The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh (24 page)

As they swirled down the floor and with her usual abandon Mary gave herself wholly to the dance, he drank in the sight—and clung to his façade of sophisticated and languidly bored lion of the ton for all he was worth.

He’d spent the last two days lusting after her with a sense of utterly blinkered need he couldn’t recall feeling for any other woman, much less after he’d had her beneath him. After a first engagement, normally several days, even a week, would pass before he would feel any impulse to a repeat performance.

With his bride-to-be, he’d been plotting a repeat engagement while he’d been taking her home—and he wasn’t at all sure if that was an encouraging sign, or, instead, a portent that should have him backpedaling. Fast.

Regardless, his now thoroughly focused inner self wasn’t at all interested in stepping back. And Barnaby’s suggestion that anyone taking another tilt at him could harm Mary, too, had only escalated his burgeoning need to have her safely under his paw.

Sleeping safely beside him. Sated and drowsy and . . . as happy as only he could make her. That was how his inner self saw things, and in that it wouldn’t be moved.

He’d never felt the smallest iota of possessiveness toward any of his previous lovers; even though he excused his newfound compulsion on the grounds that she was destined to be his wife, he still felt oddly off-balance. A tad uncertain as to where their interaction was leading him; it wasn’t down a path he knew.

Yet regardless of how he rationalized, whether the reason his instincts saw her as different was due to her more willful, challenging character or because said instincts already deemed her his, the impulse to seize and hold remained, and more, continued to grow; against his expectation, the waltz did nothing to allay it. Much less slake it.

The music slowed, then ended; they swirled to a halt and he bowed, she curtsied, then he raised her, tucked her hand in his arm, and they resumed their strolling.

The afternoon wore on, until, laughing and joking, the bulk of the company clattered down the stairs to see a radiant Henrietta and a proud James off on the beginning of their journey as man and wife. Rice was hurled, comments and recommendations flung, then James handed Henrietta into the waiting carriage, climbed in and shut the door, and the beaming coachman cracked his whip, and they were off, trotting smartly along the side of Grosvenor Square, and then out along Upper Brook Street.

“Wiltshire?” Ryder turned to Mary, one step higher than he on the steep front steps.

She nodded. “They’ll be back in five days, in time for our wedding, but they wanted to start where they intend ending, so to speak, and that as soon as they could.”

He arched his brows. “As impatient as you?”

She met his gaze. Held it for an instant, then softly said, “I seriously doubt that’s possible.”

The opening was there; he took it. “In that case . . . leave that window open tonight.”

She stared levelly back, then shook her head. “No—you’ll break my bed. I’ll come to you as I did the other night.”

“No.” His protectiveness wouldn’t allow that. But seeing haughty independence welling in her eyes, he rapidly reevaluated, then amended, “I’m not enamored of you wandering even as far as your mews alone, so let’s do the reverse of what we did the other morning. I’ll meet you in the garden outside the window. My carriage will be waiting to take us home.”

The last word was an instinct-driven, semi-deliberate slip of the tongue; she caught it, tipped her head as she considered, but then she smiled and left it unchallenged. “All right.” With a general wave, she indicated the wedding breakfast, now winding down. “After this, we’ll be retiring early tonight. Meet me at eleven.”

He didn’t smile, just nodded. “I’ll be there.”

H
e was waiting in the shadows at the rear of the house to give her his hand as she climbed out of the window. Quietly lowering the sash and reclaiming her hand, he led her out through the night-shrouded garden, then along the street to his unmarked town carriage.

Harness jingled as he handed her up, then followed and shut the door. The night was overcast, the moon screened, leaving little risk of anyone seeing them well enough to recognize. He sat beside Mary on the leather seat; as the carriage shifted, then slowly rolled on, with the deeper shadows within closing around them, he was tempted—sorely tempted—to draw her into his arms and kiss her witless, to plunder her mouth and taste her passion . . . but he didn’t.

Instead, anchoring her hand, still locked in his, firmly on the seat between them, he pretended to watch the houses slide past. And tried not to think about why he didn’t dare surrender to the nearly overwhelming impulse.

