The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh (25 page)

Juggling her in his arms, Ryder opened his bedroom door, angled her inside, then heeled the door shut. Tonight, Collier had left only the two lamps on the bedside tables burning; although both were turned low, they spilled golden light over the golden bed.

A perfect shrine for beauty in aftermath.

Carrying Mary to the bed, he knelt on the mattress and laid her gently down, her head on the pillows, her sable curls a sharp contrast against the ivory. He took an instant to savor, to give thanks he’d been able to rush her on to her climax and so grasp the chance—the slim and possibly only chance—to reassert control. To regain the upper hand.

Passion beat powerfully, unrelentingly, in his veins, insistent and demanding, but this was a situation he—and that driving need within him—recognized. A familiar pause in proceedings, not a denial but a staving off, a temporary holding back that would ensure he would soon reap a deeper and even more complete satisfaction.

God, she’d been . . . the word that came to mind was potent. A drug that held the power to drive him crazed with desire, and make him ache with passion.

With a powerful drive, one he needed to rein in and manage; even after their first encounter—perhaps even more because of it—he felt an absolute need to remain in charge, of himself at least, if not her as well.

Knowing he would have only so long before she stirred, and sought to manage him and them, this, and all, he leaned over her and stripped her of gown, chemise, and stockings. Tossing the gold silk coverlet over her cooling body, accepting that if he didn’t shed his clothes himself, she would be eager to assist him—and God only knew where that would end—he shrugged out of his coat and waistcoat, unknotted his cravat and dispensed with shirt, shoes, stockings, and trousers in record time.

He felt the caress of her gaze as he turned to the bed. With an openly sensual appreciation, she examined and surveyed, her lips lightly curving, her gaze warming, the blue growing more intense as he neared.

He knew well enough how women saw him; impressive was an epithet frequently applied.

Somewhat to his relief, he detected nothing more than a certain smug, very feminine possessiveness in her face, with no hint of surprise, much less fear, clouding her violet-blue eyes.

Indeed, all he could discern was expectation, an anticipation that was more specific, more focused, than two nights before.

Her expression stated she knew what was to come and was looking forward to every second.

Already fully aroused, that expression, its implication, only made him more rigid.

Pausing beside the bed, he reached out and drew down the coverlet, and took one last instant to drink in the sight of her, rumpled and sated, limbs asprawl in sensual abandon in his bed.

Slowly, he let his gaze sweep from her small, delicate feet, over her shapely calves, dimpled knees, and sleek thighs, up over the already dampened thatch of dark curls at their apex, over the slight curve of her stomach, the indentation of her waist, gliding up over her firm, high breasts, her nipples puckering under his gaze, to her throat, her chin, to her lips, and finally to her eyes.

Mary had been waiting. She smiled, gentle yet intent, and slowly, gracefully, raised her arms and beckoned.

He blinked, but complied, letting himself down on the bed, propping on one elbow and stretching his long limbs and heavy bones alongside her.

He reached to set a hand on her stomach, but before he made contact she rolled toward him and sat up, the movement making him instinctively tip back—he realized and tried to reverse, to sit up again, but she’d already spread her hands on his chest.

Greedily.

She swiveled to hang over him, sinuously sliding her body along his until his hips lay half under hers, her stomach brushing his, her legs tangling lightly with his, his heavy erection grazing her hip; she closed her eyes for a second, breathed in as she savored, this time fully aware of the evocative feel of his naked body against hers, of his hair-dusted limbs lightly abrading her smooth, fine skin, of the ineluctable tactile contrast between his hard muscled frame covered by taut skin and her firm, silky sleekness.

He could easily have forced her back, yet as she opened her eyes, met his, then sent her hands skating, caressing and tracing, unabashedly reveling, he lay still and searched her face, trying to guess what she was about.

Thoroughly pleased with him, she smiled and obliged. “Before we reengage, I wanted to ask . . . can you—will you—go slow when I say?”

He blinked, then arched his brows in patent disbelief. “
You
want to go slow?”

