The Raven Prince (34 page)

“Stop playing. For pity’s sake, touch me.” She didn’t recognize her own voice, it was so husky.

“As you wish.”

He grasped the neckline of the shift and with one motion, tore open the flimsy material. Her bare breasts tumbled into the chilly night air. For a second, Anna was shy. She wore no concealing mask tonight. This was her real self making love to Edward. She had no pretense to hide behind; he could see her face, her emotions. Then he swooped once again and captured her nipple in his mouth. The heated sucking after the coolness of the wet fabric almost sent her over the edge. At the same time, he burrowed long fingers in her maiden hair.

She stilled, breathlessly waiting, as he delicately sought and then found what he searched for. He began an insidious circling with his thumb. Oh, God, it felt so good. He knew exactly how to touch her. She mewled, her hips instinctively following his hand. He thrust his finger deep inside her, and she shuddered in the sudden storm of her climax.

His breath whispered over her closed eyelids. “Look at me.”

She turned her head to the sound of his growl, her eyes still closed in bliss.

“Anna, look at me.”

She opened her eyes.

Edward loomed over her, his face flushed, his nostrils flared. “I am putting myself in you now.”

She could feel his erection nudging at her wet opening. The head began squeezing in, and her eyelids dropped in reaction.

“Anna, sweet Anna, look at me,” Edward crooned.

He was halfway in now, and she struggled to keep her eyes focused. He bent his head and licked the tip of her nose.

Her eyes widened.

And he drove all the way home.

She moaned and arched against him.
So right.
So perfect.
He filled her as if they were both made for this. As if they were made for each other. She curved her thighs around his hips, cradling him with her pelvis, and looked into his face. His eyes were closed, his face stark with want. A strand of inky hair had plastered itself against his jaw.

He opened his eyes then and speared her with their black intensity. “I am in you, and you are holding me. There is no going back from this moment.”

She cried out at his words, and the breath within her chest seemed to tremble. His hips rocked. She wrapped her arms around him and held on as the slide of his penis shoving in and out of her drove all thought from her mind. He quickened his pace and groaned. His eyes were locked with hers; as if he was trying to communicate something unutterable. She touched the side of his face with one hand.

His big body seemed to break apart. He jerked against her hard. She began coming in waves, a joy so exquisite flooded her that she couldn’t contain it. She moaned her rapture. He threw back his head at the same time and bared his teeth in a shout of pleasure. Warmth flooded her womb, her heart, and her very soul.

His heavy body lay on hers, and she felt his heartbeat. Anna sighed. Then he lethargically rolled off her. She curled into a ball on her side, her limbs pleasantly achy. The last thing she felt before surrendering to oblivion was Edward’s hands on her stomach, pulling her back against his warmth.

Chapter Twenty

In the fifth year of her search, late on a rainy night, Aurea stumbled through a grim, dark wood. She wore thin rags that only just covered her body; her feet were bare and blistered, and she was lost and weary. A single crust of bread was the only food she had. In the gloom, she spied a flickering light. A tiny shack stood all alone in a clearing. At her knock, a toothless crone, bent nearly double by age, appeared at the door and beckoned her inside.

“Ah, dearie,” the old woman croaked. “’Tis a cold, wet night to be alone. Come share my fire, do. But I fear I’ve no victuals to offer you; my table is bare. Oh, but what I wouldn’t give for something to eat!”

Hearing this, Aurea took pity on the crone. She reached into her pocket and offered the old woman her last bit of bread. . . .

—from
The Raven Prince

A high, womanish scream jolted Edward from sleep the next morning. He lurched up, shocked, and stared toward the source of the awful noise. Davis, his gray locks straggling about his grizzled face, stared back in abject horror. Beside Edward, a feminine voice made a sleepy protest. Christ! He quickly threw the sheets over Anna.

“In the name of all that’s holy, Davis, what’s got into you now?” Edward bellowed even as he felt his face heating.

“It’s not enough that you’re always at them whorehouses; now you’ve brought home a-a . . .” The valet’s mouth worked.

“Woman,” Edward finished the sentence. “But not the kind you’re thinking of. This is my fiancιe.”

The bedsheets began to heave. He placed a hand on the upper edge, trapping the occupant within.

“Fiancιe! I may be old, but I’m not stoopid. That’s not Miss Gerard.”

The bedcovers muttered ominously.

“Fetch the maid to start the fire,” Edward ordered in desperation.

“But—”

“Go now.”

Too late.

Anna had worked her way to the top of the bedclothes, and her head now emerged. Her hair was delightfully tousled, her mouth sinfully swollen. Edward felt a part of his own anatomy swell. She and Davis regarded each other. Their eyes narrowed simultaneously.

Edward groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

“You’re Lord Swartingham’s valet?” Never had a naked woman caught in a compromising position sounded so prim.

“’Course I am. And you’re—”

Edward shot a glare at Davis that held the promise of dismemberment, mayhem, and the apocalypse.

Davis stopped and continued more cautiously. “M’lord’s uh, lady.”

“Quite.” She cleared her throat and withdrew one arm from the covers to push back her hair.

Edward scowled and tucked the sheets more firmly around her shoulders. He needn’t have bothered. Davis was carefully studying the ceiling.

“Perhaps,” Anna said, “you could bring up his lordship’s tea and send the maid to tend the fire?”

