace, and with an urgency unlike anything she had ever experienced before, she eagerly returned his kiss thrust for thrust. And when she felt his flesh rising swift and hard between them, it was as if she had known all along there would be something even more momentous to come, something as wild and reckless and dangerously unpredictable as the man himself.

She had spoken the truth when she had told him she was no longer a virgin, but her first and only lover had been as innocent as she. Their couplings had been hasty and furtive, prompted more by patriotic desperation than any real sense of lust or desire. Jean-Louis de Blois had been young and handsome and as loyal to her father as to his own blood, and she had loved him for that. She would have been content to marry him, happy to live out her days surrounded by his warm, gentle passion.

But this. This was nothing warm and gentle. It was hunger, raw and explosive, and if there was any manner of desperation fueling her responses, it was driven by a need to feel all that heat and power naked in her arms, naked inside her—to feel his strength and reckless courage and have something strong and totally fearless to cling to in the darkness.

Her reaction was more than Tyrone had expected, and while he obliged her with all the gallantry and skill at his disposal, his own response was another matter entirely. He had already known her lips were lush and pliant, but he had not expected them to be so deliciously capable of matching his ardor. He had also known she would be willowy and soft in all the right places, but he had not anticipated his own casual flagrancy would surge into an instant and blood-pounding arousal the moment she pressed her sweet body against his. Moreover, he had only meant, initially, to teach her a lesson about playing dangerous games with dangerous men, but instead, he had heard himself confessing quite truthfully that he
wanted
her. At the first shy flicker of her tongue in his mouth, his body had hardened and all he could think of was plunging himself inside her, feeling her body tighten and shiver around him. And where there had previously been smug satisfaction over her capitulation, there was now a solid, throbbing urgency straining to reach her through the layers of their clothing—layers which seemed to be vanishing as quickly as his hands could remove them.

His jacket and waistcoat were cast into the shadows. His shirttails were pulled from the waist of his breeches almost in the same feverish motion that he peeled the shoulders of her muslin gown down off her arms to expose the sheer layer of her chemise beneath. His mouth left hers to blaze a fiery hot trail down to the ribboned front closure, only to be distracted by the fullness of her breasts pushing over the upper edge. When the chemise was banished into the darkness, he bowed his head again, capturing each hard-peaked nipple and drawing as much of the silky flesh into his mouth as her cries of pleasure would bear. At the same time, he skimmed his hands down the satiny length of her thighs, parting them slightly and fitting her over the bulge at his groin so she could feel exactly how much he wanted her, how much she had affected him.

With a deep and husky sound that was half groan, half growl, he swung her up into his arms and carried her to the bed, his mouth never leaving her flesh, his hands tearing at the last few buttons and bindings that kept him confined.

Renée’s newfound rashness almost faltered when she felt his hands, trembling and eager on her knees, urging them apart. It all but deserted her entirely when his weight settled between her thighs and the formidable strain of his flesh began pushing forward. The initial thrust, delivered without preamble, was bold and invasive and startled her so completely with its depth and fullness that she did not even have the breath or wit to cry out. The second brought a groan to her lips when there seemed to be too much—too much flesh, too much heat, too many muscles in his back, his shoulders, his arms, his thighs. He was too big and she felt a momentary clutch of fear as he began to thrust hard and deep, seemingly oblivious to the differences in size and shape of their bodies. His hands even plunged beneath her hips to angle her higher into each vigorous stroke, and she had no choice but to move with him, to reach down and hold fast to the rapid rise and fall of his hips and to arch herself upward that she might be more easily able to bear the force of each thrust.

Her first orgasm took her by swift surprise, bursting like a sudden flaring of heat and bright light throughout the length and breadth of her body. She gasped and stiffened beneath him, but when the wave passed, her flesh was still tight around him, gripping him with an eagerness that had become acutely sensitive to the heat and friction of moving flesh. She tried, through a series of breathless pleas, to pull him even harder and deeper inside, and he obliged her every cry, shifting his hands, his hips, his body to chase after every clenching spasm, groaning when her pleasure brought her rising desperately, frantically up beneath him.

A moan, involuntary and uncomprehending, marked new levels of sensation for Tyrone as well. Feeling her squeeze around him, hearing her awe and disbelief as each wave was prolonged beyond any previous limits, he had to fight to catch each breath. It was not supposed to happen like this. He was not supposed to feel so out of control. His body was one massive raw nerve being teased and tormented by muscles so tight and wet and greedy he could feel the effects tingling in the tips of his toes. Even worse, he was displaying as much skill and savoir faire as a—as a fishmonger, for pity’s sake, but he could not help it. Not when she was beginning to shiver around him again and her cries were in his ears. Not when her hands, her body was begging him, urging him, demanding more.…

His groan was couched in an oath as he rolled, first onto his side, then onto his back, thinking the shock alone might delay the inevitable. But it was worse, not better, feeling the silken drag of her hair across his chest, the startled clenching of her thighs as she straddled him, the near catastrophic eagerness of her body curling forward to take him so deep inside, he could feel her heartbeat thudding around him. She was shuddering, shivering, squeezing him in a constantly moving sheath, and he groaned with the pressure, with the compelling, rippling suction that seemed determined to draw his whole body inside out. He rolled again, while she was in the throes of yet another orgasm, and his passion swept through him with the power of a gale force wind. His body arched with one mighty thrust and the pressure flooded out of him in throbbing bursts, the ecstasy raw and savage and white-hot in its intensity.

