The Highwayman (41 page)

His body jerked, and his breath caught audibly in his throat, as she explored the linen-covered shape of him. Pressing another kiss to his throat, she followed the valley in between his smooth chest with her lips. “My hands will only offer you pleasure,” she promised, her curious fingers working at his trousers.

He moaned her name as her mouth followed the enticing trail her exploring hands had blazed. When she reached the linen barrier of his trousers with her lips, he took a step back so abruptly it was almost a leap. “What do you think you're doing?” he rasped.

“I want to taste you,” Farah divulged, feeling heat touch her cheeks. “Like you tasted me that first night.”

His eyes peeled wide, the muscles in his arms flexing with intriguing strain. “N-no,” he stuttered. “That's …
No.
”

Farah hooked a finger in the waistband and pulled him back toward her. “Yes,” she replied saucily. “I'll not be denied.” The last resistance fell away beneath her hand and she easily slipped his trousers over his lean hips, his shirt falling to the floor with them.

Lines of roped muscles led from his hips to where his thick member jutted toward her. Moonlight shaded the particulars of the shaft of flesh, but she reached for it with gentle fingers, knowing the turgid heat and steely hardness she would find.

“Farah.” Her name tumbled almost incoherently from his lips on a tortured gasp. “
Don't.
What if—I lose myself—in your mouth?”

The thought was so scandalous, so utterly wicked, she was rocked by a wave of lust so hot she had to clench her fist in the covers to keep from touching the aching flesh between her own thighs. “You, husband, are the villainous Blackheart of Ben More,” she told him in a voice she barely recognized as her own, it had become so husky with need. “You may lose yourself
wherever
you like.”

The curses he released as she closed her lips over the thick head of his shaft were not all entirely in the Queen's English. At least, Farah didn't think so, and she was pretty certain she'd heard them all.

He tasted like salt and sin.

The jerk of his hips as he bowed against her pressed him as far into her mouth as she could take, and still she didn't hold the half of him.

“Farah,” he groaned. “Oh.
Fuck.
”

His profanity made the act that much more delicious.

Unsure of exactly how to proceed, she pulled back and was glad when a ripple of movement seemed to unconsciously flow down his spine and press him deeper into her mouth before retracting. Farah let her tongue explore him. The curious ridge on the underside. The weeping slit at the tip of the ridged head. The give of skin at the top and the unyielding rigidity of the rest of the shaft.

His hands rested on her curls, and then wound into them. Strong fingers dug against her scalp in erotic demand. No matter how an act unsettled Dorian Blackwell, he would not be passive for long.

He bit out a harsh noise as she began a rhythmic, sucking massage with her tongue, even the basest of language seeming to abandon him. His cock jerked and flexed in her mouth. Swelled and pulsed and thrust, slick with moisture, both his and hers.

Hands tightened in her hair and ripped her away from his sex. “Stop,” he gritted. “I'm going to … Holy
Christ.
”

“You can,” she encouraged, drunk with power, inflamed to the point of madness by his pleasure. “Let me.”

Farah enjoyed the strain of his muscles as he stooped to lift her away from him.

“Lie back,” he commanded.
“Now.”

Swollen lips parted with the force of her breaths, she slid herself up the counterpane, staring in awe at the man she had married.

Any trace of boyish vulnerability had vanished. In its place stood a tower of dominant muscle and lust.

She shivered, partly from the silken feel of the cool linen beneath her skin, and mostly because of the inevitability of the man who was about to claim her as his own.

Dorian prowled up her legs, shoulders rolling, head low, dipping to trace his hot breath against the moist cleft between her thighs. Pausing, he ran his cheek against the soft nest of hair, and Farah whimpered, her knees coming apart of their own accord.

To her surprise, he kept going, the growth of his stubble abrading the flesh of her stomach, then the valley between her breasts, and finally the ultrasensitive skin of her neck. A big hand clamped around her thigh, drawing it up his hip and locking it around him.

