The Reluctant Suitor (62 page)

“Has anyone ever told you how utterly beautiful you are without your clothes, madam?”

A smile curved Adriana’s soft lips as she pressed her brow against a lean cheek. “Only you, my lord.”

“Believe me, my dear wife, since my return home, I have become your most ardent admirer.”

Eager to view her beautiful body unfettered, Colton dragged the lace straps from her silken shoulders, encouraging her to slip her arms free. Soon he was perusing those luscious mounds as he tugged the garment down nigh her waist. She hastened its removal with a wiggle and slid it past her hips, drawing his eyes downward as she kicked free of it.

Adriana hardly knew the moment it slid to the floor, for her husband promptly lifted her up higher against him. His mouth was there waiting to devour the luscious orbs, quickening fires in the depth of her being.

In a moment of pure bliss, Colton pressed his face between the creamy fullness and closed his eyes, savoring the silkiness of her skin and the delicate scent of roses. He was very, very thankful to be alive and to be married at last to this woman who had held his mind ensnared for the last several months.

“I’m glad you never offered me a demonstration of how pleasurable it is to be naked in your arms before now,” Adriana whispered tremblingly. “Otherwise, I’d have likely yielded to your invitation to pleasure me long ago.”

“The best is yet to come, my beauty, and now that you’re my wife, ‘twill be even more pleasurable,” he breathed as his hand slid down over her smooth, creamy belly. His lean fingers encroached into the moist, womanly softness and, ever so gently, plied their magic, snatching her breath and making her writhe with the ecstasy he evoked. As if with a will of their own, her thighs slowly parted, welcoming his deftly voyaging caresses. Waves of heightening bliss began to wash through her, thoroughly amazing Adriana at the sensations she was experiencing, yet as much as her cheeks flamed at the boldness of his caresses, she could not bring herself to turn aside and halt the fires that had begun flaring upward from her loins. Indeed, his evocative titillation set her whole being aflame.

“What you’re doing feels too marvelous to be proper,” she whispered shakily. “If you do not desist, I will likely dissolve.”

“Perfectly suitable for a husband to search out all the secret places his wife has managed to withhold from him ere they wed, my sweet. Is it not to your liking, too?”

Her voice was faint, breathless. “Very much so.”

The fact that she was garbed in nothing more than stockings seemed rather ridiculous considering all the other vulnerable womanly areas were fully in view. Yet when she sat up to loosen her garters, Colton’s hand closed around her wrist, gently halting her. “Leave the stockings, my love,” he rasped. “I want to feel you against me.”

He lifted the sheet aside, inviting her to press close against his naked body, in so doing, causing Adriana to stare at his blatant maleness. Though it was a bold reminder of what she had seen in the bathing chamber, it seemed immensely threatening of a sudden. Lifting her gaze, she stared into those smiling gray orbs.

“I can’t be around you without being effected, my love,” Colton murmured huskily. “It’s what I’ve been battling ever since the Autumn Ball. If not for the constant presence of our chaperones, I would have had my way with you every time we were alone in my coach . . . or anyplace else that proved private.”

Adriana stared at him in astonishment. “But I thought you merely wanted Samantha and Percy along to

provide proof of your gentlemanly comportment so you could break away cleanly after our courtship.”

Colton softly hooted at such a notion. “It was difficult enough keeping my hands off you when others were around. Getting you entirely alone would have been certain disaster. I had visions of us standing before the rector after your belly had grown heavy with child.”

Throwing back her head, Adriana relented to her overwhelming joy and laughter. “I thought you didn’t want me!”

Colton took her hand and closed it around the throbbing hardness, drawing a shocked gasp from her. “Is this not proof of my desire for you, madam? It’s what has beset me throughout the whole of courtship.

Even now, I can hardly endure the pain after my lengthy abstinence. Indeed, I had begun to fear I’d become a damned eunuch, wanting you as I did, and not being able to appease that longing.”

“But your wound. Won’t you find it hard to . . . ?”