Tyrone continued to hold her and to shudder deep inside her, his flesh acutely sensitive to each lingering tremor as it dissipated within the velvety warmth of her body. She was still quaking beneath him, still panting, weak with disbelief, and he rested his head in the crook of her neck, his mind stunned by the total betrayal of his body. Even his hands seemed not to want to leave her as they stroked her hair, her arm, the smooth length of her thigh.

Renée focused on each gentle caress as if it was a lifeline to reality, the only thing that kept her from drifting away. His flesh, she thought, was the only solid thing left inside her, for the rest of her body had become completely fluid, without strength or substance. Her legs were hooked up and over his but she did not have the energy to untangle them. Her arms were locked around his shoulders, her hands still clutched the muscles of his back, and although her fingers were beginning to slip on the dampness, they did not possess the initiative to let go on their own. It was just as well. She did not have the faintest notion what she was expected to say or do now that the fury of the moment had passed.

She had just allowed a complete stranger to bed her. She had not only allowed it, she had been a willing participant, encouraging him to such haste he had not even taken the time to remove his breeches. They had been unbuttoned and pushed down just far enough to clear his hips and lay bunched around his knees. To her further mortification she realized she still had her stockings and garters on, and if she was not mistaken, her right slipper was dangling from her toe.

It was surely the heat of a full body blush that brought his head up off her shoulder. The dark locks of his hair were flung forward over his cheeks, obscuring what little of his face might have caught the glow of the fire. He did not seem the least disconcerted by their haste or state of semi-undress. If anything, she could swear he was smiling as he elevated himself onto his elbows and forearms and stared down at her.

“I must say, mam’selle,” he murmured. “You do surprise me.”

A thin, silvery line of wetness shimmered along her lashes and collected at the corners of her eyes, slipping in two shiny streaks down her temples. He watched them trickle into her hair and saw the quiver in her chin, and he sighed.

“That was meant in a most complimentary way, I assure you. If I were to mock anyone’s behavior tonight it would be my own, for I am not usually so … undisciplined.” He shifted an arm slightly and one of his thumbs brushed away the wetness at her temple. “I am not usually so blind either, mam’selle,” he added quietly. “You were not a virgin, but I think you were not so vastly experienced as you would have led me to believe.”

She flushed again, from the tips of her toes to the verge of her hairline and tried to turn her head to avoid his gaze, but he would not allow it. “This … former fiancé. He was the only one?”

“If he was?”

He drew a breath and kissed her—kissed her deeply enough and thoroughly enough to convince her the question was not asked out of any sense of disappointment.

When he lifted his head again, his hands continued to cradle her face between them. Her hair lay in scattered gold waves across the bedding, and his skin bristled with the memory of it sweeping across his chest. His gaze followed the slender arch of her throat down to where her breasts lay ripe and full beneath him, their whiteness a stark contrast to the dark hair that covered his chest. He had guessed her nipples would be palest pink, and so they were in repose: pale as rose dust, soft as velvet. They looked every bit as chafed and reddened as her mouth now, however, and while he was not a man given to making apologies for too many of his sins, he regretted his haste, his crudeness, his lack of delicacy. Not that he could have done anything about it at the time. He had definitely
not
been in full command of his senses, nor had he expected to be so utterly enthralled with the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her in his mouth. Even now, he could feel himself stirring again, wanting to know if it had just been an aberration inspired by the firelight and the honesty of her passion, or if he had indeed unleashed something here that was both unique and dangerous.

“Dangerous,” he decided in a whisper. “I would definitely call this dangerous, mam’selle. And foolhardy and …”

“Undisciplined?”

He stared at the lusciously moist pout of her lips and allowed a wry smile to curve his own. “Definitely undisciplined.”

“Indécent aussi,”
she added through a small catch in her voice. “For I do not even know your name, m’sieur.”

His thumb curved down onto her cheek. “It is Tyrone.”

“Tyrone … ?”

“Which you may call me instead of ‘
m’sieur
’ or ‘
capitaine
.’ Both seem rather formal under the circumstances, would you not agree?”

“I suppose. Yes.”

“And I will call
you Renée, if I am permitted?”

She hesitate
d a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”

“Have we decided then,
that we can trust each other?”

"
Yes.”

“Completely? Absolutely?”

She searched his eyes a moment. “I trust no one completely or absolutely. Only Antoine and Finn.”

“Ahh. The stalwart Finn.” He smiled and his lips brushed hers on their way down to claim the bewitching, wine-red mole on her breast. “I have a feeling his conduct would not be too exemplary at the moment if he knew I was here.”

Renée closed her eyes against the sensation of his lips roving down to her nipple. He drew it with almost apologetic tenderness into the suckling warmth of his mouth, and she wanted to stretch like a cat and purr beneath him. “He would not be happy, no.”

“I imagine”—his mouth slid to her other breast and he lavished the same care and attention that had brought the first peaking to attention—“he would be quite incensed at the impropriety, and I do not mean only the fact that you are naked in bed with a man less than a fortnight before your wedding—though from what I have seen, I believe that would be enough in itself to cause the old fellow to inhale all the air in the room.”