The Ravishing One (24 page)

It was better this way. Thomas was achieving what she’d always dreamed of doing, making Maiden’s Blush whole, healing her, ripping off her garish trappings, and revealing her proud and ancient lines. It
was
for the best. But, oh! How she would have loved to see the completion of the dream!

A gentle fingertip tilted her chin. Thomas had moved his horse closer.

“Tears?”

“No.”

“Then the sun’s reflection on the sea must hurt your eyes,” he said, offering her an explanation, chivalrously respecting her private sorrow.

“Yes,” she agreed.

He smiled, his eyes filled with tenderness, and rubbed his thumb across her lips. Instinctively she clasped his hand. A quizzical expression entered his face. She hesitated, then turned his hand over and brushed her lips across his knuckles.

His grip clenched painfully about her hand. If she saw the least bit of pity in him she would lose nerve. So she closed her eyes, coward that she was, and brought the back of his hand to her cheek and laid it there.

He made a sound. A curse? A prayer? She could not tell. Then suddenly there was motion all around her as the hot withers of Thomas’s horse bumped her leg and hooves danced on the ground. Her horse shied sideways. Thomas yanked his hand free of hers and dragged her into his embrace.

Her eyes flew open. He dipped and caught her legs behind the knees with one arm, lifting her across his lap, while with the other hand he grasped a great hank of her hair and gently pulled her head back.

For one brief second their eyes met, and then he was kissing her, kissing her like he would never stop. Deep kisses; gentle kisses; wet, passionate, open-mouthed kisses such as she had never known. His hunger ignited a matching one in her. She laced her fingers behind his head, wanting his dizzying, thought-obscuring kisses never to end.

They did, of course. He finally drew back, and lifted his face to the sky. So she sought other venues to
explore. She kissed the strong, dark column of his throat. Salty. Unique. He shivered.

She licked his throat. The shiver became a shudder, but he still did not lower his head.

She was a seasoned seductress, a heartless, irresistible jade. Men everywhere, including this one, proclaimed it. Then why could she not seduce Thomas McClairen into giving her more kisses!

“Thomas,” she began.

He looked down at her, stilling whatever she might have said. His eyes blazed with desire, unadulterated, barely controlled. A ripple of apprehension raced through her.

“Is this some new form of witchery?” he demanded hoarsely. “A torment dreamed up in that complicated little mind of yours? Because it is unnecessary. There is nothing you can do to make me want you more and to make that wanting more unbearable.”

“But you are bigger, far stronger than I.”

He gazed at her ruefully. “I am weaker than a day-old kitten where you are concerned, madam. I am undone by you. I could no more force myself on you than I could fly.”

“Even if I tempted you, teased you, brought you within an inch of what you want?” She did not know what evil impulse drove her.

He shook his head. “Would you have blood, Fia? Blood I would gladly give, if you would but cease these games and leave me in peace.”

“I cannot.”

“Then we are transfixed here, for I cannot leave you.” His smile was infinitely sad.

Her heart pounded. She stood poised on the precipice.

“What do you want?” she asked softly.

He answered at once. “I want you to bid me to stay,” he commanded. “But bid me stay knowing that I will have you beneath me on your back.”

He said not a word about affection, but she was a woman, not a maiden. Her marriage bed had had no affection in it. She knew now its presence because she’d known well its absence. He needn’t say the words for them to be true.

“Please,” she managed to say, “stay.”

Triumph blazed in his expression and his lips parted on an exultant smile. He swung his leg over the saddle and slid to the ground without releasing her.

He carried her back above the crest of the knoll, striding to where the grasses grew sweet and lush and thick to the edge of the pine copse. Only then did he release her, as he worked at divesting her of her skirts while her own hands hastily unlaced her bodice, as though they expected some clock to suddenly strike the hour and break this spell of enchantment.

Her skirts fell; her bodice was withdrawn; her shoes slipped from her feet. Thomas stepped back.

Uncertainly, Fia’s gaze followed him as she became self-conscious and awkward. Why was he looking at her like that? She was supposed to be the bloody enigmatic one, not him!

“Are we going to … lie together now?” she asked, startling Thomas.