“Banish the thought, my love. I could have one foot in the grave and still desire to make love to you.”

“You should follow the doctor’s advice,” she cautioned as he pulled her full length against him.

“You could do all the work and let me reap the pleasure,” he cajoled with a wayward grin as his eyes glowed into hers.

Smiling, she traced a finger over his lips. “You’ll have to show me what to do.”

His hand swept down to her thigh and dragged a stocking and garter free as she lifted a sleek limb to accommodate him. “I will, my love, but first, I must make you ready for me.”

Would you like me to take the other stocking off?”

“Um-hmm,” he murmured, slipping his hands behind her nape and unfastening the choker. “And your earrings. I may want to chew on your ears a bit, considering it has been a craving of mine for the last several months.”

Giggling, Adriana unfastened the costly jewelry from her earlobes as his hand once again claimed a ripe, creamy breast. “You have the strangest quirks, Colton Wyndham.”

“You’ll have a lifetime to become familiar with them, Wife, but I would be about more serious pleasures now.”

“Such as?” She twisted away slightly to lift her right leg into the air. Stripping off the last silk stocking, she sent it fluttering to the floor beside the other.

“Crossing the last bridge before we become one, my love.”

Adriana lay in quiescent stillness, indulging in every blissful thrill, every delectable delight he stirred within her as he worked his magic upon her womanly softness, but when his open mouth claimed her breasts once again and began to suckle her, she felt almost consumed by the pleasure he wrought. Driven by the intensifying pleasure, she reached out and laid claim upon the manly hardness, drawing a sharp gasp from him as the hot blood surged through him.

“Please, Colton . . . I can bear no more. Whatever you’re waiting for, wait no longer, I beg you.”

“I needn’t, my love. You’re now ready for me,” he whispered. The dewy moistness readily affirmed that she was eager for what was coming.

Lying back upon the pillows, he met her questioning gaze as she rose up to peer down into his face. He smiled with a devilish gleam in his eyes. “I hear you ride Ulysses without a saddle at times, my dear. I have a horn but no saddle. Are you brave enough to try? ‘Twill be painful at first.”

“You’ve made it impossible for me to refuse. I’ve never felt so . . . so . . . wanton before.”

“Making love is not wantonness when it’s between a couple who has been bound in marriage, love. ‘Tis an honest desire, and right now, I want you more than anything in the world.”

Rising to her knees, she moved astride him as their gazes melded. Her voice was barely a sigh as she softly whispered, “With my body, I thee worship.”

His hungering eyes swept over her alluring form in one long, lingering caress as he pressed himself into the narrow niche, evoking a shiver from her as she felt his heat. With one swift, descending movement, she took him into her, snatching gasps from both of them. Nearly consumed by her womanly warmth, Colton closed his eyes, luxuriating in the joy of being one with her. He sought to bide his time to let the shock of his intrusion ease, but as she had ridden Ulysses, so his young wife rode him until he could not hold back.

Waves of rapturous bliss washed over them again and again until they were being swept toward the pinnacle of ecstasy. Myriad bubbles, as finite as the air they breathed, seemed to course over, around, and through their bodies as the heightening swells surged through them, sweeping them aloft with ever-strengthening billows until they were soaring on towering waves that carried them to the outer regions of the universe, seemingly among the very stars.

Much later, Adriana was just dozing off, nestled spoon-fashion within the protective curve of her husband

’s body, when he whispered near her ear, “Still sore, madam?”

She giggled, wiggling back until she came up in contact with the manly firmness pressing beneath her buttocks. “Do you have a reason for asking?”

He nibbled at a dainty ear as his fingers brushed over a pliant peak. “Aye, I’m a lecher in want of more of the same, and you are the only morsel I crave.”

“That’s good enough reason for me,” Adriana replied with smiling eagerness. Turning to face him, she snuggled alongside her naked husband as her fingers swept over his broad chest and slid lower still, causing him to catch his breath. Finding him ready for her, she rose above him, and their fevered kisses led them on and on and on . . .