It had been a long,
long
time since he’d questioned his control. Since he’d had any reason to doubt it. But the hunger presently crawling beneath his skin was simply too powerful to ignore; once he started kissing her . . .

Luckily, the drive to Mount Street took only a few minutes. The instant the carriage halted, he opened the door, stepped out, and handed her down to the pavement. Shutting the door, he nodded to his coachman, Ridges, then escorted Mary up the front steps into the concealing shadows of his porch.

Pulling out his latch-key, he fitted it to the door.

“No Pemberly?”

“I’ve dismissed him and the rest of the staff for the night.” Through the dimness, he looked down at her. “Ridges will return to drive us back to Upper Brook Street in the small hours.” Opening the door, he ushered her in.

“Poor Ridges.” She walked further into the shadowed hall.

Shutting the door, Ryder snorted. “Not so poor, and he’s only too happy to assist.”

Swinging to face him, she arched her brows. Crossing the tiles to halt before her, he added, “He knows you’ll soon be his mistress.”

“Ah.” After a moment of studying his face, she asked, “Are they happy with the prospect then, your staff?”

He hadn’t brought her there to discuss his household. “If anything, they’re ecstatic.” Her brows rose; a smile curved her lips. He studied the sight and found himself admitting, “They are not, however, as happy as I am.” He hesitated, then, entirely against his better judgment, asked, “You know that, don’t you?”

She continued to study his face, then her smile deepened. “Perhaps I do.” Turning, skirts swishing, she headed for the stairs. “But then again”—pausing with one hand on the newel post, her foot on the first step, she glanced back at him—“perhaps you should remind me just how enamored you are over our prospective union.”

He locked his gaze with hers; slowly, he walked across the tiles to her side. Halting there, he looked into her face, let a heartbeat pass, only then asked, “Is that a challenge?”

“I’m hoping you’ll see it in that light and exert yourself accordingly.”

A part of him laughed; the rest rose to her lure. Lips curving—amused, yes, but intent, too—he reached for her . . .

She bolted.

On a smothered laugh, she raced up the stairs.

He was on her heels before he’d thought.

Then he did. He let her reach the landing before looping an arm around her waist, spinning her into him as he turned. Setting her back to the side wall, he crushed her lips with his.

And devoured.

Mary sank her hands into his hair and hung on for dear life. Let her wits spin away and opened her senses wide. Gloried, for one long instant simply drank in his passion—then she flung her heart and soul into returning it.

Fingers clenching in his hair, she kissed him back, returning every rapacious foray with her own fire. Her own need. Her own burning brand of desire. She could feel it surging inside her, undeniable, all-powerful, a heated yearning to be together, to be naked and merged and totally lost in the flames.

The compulsion built, rose higher.

Urgency raced down her veins.

Lips melding, hungry, hot, and urgent, the kiss raged back and forth, first driven by him, then by her, their tongues dueling, seeking, searching—he for supremacy, she for equal strength.

She won. He didn’t.

She held her own and pressed him even harder.

Knew when he broke, when he accepted that he didn’t care how, just as long as he had her—and she had him.

She only had a split second to wonder what next before he hoisted her up against him. She responded immediately, adjusting the angle of the kiss, unwilling to allow the connection to break, to allow either of them a chance to think, even for a heartbeat. Then he turned from the wall and she raised her legs and wriggled and hitched and conquered her skirts enough to grip his hips with her thighs.

He grunted, but, like her, made no move to end the ravenous engagement of their mouths; sliding his palms beneath her hips, carrying her, he started up the stairs.

Giving thanks for his strength, she left it to him to get them to his bedroom and focused her will on the kiss, on keeping them both, he and she, so deeply immersed that the flames they’d already ignited didn’t wane.

She succeeded so well that, on reaching the corridor to his room, he sat her atop a wall table, clamped his hands to her face, took over the kiss, and poured fire down her veins.

On a gasp, she tipped her head back and broke the kiss—and he let her. One hand framing her jaw, angling her chin, he ducked his head and set his lips, burning, branding, to her throat. Followed the arching line down to the hollow where her pulse raced. He licked, laved, and she shuddered.