“Only when I say,” she quickly clarified. “And only for those moments.” She held his gaze, then arched a brow back; with him, challenge was undeniably her best weapon. “For the rest . . .” She raised a shoulder. “I would prefer to go at our usual headlong pace. So much more us, don’t you think?”

When he didn’t reply—when she saw wary suspicion bloom behind his eyes—she laughed. “No, truly.” Folding her arms, she settled on his chest, pillowing her breasts on the thick muscle, delighting in the tension that spread through him in response, and smiled into his eyes. “So what do you say?” Abrasion from the crinkly hair on his chest made her nipples ruche painfully tight; resisting the impulse to close her eyes in bliss, keeping them on his, she pressed, “Can we do it my way—just this once?”

“Once?” Ryder wasn’t at all sure it would be once. Or rather, that the once wouldn’t affect him—and them—forever more. His instincts, entirely uncharacteristically, were no help; on the one hand, they warned—stridently and insistently—that danger lay waiting along the path she was, sirenlike, luring him down, consequently urging caution, if not retreat, while simultaneously, those very same instincts were pushing him to give her whatever she wished. More, were insisting it was his duty to slavishly pander to her every whim.

And there really wasn’t any choice. Despite awareness of the former, the latter impulse was dominant, if not paramount. Drawing in a deep breath, steeling himself against the more definite pressure of her breasts against his chest, he held her gaze. “All right. Your way. This once. So how?”

Her smile beamed like the sun. Shifting higher on his chest, eyes sparkling, expression eager, she reached for his face. “I’ll tell you when.” Then she bent her head, set her lips to his—and plunged them back into their fire.

Leaving him reeling, then mentally racing, trying to catch up with her—trying to exert some degree of control.

He hadn’t known the flames had hovered so
very
close. Yes, he’d been brutally aroused from the moment he’d joined her on the bed, but he’d thought—had expected—that she would have cooled, that it would take time—

But no. Just one kiss, one flagrant foray into his mouth, coupled with his instinctive response, and she turned to living flame in his arms.

And there was no slowing down, no controlling the fiery passion, the conflagration of desire that raked and razed and raced through them both. That consumed them both.

Abruptly, she rolled onto her back; he didn’t need her urgent tugging to follow. And then they were tussling, her hands streaking over his skin, reaching for his erection, greedy fingers searching, finding, closing, palms hungrily stroking.

Her breasts filled his hands while he filled her mouth, and she, his wanton, urged him on.

Slow? Where was her slow?

It was she who parted her thighs wide, who wriggled and writhed to get his hips just so. On a curse, he pulled back from the kiss long enough to reach between them and position the blunt head of his aching erection at her entrance.

Scalding slickness bathed the broad head. She was wetter than wet, so ready and willing, as the desperation in her clutching hands assured him.

Equally trapped in the heated desperation, lying fully and heavily atop her, prey to her every arch and writhe, he clamped both hands about her hips, plunged back into the fiery delight of her mouth, and tensed to thrust home.

She wrenched back from the kiss. Hoarsely panted, “Now. Slow now!”

Now?

“
God almighty
.” His weight on his elbows, he gritted his teeth, jaw clenched to cracking as he locked every muscle against the driving, pounding insistence that he move—that he thrust into the heated haven waiting, beckoning.

She gulped in air, managed a tiny nod. “I want to feel . . . you. There. I didn’t get a chance to the first time . . .”

Her explanation wasn’t helping. “I’ll try,” he ground out, then shut her up in the only way that ever worked.

And fought, battled, to give her what she wanted.

He eased in—a fraction. Just enough to push the head of his erection past her tight entrance.

Beneath him, he felt her quiver—not with fear but with a sensual expectation that reached to his bones and made him shudder, too.

Gave him the strength to try for another half an inch. Then pause. Then another incremental advance.

Her body tight as a bowstring, every bit as tense as he, she sighed into his mouth, then shifted her lips enough to whisper against his, “Oh. My. Lord.
Yes
.”

The quality she invested into the last word—that alone would have been worth his pain.