Davis jumped at this novel idea. “Right away, mum.”

He was actually backing out the doorway when Edward’s voice stopped him. “In another hour.”

The valet looked scandalized but didn’t say a word, a first in Edward’s experience. The door shut behind Davis. Edward leaped from the bed, strode to the door, and turned the key in the lock. He flung it across the room where it clanged against the wall. He was back in the bed before Anna had time to sit up.

“Your valet is rather unusual,” she said.

“Yes.” Catching the sheet, he pulled it entirely off the bed, provoking a squeal from her. She lay all warm and sleepy and naked for his delectation. He growled in approval, and his early morning erection hardened even more. What a wonderful way to wake up.

She licked her lips, a move his cock thoroughly approved of. “I-I’ve noticed your boots are seldom shined.”

“Davis is terminally incompetent.” He placed his hands on either side of her hips and began to nip his way up her legs.

“Oh!” For a moment he thought he’d succeeded in distracting her, but she rallied. “Why do you keep him, then?”

“Davis was my father’s valet before me.” He paid scant attention to the conversation. He could smell his own scent on Anna’s body, and it satisfied him in a primal way.

“So you keep him for sentimental—Edward!”

She gasped as he buried his nose in her maiden hair and inhaled. His scent was strongest here, in her gilded curls so soft and pretty in the morning light.

“I suppose so.” He spoke into her hair, making Anna squirm. “And I’m fond of the evil old reprobate. Sometimes. He’s known me since childhood and treats me without an iota of respect. It’s refreshing. Or at least different.”

He drew a finger through her cunny. The lips parted shyly, revealing a deep-pink interior. He angled his face to see better.

“Edward!”

“Would you like to know how I hired Hopple?” He propped himself on his elbows between her legs. Holding her spread with one hand, he teased her bud with the forefinger of his other hand.

“Ohhh!”

“And you’ve hardly met Dreary, but he has an interesting past.”

“Ed-
ward!
”

God, he loved the sound of his name on Anna’s lips. He debated licking her but decided he couldn’t hold out that long this early in the morning. He moved on to her breasts where he suckled at first one and then the other.

“Then there’s the entire staff at the Abbey. Would you like to hear about them?” He breathed the question in her ear.

Thick eyelashes almost hid her hazel eyes. “Make love to me.”

Something inside him, maybe his heart, stopped for a second. “Anna.”

Her lips were soft and yielding. He was not gentle, but she didn’t protest. She opened her mouth sweetly and gave and gave and gave until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

He pulled back and carefully turned her to her belly. He filled his hands with her plump arse and pulled her up toward him until she was on elbows and knees. He paused to study her vulnerable sex from this angle. His chest heaved at the sight. This was his woman, and only he would ever be privileged to see her this way.

He took hold of his cock and guided it to her wet entrance. It felt so good, he thrust in more roughly than he’d intended. Paused to gasp. Then thrust again. And again. Until her slick walls gave and he’d made a home for himself in her heat. Her muscles squeezed around him.

He grit his teeth to keep from spilling too soon.

Reaching, he stroked his palm down her spine. From her neck to her arse to the place where he entered her. He circled her there, feeling her stretched tissues and his own hard flesh impaling her.

She moaned and nudged him.

He withdrew to the head of his cock. And thrust. So hard her body slithered up the bed. He withdrew and thrust again. His hips swung faster and faster, and he flung back his head and ground his teeth.

He could hear Anna’s heated cries, and he reached around her hips to find that tender nub and pinch it. The walls of her vagina began contracting in waves, and he could hold out no longer. He came in jets of almost painful pleasure, pumping into her, marking her as his. She was collapsing beneath him, and he followed her down to the bed, grinding his hips into her. Shuddering in the aftershocks.

He lay a moment, panting, and then rolled off Anna before he could crush her. He rested on his back, one arm over his eyes, and tried to catch his breath.

As the sweat dried on his body, he began to think about the position he’d put her in. She was now undoubtedly compromised. He’d nearly hurt Davis merely because of the look he’d given Anna. God only knew what he would do when someone made a comment to her, as inevitably would happen.

“You need to marry me.” He winced. That had been rather blunt.

Anna apparently thought so, too. Her body jerked next to his. “What?”

He scowled. Now wasn’t the time to appear weak. “I’ve compromised you. We must marry.”

“No one knows but Davis.”

“And the entire household. Do you think they haven’t noticed by now that I didn’t sleep in my own bed?”

“Even so. Nobody knows in Little Battleford, and that’s what matters.” She rose from the bed and pulled a chemise from her bag.

Edward grimaced. She couldn’t be that naοve. “How long do you think before the news gets back to Little Battleford? I wager it’ll return before we do.”

Anna threw on the chemise and bent to rummage for something else in her bag, her bottom temptingly displayed through the thin linen. Was she trying to distract him? “You’re already engaged,” she said, her voice firm.

“Not for long. I’ve an appointment with Gerard tomorrow.”

“What?” That got her attention. “Edward, don’t do anything that you’ll regret. I’ll not marry you.”

“For Christ’s sake, why not?” He sat up impatiently.

She perched on the bed and rolled on a stocking. He noticed it was darned near the knee, and the sight made him even more angry. She shouldn’t have to wear rags. Why wouldn’t she marry him so he could take proper care of her?