Swept Away (28 page)

"Hold that," he commanded, "and step into the tub if you will, please."

Anna looked down. She was naked, standing in a puddle of blue silk. Her arms were over her head, her hands clasped around fistfuls of her own hair, and he expected her to simply turn around and step into a footbath, her body fully exposed to the glare of the firelight?

"I could lift you," he murmured, his mouth pressed close to her ear.

Not doubting for a moment that he would, Anna transferred her hair into one hand and bent over quickly, pulling the flimsy layer of her chemise back up over her hips and breasts when she straightened. She took a halting step back until her heel bumped against the tub. Another and she stood ankle deep in the water, the hem of the chemise floating wet across the surface.

"An interesting challenge," he mused. "But I accept it. You will, of course, have to forgive the odd splash of water."

She was quivering again, no more so than when he leaned over and soaked a thick sea sponge then lifted it dripping and streaming to her shoulders. He squeezed the excess across her back, letting the water run in silvery rivulets down the curve of her spine and over the gentle flare of her hips. He bent and filled the sponge again, squeezing it around the base of her neck this time so that the wafer thin chemise was soaked back and front, the silk plastered to her skin and rendered completely transparent.

"Sorry," he said, sounding anything but. "Could not be helped."

He took up the sliver of soap again and lathered his hands, then applied the creamy suds to her neck and the smooth white slope of her shoulders. Anna endured the first few soapings and rinsings stoically enough, but when his hands skimmed beneath the hopelessly soaked edges of the chemise and circled around to claim her breasts, her fingers turned numb around the silk and it was an easy matter for him to coax it down around her ankles along with a swirl of shiny soap bubbles. His hands slithered across the flawless ivory of her skin, leaving peaks of foam on her breasts and frothy patterns across her belly. He was excruciatingly gentle when he bathed between her legs, and he seemed to take an inordinate amount of care insuring each crevice and fold of skin was meticulously clean.

"My maids," she murmured, "were never quite so thorough."

"I am glad to hear it. I, on the other hand, vaguely recall a valet once, who...well, who tried to be very thorough while bathing me. I believe I broke his jaw and several ribs for the impertinence. Purely an instinctive reaction, I assure you, and not one I would ever repeat if...if you were to ever express a wish to be that scrupulous."

Intrigued by the sudden catch in his voice, she opened her eyes and stared thoughtfully at the flickering shadows of their silhouettes against the far wall. What further sin could he possibly be enticing her to commit now, she wondered? She was naked and wet in his arms, her body no longer flushed with the wickedness of his actions but humming with anticipation for what might yet come. She was no longer chaste, no longer a virgin, no longer ignorant in the ways of a man and a woman. All that remained now was curiosity and a burning sense of urgency to know this man who had so effortlessly turned her world upside down. To know him as thoroughly as he knew her.

Somewhere along the way, Anna had released the dark fall of her hair, much preferring to bury her fingers in his in order to hold his mouth against her throat. Now, with a shallow sigh, she straightened out of his embrace and dropped her hands slowly to her sides as she turned around to face him. Her body gleaming in the firelight, she watched his dark eyes move helplessly down to the proud thrust of her breasts, then lower where water still streaked and glittered softly on her thighs.

She could see that despite the crooked smile and the careless timbre of his voice, bathing her had taken its toll on his composure. There were fine white lines at the corner of his mouth and a tautness in his jaw that belied the too casual stance. His breaths were deep and measured, his hand gripped the sponge so tightly it continued to drip shiny silver droplets onto the floor by his feet. When she saw the effort it took for him to tear his eyes away from her breasts, it sent a second thrill coursing down her spine, for it occurred to her that he was every bit as apprehensive, as tentative as she. There were visible tremors in his arms, shivers in the cambric folds of his sleeves, and the knowledge that he feared she might reject his not so subtle invitation, or even reject him altogether, made her tilt her head and study his face the way a cat would contemplate a canary trapped on a windowsill.

"And just how might I go about expressing that wish, sir?" she asked softly.

He opened his mouth to answer, but closed it again when he felt her hands sliding down his shirtfront, plucking the half dozen buttons free of their bound holes. When it gaped open over his chest, she traced her fingertips through the smooth sworls of dark hair then flattened her palms and explored the powerful display of muscles. She moved her hands down the board-hard plane of his belly, slowing when she came to the waist of his breeches, only allowing her gaze to continue lower to admire the enormous bulge straining against the nankeen. A single button held the front flap closed but it succumbed easily enough to her questing fingers. The row of smaller fastenings concealed beneath appeared at once to be under far more pressure and it was with considerable difficulty--and no small misgivings for her own safety as one of the buttons literally popped off its thread and shot across the room-- that she worked each one free. Once loosened, the gaping vee filled instantly with a hard ridge of flesh, which bucked and jerked when her fingers danced over its shape.

Her hands rose to his waist again and she untucked his shirttails, walking slowly around him in a circle as she did so. She lifted the cambric up over his head then folded it neatly under his watchful and impatient eyes. Adapting the same expression he had used earlier--detached and somewhat nonplussed as if it was the most natural thing in the world for her to be doing--she slowly peeled his breeches down past his hips.

Quite pleased with her seduction thus far, she managed to keep her inspection casual enough where it followed the play of firelight on his neck, his chest, the hard tapered waist. She even managed to calm herself with a cool breath before looking lower, venturing into the area that held the most mystery for her and by far the greatest speculation. She already knew he was big. Big and thick and long enough for her to hold him with both hands placed end to end. The thought that she had actually taken something so formidable into her body, and would likely take it again, caused a rush of liquid heat between her legs that had nothing to do with drizzling water.