He made a sound, low and guttural, and then her bodice was loose and he was drawing it down; before she gathered her wits enough to react, he stripped bodice and chemise to her waist, and set his mouth to her bared breasts.

She cried out as he sucked one furled nipple deep; evocative and arousing, the sound echoed in the dark.

He chuckled, harsh and ragged; cupping her other breast, he kneaded and squeezed while with lips and tongue he claimed. One hand sliding to the back of her waist, holding and supporting her, he waited while she blindly freed her arms from her sleeves, then he tipped her backward until the back of her head rested against the wall and he bent to his task—apparently intending to reduce her to an utterly wanton state . . .

She was already there. Hands sunk in his hair, eyes closed, head back, she moaned, then arched, wanting more of all he lavished on her—the hot worship of his mouth on her sensitive flesh, the excruciatingly piercing sensations he sent streaking through her.

Driving passion was already a pounding thud in her veins; she wondered how much stronger it could get.

Shivered with anticipation at the certainty of finding out.

Despite the potent compulsions of desire, tonight she was more aware—more able to appreciate his sensual expertise. Previously, her senses had been swept away; tonight, they were riding the tide.

And she wanted, craved with a deep-seated need, the heat and the flames and the surging, swelling passion. More than anything else she craved the fusion they would lead to, the intense, intimate, physically powerful joining.

She’d been too distracted earlier to properly absorb every detail; tonight her senses were greedy and grasping, devouring every nuance.

Her gown and chemise lay crumpled about her waist. Standing as he was, his hips forced her knees wide; he shifted, then the hand at her breast released and stroked down. Down over her waist, pressing her clothing aside, sliding over her stomach to splay there, then his long fingers reached further, parting the curls at the apex of her thighs to push down and in.

She started, shivered, then caught her breath on a gasp as his fingers explored, caressing and parting her slick folds, then circling, lightly pressing. Delicious sensations spread under her skin. Panting, she squirmed, needing more, wanting . . .

Drawing his mouth from her breast, he softly cursed and withdrew his hand from between her thighs.

She clutched his arm. “No—”

“Wait.” The gravelly order brooked no argument, but he was already hauling up her skirts, pushing them high to reach beneath. Locating her stockinged knee, he skated his hard palm over her garter and up her thigh, then boldly cupped her swollen flesh.

Reaction jolted her, the possessiveness in his touch sharp and keen.

She shivered when he pressed first one, then two fingers into her. Deep, then deeper.

On a gasp, fingers gripping his arm, clutching his skull, she arched, lifting, instinctively giving him greater access. Access he seized; his hand flexing beneath her, he pressed in and stroked, deeper, faster, ruthlessly playing on her senses.

Tension gripped her—similar yet not the same as the compulsive need of their previous time, but swelling, rising, built and driven by his intimate touch. By every deep stroke of his fingers.

Then he returned to her breasts, setting his mouth to the aching, swollen mounds, catching the tightly furled buds of her nipples between his lips, tugging, then taking them into his mouth and suckling.

Sensations cascaded, clashed and sparked, flushing beneath her skin, pulsing through her flesh. She closed her eyes, listened as her breathing grew harried and desperate. Felt the flames rage and coalesce, sinking deeper, searing and burning, then flaring ever hotter.

Tighter, harder, faster, hotter—she gasped, squirmed, yet nothing seemed to ease her escalating need, to appease the hungry emptiness yawning within.

Then he shifted his hand and his thumb found the nubbin hidden amid her slick folds, and he artfully pressed in rhythm with his increasingly forceful penetrations, with the increasingly powerful suckling at her breast—

She fractured.

Cried out and clung as her world shattered and her senses fragmented and spun.

Overcome by the cataclysm of sensation, she swayed. All strength fled; a deep, unraveling lassitude swept her.

All awareness seemed distant, remote, detached, yet she still felt, still knew. Could still follow what was happening.

Her breathing in ragged disarray, her heartbeat echoing in her ears and pulsing in the honeyed flesh between her thighs, she felt—acutely felt—the retreat of his fingers from her body. Drawing his hand from beneath her skirts, he swept her unresisting—unable to resist—off the table and into his arms, and carried her to his room.