Her words were prim, uncertain, as if she didn’t have a name for what she wanted of him. Her straight shoulders were drawn back, her chin tilted in that heartbreakingly valiant manner. But she didn’t know what to do with her hands or arms. They hung stiffly at her sides, her palms turned out in an attitude of unconscious supplication. And her eyes were huge pools of fevered impatience and … trepidation.

A slow dawning suspicion took hold of his imagination. Could it be? “Fia,” he said, “how many lovers have you had?”

She was lovely, so vulnerable. She shivered, standing there in her undress, the tip of one breast peeking through the lace trim of her chemise.

“Fia?”

She took a deep breath; the nipple quivered deliciously.

“I’ve had one husband,” she declared. “I’ve never known a lover.”

The gift of what she offered staggered him. “Let me be your lover, Fia.”

“I would,” she said faintly, “but I doubt I can walk.”

He laughed at this frank confession, delighted with her honesty. In a trice, he swept her up in his arms—all softness and silkiness, lithe and elegant and tense. He nuzzled her throat, nipped at her collarbone, and licked the soft indentation at the base of her throat.
Then he dropped easily to his knees, sliding his arms from under her and shedding his jacket so that she might lie back upon it.

“God, I love your hair,” he muttered, lifting a handful of the silken mass and letting it filter down over his forearm. He wanted this to be slow. He wanted to play with her, touch her, and have her touch him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, feeling his body tremble.

“Nothing,” he assured her, whatever eloquence he could claim dammed up by desire. “I want you. I want you and it’s hard not to just … take you.”

His coarseness sent a wave of color up her throat and face. He bracketed her face between his forearms and leaned over her, conscious of how small she was beneath him, how delicate.

“I won’t.”

“But I want you to.”

The admission was less timid now; she’d begun to believe in the depth of his want. God knows, she should, he thought humorlessly. His cock prodded her hip with something less than subtlety.

He rucked up her petticoats, finding her legs still sheathed in their expensive clocked silk stockings. He sat up, took hold of her ankles, and pulled her toward him until her legs lay across his lap. Her eyes grew round with wonder.

He grinned wickedly at her. “You’ve lovely legs, Lady Fia. As pretty a pair as I’ve seen grace a filly.”

Her pupils sparkled. Her lips parted on an “Oh!” of delight. How Fia loved to be teased!

“Seems a shame to cover them,” he said. “Why would a soul do that, do you suppose?”

“Perhaps there are warts beneath those stockings, sir,” she said a bit breathlessly, lying back down, her legs sprawled across Thomas’s lap.

“I think yer lying, Lady Fia,” Thomas intoned, his burr a whiskey-rich brew, sensual and intoxicating. “I think yer legs are as flawless as the rest of you, and I mean to find out.”

Still holding her gaze, he grasped her knee in one hand while with the other he slowly untied the beribboned garter. His fingers skated behind her knee to the sensitive skin there. She started at the feel. Thomas’s wolfish grin grew hotter.

Slowly, incrementally, he rolled the silk stocking down, his finger sliding in a long, leisurely journey down her calf. His eyes glowed. A little muscle jumped at the corner of his wicked, “eat-you-up” grin.

“What penalty do you suppose I should extract if this leg is as fine as the rest of you?” he asked.

She couldn’t answer. Her voice wouldn’t work. Her breath jumped in her throat. She raised herself to her elbows to see his dark, strong fingers on her thighs. The sight was indescribably erotic, and awareness pulsed in the tips of her breasts and between her legs.

“Well?” His eyes looked darker. “It’s perfect.”

“Must be on the other leg.”

His smile bespoke his disbelief, but he grasped her other leg and with a flick of his fingers undid the garter. His palm stroked the back of her calf, moving
slowly up past the back of her knee. Climbed higher. And higher. Her eyelids slid half closed. She shivered. Higher his hand traveled, skating to the very top of her thighs. Her head lolled between her shoulders. There was more. She could sense it, just … Ah, yes! He cupped her bottom.

She panted a little, closing her eyes to better concentrate on his touch, the heat of his hand, the roughness of his callused fingertips, the breadth of his palm.

“Lie back.”