A
ccording to the delicate chimes of the clock in the bedchamber in which the couple had been ensconced, it was well past the hour of midnight when they were both abruptly awakened. A lamp was thrust close in front of their faces, and a loud raging roar rang out, snatching startled gasps from the two

who sprang upright in unison from the mattress where they had been nestled closely together. A sharp wince of pain contorted Colton’s features as he was suddenly reminded of his painful wound, and though immediately repentant of his hasty movement, he held up a hand to shade his eyes from the intrusive glare. Beyond it, he saw a raging snarl contorting Gyles Sutton’s face. In all his life, he couldn’t remember ever seeing the man so furious.

“I invited you to Bath to present your case to my daughter, not to fornicate with her!” the elder bellowed in thundering tones. “Now get up out of that bed, you debaucher of babes, and fight like a man!”

As he sought to lay hold upon the younger man, Adriana threw up a hand to ward off her parent. “Papa, no! It’s all right!”

Gyles’s eyes flared anew as he gaped down at his daughter. Glancing down in the direction he stared, Adriana gasped and hastily snatched for the sheet to cover her naked breasts, but it was far too late. Her father’s face took on a ruddy hue that clearly attested to his fury.

Christina groaned from the doorway where she had been halted in shock. Her distressed moan evidenced her own horror after noticing the dark, telltale rosy color imbuing those delicate peaks. Of all her daughters, she had never dreamt she would
ever
find her youngest in bed with a despicable rake.

Indeed, there had even been times when she had doubted Adriana would ever choose a husband to wed.

Gyles’s roar of rage threatened to bring down the ceiling on their heads. Had the plaster not been firmly attached, it might’ve made him immediately repentant of his unrestrained wrath. He shook a clenched fist at Colton who, upon seeing the fire flashing in the dark eyes of the elder, had cause to wonder if he’d have to brace himself against the older man’s attack. “So, this is how you repay me for trying to help you! You libertine! You sneak thief! You stole my daughter’s virtue behind my back. I have a good mind to cut you here and now!”

“Papa, we’re married!” Adriana blurted.

“What?!” Gyles staggered back in stunned surprise.

“We were married tonight by Sir Guy’s father. We had a special license that His Grace, the archbishop, signed!”

Gyles stared at her with mouth agape. “But . . . but why couldn’t you wait . . . to be married . . . in a church?”

“Colton’s coach was attacked near Randwulf Manor, and he was shot in the back. We wanted to be with one another, and marriage was the only way we could be together without worrying about what was proper, what was not. Samantha, Percy, Lord Harcourt, and Dr. Croft were here as witnesses. ‘Tis all quite proper, I assure you, Papa.”

Gyles stumbled back several more steps, wiping a hand down his face, as if still unable to believe the legality of their union. “You should’ve been married in a church, with your whole family there as witnesses.”

“We’re no less married now than we would’ve been in a church, Papa. Reverend Dalton had us sign all the documents. He can attest to the fact that they are valid.”

“ ‘Twas my fault,” Colton volunteered, trying to placate the man, knowing he’d probably have been just as enraged under the circumstances. “I was afraid of losing your daughter, and I didn’t want to take that chance. I was the one who pressured her into marrying me tonight.”

“Actually, Sir Guy arranged it,” Adriana explained, trying to spare him some of her father’s resentment.

She looked at her sire pleadingly. “But if you would be willing to consider my feelings, Papa, I didn’t want to wait any more than Colton did. I love him, and I want to be with him for the rest of my life.”

Gyles cleared his throat and glanced back at his wife who was smiling in relief. “What do you make of this, my dear?”

“I think they’re legally married, dearest, and we’ll have no more to say about it . . . except . . .”—she smiled at the couple, her blue eyes radiant as she concluded—“good night.”

Gyles blustered a bit, remembering the names he had called his new son-in-law. “Yes, well, that seems the only thing we can say, now that we’ve awakened the whole house.”