Emboldened beyond her own comprehension she wrapped her fingers tightly around him, marvelling at the shape and feel, the solid strength of him that grew more formidable with each sliding stroke of her hands.

“I...would not continue doing that if I were you,” he warned on an almost inaudible rasp of breath.

She looked up into his face and saw that his eyes were closed. His teeth were clamped shut, his jaw was a chiselled block of granite. Tiny beads of sweat had popped out at his temples and across his brow, causing the dark hairs to curl tight against his skin.

His body responded with one great shudder. She watched his adam’s apple bob up and down in his throat as he swallowed, then she leaned forward and placed her mouth over the dark disc of his nipple. His skin was salty and the fine rim of hairs surrounding it tickled her nose, but she caught the tiny nub between her teeth, and suckled the surrounding flesh between her lips, trying to remember exactly what he had done to her earlier that caused her knees to weaken and her sensibilities take flight. When his flesh was thoroughly wet and puckered, she teased his other nipple to a similar tautness and, although she could not be certain what he was feeling in his knees, her two hands were no longer enough to contain the solid, straining length of him.

She curled her fingers tighter around his flesh and marvelled at the pliant give and take in his skin that permitted her to manipulate the full length of him. As her one hand slid up and down, she used the other to explore his chest and belly, then slide down between his thighs to discover even more sensitive areas on his body.

His mouth crushed down over hers and with a groan of magnificent desperation he pushed her hands aside and lifted her against his body. She was already wet enough, slick enough that he needed no helping hand to guide himself along the silky cleft, no muffled cry of consent before the heat of her flared around him. Anna took him deep, deep inside, stiffening slightly with the shock of all that flesh impaling and filling her, but now that she had seen him, had tasted him, she revelled the fullness, the pressure, the furrowing heat that seemed to stretch up and touch on the very underside of her wildly beating heart. She was even able, within the span a few forceful thrusts, to obey his hoarse command to wrap her legs around his waist, to trust that he would not drop her, to take the initiative and ride each powerful stroke until the lust for more, for everything he had to give became increasingly violent and ruthlessly urgent.

Emory’s arms, his legs, his entire body was empowered. Hampered by the tangle of breeches around his ankles, he was barely able to turn and stagger to the nearest wall. When he had the support behind her, he surged upward, driving into her with a ferocity that had her writhing
frantically with the friction, the heat, the pleasure of each sustained shudder. She had thought she had experienced the ultimate ecstasy back on the tavern floor, but her memory of it paled compared to the incredible, shattering orgasms that ripped through her now. They splintered her body into a thousand bright-hot fragments and caused her to throw her arms wide, to almost tear the nearby draperies off the wall. They made her arch her hips into each of his thrusts so that when she heard the roar of his voice in her ear and felt the heat of his long, throbbing release, she gripped him as tightly as she possibly could, her own spasms matching each pulse and shudder that wracked his body.

The fury ebbed slowly, leaving them panting together in a frozen embrace against the wall. His hands were clamped around her buttocks, the fingers splayed, the tips pressed deep into the pliant flesh. Her legs were locked around his waist, her feet crossed at the ankles and she did not think she had the strength or dexterity to even unhook them. Nor did she have the desire as she felt his lips move across her shoulder and up beneath her ear.

“I am pressed to wonder,” he gasped, the words fighting with the need to draw a clear breath, “if you are going to ask me if that was my best effort?”

Her smile, and the huskiness of her laugh brought his body pressing forward into hers again.

“I thought perhaps it was,” he mused. “But then again...perhaps not. Since I am rather curious myself to know the truth of it, I am willing to put it to the test if you are.”

Anna’s eyes widened as she felt him shift his hips. He was still thick and pulsing inside her, but her only acknowledgement was a breathless whimper, lost to the heat of his mouth and the breathless promise of his own gentle laughter.

Annaleah squeezed the excess water out of the sponge and dragged it over the glistening surface of his skin, removing the last traces of soap from the washboard belly. As had happened frequently over the last few hours, his flesh stirred and a calloused thumb and forefinger tipped her chin upward.

He smiled and smoothed the dark fall of hair off her shoulder. At some point, while he had drifted into a brief, exhausted doze, she had explored the contents of the two enormous armoires that stood banked against one of the walls. She had found a shirt with long ruffled cuffs and donned it like a nightdress--one he had removed several times already but kept reappearing with an amusing persistence. She was wearing it now, the fine brushed cotton splashed liberally with water, but with her hair a mass of dishevelled curls and her legs peeping long and pearly white below the hem, she presented a more enticing picture than if she had remained naked.

“In my own defence,” he murmured, bending forward to nuzzle her neck, “it must be said you present a fetching distraction I warrant few men in my condition could resist.”

She opened the canvas flap of the haversack and rooted in its depths until she found the biscuits as well as a wheel of cheese, a greasy paper wrapper filled with sliced ham, and wonder of wonders, a bottle of her great aunt Florence’s apple cider.

Emory scooped up the towel and rubbed himself dry as he watched Anna carry her treasures over to the hearth. A picnic with a near naked beauty he had spent half the night ravishing was, he thought, unquestionably the last thing he would have seen himself doing with half the military forces in Torquay searching for him. It was also the only thing he wanted to do right now, in spite of the nagging prickle that kept scratching across the back of his neck.