Accepting that, accepting that acceding to her request had indeed lavished untold pleasure on her, made it easier still to continue to penetrate her inch by slow inch.

Mary lay beneath him, utterly overwhelmed, her senses locked on the sensation of the veined rod, hot as flame and as unforgiving as forged steel, slowly, and now more steadily, pushing into her. Stretching her, filling her, in some way she didn’t fully comprehend, completing her.

The moment overloaded her mind in every way, obliterating the hollow emptiness that had dwelled deep within her when he’d first laid her on the bed.

With an effort, she raised her lashes. His eyes were shut; his face appeared graven, every plane sharp-edged with desire. With reined passion. She could feel the rigid control he wielded—to give her what she’d asked for.

Lids falling, she mentally reached out and wrapped her expanding senses about them—and savored all the excruciatingly sensation-filled moment was doing to them both. They were both panting, heated breaths mingling, lips dry, but still hungry.

They were both poised, nerves tighter than drum skins, reined, teetering on that sexual brink . . .

Then with a last, small thrust, he was there. Embedded within her, filling her completely, the head of him nudging her womb, the heaviness of his sac brushing her sensitized skin.

This was what made her his, but equally it made him hers.

Lips curving as much as the overwhelming tension would allow, she whispered, “Thank you.” Blindly reaching for his head, sinking her fingers into his hair, she raised her head a fraction, whispered against his lips, “Now let go,” and kissed him.

Passion erupted. Held back for so long, it raged unrelenting, unforgiving. It whipped them along, harder and faster, whirling them through the age-old dance and straight into the flames and the fire.

Up, and higher, harder, and yet more furiously needy, they gasped and raced, driving for the peak, the ultimate pinnacle of intimate joy.

Their hearts thundered; their breaths came in raspy pants. Locked together, striving together, they yearned and stretched, reached and sought.

She was as caught as he, as subject to the passion they’d unleashed, yet she was aware and was with him, much more so than the first time, able to sense and feel, know and appreciate the turbulent power they’d evoked. Provoked.

Physical and ephemeral; even as they gasped and clung, she felt his hands on her, felt his awareness of her, felt how through his body he spoke to her, through hers, through her senses.

No words could breach this plane, could encompass this elemental reality.

Making love could, and did.

She tightened around him and they raced on through the searing wonder.

And in a heady rush of pounding joy they found that pinnacle, their oh-so-desired destination, without pause leapt past and on and flew.

Tension imploded. Sensation, molten and scalding, erupted and flashed outward from where they joined, flooding their veins, sinking deep into their flesh.

They shattered. She screamed; he roared.

Ecstasy speared through them, broke them, wracked them.

Caught by her own primal contractions, she felt him stiffen in her arms, felt the heat of his seed pulse deep within her.

She surrendered. Felt him do the same.

And ecstasy’s benediction flooded them, a blessing so richly sensuous it brought tears to her eyes and made her cling.

To that moment, so fleeting, so precious.

Then it faded, as it always would, yet even as she let go and, with him buried deep within her, connected beyond the physical, sank into satiation’s sea, she knew that it—that moment of ultimate intimate communion—would always exist, would always be there, waiting for them, forever a part of them.

Satisfied beyond measure, lips gently curved, she let bliss draw her into its embrace.

Ryder slumped on top of her, too wracked to move.

Too wrung out to think, to even care.

The danger had been there—and he’d fallen.

His last conscious thought before he surrendered was: Is this how it feels to be conquered?

T
here were only seven more days to their wedding—and those passed in a blur.

The morning after Henrietta’s nuptials, Mary found herself plunged into preparations for her own. Ryder had brought her back to Upper Brook Street in the small hours; sated and deeply content, she’d tumbled into her own bed, but her mother roused her early—much earlier than she’d hoped—to remind her that they had a fitting for her bridal gown that morning.

As the same modiste had so recently made her gown for Henrietta’s wedding, the fitting was more an opportunity for her aunts, her cousins’ wives, and some of the females of the next generation to ooh and aah over the fine Flemish lace and pearls, layer upon layer of which made up the delicate bridal gown.