“I'm going to devour every inch of you,” he growled into her ear, setting her blood on fire, incinerating any coherent thought she might have had left. “But first…”

His cock settled against the throbbing slit of her body, and Farah was only able to produce a mewl of demand before he found his way, and slid inside with a low groan.

Hot breath brushed her cheek, but they only touched where their bodies joined.

He hovered above her for what seemed like an eternity, holding his incredible torso away from her as though fighting something. If he didn't move soon, she'd go mad.

“Dorian?” Farah whispered, squeezing her intimate muscles in encouragement.

“Touch me, Fairy.” The words struggled out of him, like they forced their way through a tight throat. “You can—reach for me.”

Farah let out her first real breath in two months. His words melted her.
Touched
her in a way she'd never before thought possible. This was a privilege afforded no other woman. Given freely to no other human being.

She cupped his jaw with both of her hands, first drawing him down for a tender kiss. Then she slid her arms beneath his and wrapped them around his back, pulling him down to rest his weight on her.

He stiffened at the contact of their bodies. Flesh glided along flesh, and an electric moment of fusion seemed to unsettle them both.

“Stay with me,” she encouraged. “Let me feel your skin move along mine.”

“Yes,” he hissed, finally moving his hips.

They each gasped at the feel of her tight flesh gripping at him as he pulled away, and welcoming him deep as he returned.

Farah clutched at the impossibly powerful muscles of his back, feeling more interruptions to the smooth skin that shouldn't be there.

She kissed him harder, pouring all her love into him.

Dorian drank from her lips and pushed himself deeper, his height making the union of their mouths difficult if their bodies were to stay clasped together.

Farah buried her face into his neck, unwilling to let the magnificent sensation of his flesh fused to every inch of hers end. He rocked deep within her, curling his spine in slow, painstaking thrusts.

She became a creature of pure need, bottomless desire, and shameful appetites. Her bones relished his weight. Her sex hungrily took every bit of his, stretching and lifting to receive the man she loved.

“You're so warm,” he moaned. “So fucking soft.” He said other incoherent things against her hair. Made vows. Gasped curses. He was her jaguar, his movements so lithe and graceful. His body so perfect and powerful.

She thrust upward, her moans becoming supplications. Her hands wandered inquiringly down the straining cords of his back to grip the muscles of his buttocks as they clenched and released.

The tide of ecstasy flooded her so swiftly and took her so high, that she almost missed the violent jerks in his hips as he buried himself only a handful of times before seizing on a shuddering convulsion, and burying her name against the counterpane.

Fairy. My Fairy.

 

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FIVE

Dorian lay naked for the first time since he could remember, enjoying the cool air against skin heated by movement and pleasure. He wrinkled his nose as a silvery curl tickled it, but was unwilling to let go of the woman draped across his chest even to move the offending lock.

He didn't know how long they had been silent like this, long enough for the moon to move from one side of the window to the other. Their breathing had slowed, and little pricks of chill bumps began to make him consider tucking her under the covers. But that meant moving, and he couldn't stand the idea of parting with her skin for even a moment. Also, he was pretty certain she'd drifted to sleep, and he would freeze to death before he disturbed her.

How had he made it two months without her presence? How had he survived
seventeen years
of unadulterated hell? It was like the fibers that constructed his body required her nearness in order to function.

He'd not only endured her touch tonight, he'd
enjoyed
it. She'd been so right. Farah could never be corrupted, was too pure to be touched by his darkness. But
he
felt less revolting, like some of the rifts in his soul had been stitched by her hands.

Dorian closed his eyes, berating himself for his stupidity. All this time, he hadn't been afraid of her, he'd been afraid of himself. Afraid that intimacy would bring the violent fears of his years in prison roaring to the surface.

He should have known better. This was his
Fairy
. His soul
remembered.
He was a killer, a violent man, but he'd slit his own throat before harming a hair on her head.