His voice was very near. He’d looped one long, muscular arm behind her back, easing her down. “Lie back, Fia love.”

Fia love
. How many maidens had tumbled back, legs sprawled wide, at the sound of similar words? Nonetheless, she heeded the sweet, hushed urgency of his voice. She was weak and drifting, hot and tense all at once.
Lie back, Fia love
.

His hand curved around her bottom, his fingers limning the cleft and moving lower, easing between her lax thighs and grazing the small triangle of black between her legs. She jerked, startled by the electric sensation accompanying that seemingly casual contact.

He brushed her mons again, this time lingering in the task, tracing little swirling patterns with his index finger, first on her pelvic bone, then lower, then lower still, until his fingertip caressed the most sensitive part of her, gliding smoothly, shatteringly over the small nub.

Dear Lord! She clasped his shoulders, needing
some anchor to keep her from being swept away by a tidal wave of sensation. He held her with his free hand while working his sensual magic with the other, whispering unintelligibly, sounds both yearning and encouraging.

“Yes. Yes,” she answered, agreement, consent, and encouragement all expressed in that breathless, urgent word. “Yes.”

Her hips rose, intuitively seeking him. One knee fell to the side, opening her completely to his ministrations.

“Easy, Fia.”

His finger entered her.

She arched upright like a taut bow, her fingers digging into him. She’d not known. She’d heard but never realized, counted herself lucky to be amongst those women who were not at the mercy of sexual appetite.
Fool!

His finger worked deeper. Her head spun, the earth whirled, and her eyes opened, seeking him, finding his gray-blue gaze riveted on her face, a sheen of moisture making his skin gleam like oiled bronze.

She understood. He wanted her. Wanted more of her than this. She did, too. She wanted the thick presence of him deep within her.

“Please,” she whispered.

“What?” he asked, his voice rough, his gaze searching. “What do you want? Tell me.”

“I want you in me.”

He rolled away from her, his hands already at the closings on his breeches. She grasped his heavy wrist,
stopping him. “I want you inside me and I want … I want you to be naked.”

She waited, her breath staggering in her throat at her boldness. Would he think her cheap, sluttish—

In one swift graceful movement, he rose to his feet, stripping off his linen shirt as he went. He flung it carelessly aside, standing on the heel of his boot, jerking it off, and kicking it aside. He did the same to the other, and then straightened, fumbling with the closures on his breeches.

He was so male. His chest was broad and deep, covered with fine, dark hair that tapered where it grew lower on his belly. His arms were long and lean with sharply defined musculature, the skin smooth and clear.

He turned slightly, peeling off his breeches. His buttocks were as hard and well defined as the rest of him, his hips narrow, his legs long. Her gaze moved up to his face.

He was watching her with fascinating intensity, like he would devour her, or envelop her, but somehow consume her. He stepped out of the breeches and pushed his smallclothes off his narrow hips.

Her gaze traveled down a flat belly rippling with muscle to where his member sprang thick and swollen, angling proudly erect. He was big there, too. Thick.

A flutter of trepidation warred with mounting urgency. His gaze followed her own. A half smile lifted the corner of his mouth, revealing that unexpected and spellbinding dimple. A cocky thing, that smile, a hint of purring masculine self-assurance in it.

“I’ll not hurt you.”

“I know.” And she did. He would
not
hurt her, unless he left her like this, on the brink of some arcane feminine experience she’d never before suspected and now needed above all things to know.

He knelt next to her and gently pulled the lace edges of her chemise apart. He sat back on his haunches, his eyes glowing.

“Beautiful.”

She’d never understood the masculine preoccupation with breasts, but now she was glad of it. Glad he approved of her own so openly, so heartily. He made her feel utterly feminine, oddly vulnerable, yet completely powerful.

She’d known she was beautiful but she had never
felt
beautiful, not until Thomas McClairen had called her such.

He bent his head and placed his lips on her nipple. He kissed it, wet it with the tip of his tongue, sipped it into the warm interior of his mouth and … and did
things
. Marvelous things. Unspeakably stimulating things; rolling it between his lips, lathing its silky smooth perimeter until it glistened, nuzzling the deep curve of her nether breast and nipping it, and then going on to give her other breast similar attention.