He pictured the lust in her eyes when she'd bared his body. The honest appreciation. His desire for her didn't make him feel vulnerable and weak. But powerful. Virile. Like he could conquer the stars and all the unknown powers beyond them.

“I hope you realize, Madame Sandrine is going to be very irate with you,” she said on a lazy yawn.

He nuzzled her curls, taking the scent of lavender so deep he hoped it knitted into the corners of his lungs. “I thought you were asleep,” he murmured, bemused that those were the first words out of her mouth. Likely, she was trying to put him at ease by creating a light moment after the intensity of everything just past.

She was so fucking precious to him.

“Don't try to change the subject,” she reprimanded with a teasing poke. “
You're
going to have to answer for destroying my entire wardrobe in one night.”

His hands roamed the silken skin of her back, creating chill bumps of his own. He'd never tire of the feel of her. Never cease to marvel at the unnatural softness of her fairy skin. It was like stroking a miracle. Holding an angel. A woman like this just—didn't belong on this wretched earth. “You won't be needing clothing for quite some time,” he informed her. “For I plan to keep you naked for as long as I'm able.”

She pulled herself out of his embrace to execute a dramatic flop onto her back with her hand held to her forehead. “Maybe you should reconsider a harem of courtesans.” She sighed. “I don't think I'll survive the bed of the infamous Blackheart of Ben More.”

Dorian rolled to his side to lord over her prone, pale flesh, his hand tracing the distracting underside of one perfect breast. “Do you want to help me interview them?” he asked lightly.

She swatted his hand away with a dangerous look. “Of course not!” she huffed, only half joking now. “I'd scratch the eyes out of any woman who dares to touch you.”

Dorian's hand returned to her breast, his fingers working their way toward the other one. “I had no idea you were so ruthless, Lady Blackheart,” he teased, lapping at a nipple and then blowing on it for the sheer joy of watching it pucker.

“Oh my, yes.” Her boast was interrupted by an airy gasp. “I've shot a man, you know, and stabbed one. I can be
quite
dangerous when I need to be.”

Dorian sobered, his lungs deflating as he ran his large hands down the delicate line of her arm. It struck him again how fragile she was, how easily broken, how easily lost. “Is being a woman just terrifying all the time?”

Farah's smile faded, but a playful glint still remained in her sweet, silvery eyes. “What a question. Whatever do you mean?”

“You're so—soft, so frail,” he marveled. “Like a morsel of the rarest delicacy just waiting to be preyed upon. And we men, we are nothing better than wolves—no, vultures. Bloody predators,” he cursed. “How do you ladies muster the courage to leave the house? Better yet, why do I allow it?” He started thinking of all the dangers the world possessed for her beyond his arms and his palms began to sweat.

She traced the long scar he'd received from a dock pirate blade years ago. “Don't you think you're letting your—singular life experiences cloud your view just a little? I lived among dangerous criminals and bohemians for almost twenty years without being preyed upon.” Heat warmed the silver of her irises to a darker gray-green. “And more's the pity, as I find I quite enjoy being
your
prey.”

That unsettling possessive instinct flared, the one he'd first felt in Applecross's library. “Only mine,” he declared to the night.

“I've only ever been yours,” she affirmed.

He stared down at her, his heart in his throat. “I—love you, Farah.”

She blinked rapidly, a mist appearing in her eyes. “I love you, too, Dorian.”

He captured her chin, forcing her to look into his face. “You don't understand. I've always loved you. From the moment I saw you in that graveyard I loved you with the strength of a man. So much, it terrified me more than you can imagine.”

To his astonishment, her face fell, a troubled wrinkle appearing between her brows. “Did you just not realize?”

“I've always known.” He captured a ringlet with his finger, the action something he'd dreamed about for years and that he planned on doing for the rest of his life.

The wrinkle only deepened. “Then—why did you deny it before? Why did you break my heart when I offered it to you?”

Shame pierced at him, and he couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes. “In my world, if you care for something, it is a weakness your enemies can use against you.”