The Wedding Bed (The Sun Never Sets, Book One) (15 page)

Calla
's sexual experience, outside of what she had learned with Derek, was barely enough to fill a thimble. But she was intuitive enough to recognize that that something elemental was missing between them. Despite the dizzying heights to which they soared, she was overcome with a melancholy she couldn't quite dispel. Try as she might to content herself with what they had, she wanted more—she needed more than just a physical release. She needed a release for the emotional tension that swelled within her. But she didn’t dare reach for it.

She balled her fists in the sheets, thrashing beneath Derek. “
I can’t…” Her voice was a breathless whimper, torn from somewhere deep inside.
“
I need to hold back.”

“
No,
jaanu
. You need to let go.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

He kissed her
jaw, tracing his lips over the scar left by the tiger cub so many years ago. Exactly right. A reminder that she’d been hurt before, but survived. Courage was its own reward.

“Trust me,” he said.
“I’m right here. I’m here.”

He
traced his fingers down the length of her body, his touch reverent, adoring. With that gentle stroke, with his tender words, something broke within her. Like the release of a dam, a flood of emotions surged through her. Yes. She would allow herself to be vulnerable. She would love Derek a little, let him into her heart, but only when they were in bed together. It was a devil’s pact, but Calla had no choice. She would let go. The sensation was as terrifying and exhilarating as diving from a cliff into a tumultuous sea.

Because she had no words, she let her body speak for her
. With every soft kiss she pressed against Derek's flesh, her heart cried out,
I’m yours.
With every loving stroke of her hands against his skin, she silently whispered,
take me.
With every brush of her lips against his, her thoughts screamed,
love me.
Over and over, with every impassioned embrace, with every lingering touch and soft caress, with every smoldering glance, with every fiber of her being.

She would have made the moment last forever if she could, but the physical ache building within her would wait no longer for release. Nor, it seemed, could
Derek wait any longer to attain his satisfaction. Grasping her about the waist, he rolled her onto her belly, then lifted her into position on her elbows and knees. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders as he dragged his fingers down her spine. Kneeling behind her, he pressed his hips up against the sweetly rounded flesh of her ass, his thickened cock rubbing against her.

Calla
's eyes widened at the foreignness of the position, but her body seemed to respond of its own accord. He guided himself inside her. Her innermost lips parted to allow him admittance to the warm, silky chamber between her thighs. She heaved a blissful sigh at the delicious friction, the wonder of him filling her so completely.

There was no gentleness in her husband’s touch. His need was too urgent, as was hers. He drove into her, his hips pounding against her ass,
moving with increasing speed and intensity. Her breasts swayed pendulously. Her breath came in short, gasping pants as tension seized her. Her belly began to churn, sending quivering pulses of desire through her limbs.

Derek sustained the motion of his
hips, impaling her body over and over against the steel rigidity of his cock. She felt as though she were flying and falling at the same time, racing headlong toward a cliff from which she would surely plummet and never be seen again.

Suddenly a shuddering explosion of wonder and
satisfaction filled her body. Her limbs tingled and stiffened. Liquid release poured through her as she arched her back and cried out, unable to silently contain her pleasure. In the next instant her strength vanished completely. Derek caught her around the waist and held her up, his powerful arm supporting her.

He shifted slightly, driving into her with long, hard, pounding strokes that filled her completely. Like her, he was unable to find his release in silence. As his body stiff
ened and his seed poured into her, he let out a low moan of hoarse, shuddering satisfaction.

Together they collapsed into the bedding.
Their lovemaking ended, he pulled her tightly against him. They lay spent and exhausted, tangled within each other's arms. Sweat slicked their bodies, coating their skin with a warm, silky glow. Slowly their passion receded, fading like a tide drifting back out to sea.

Calla let out a low, shuddering breath, then tilted
back her head to look into her husband’s smoky eyes. She uttered a single word. “Again.”

Chapter Seventeen

The sun had just
broken across the horizon, tinting the sky pale lavender, as Derek tucked his foot into his riding boot. Though he’d had little sleep the night before, he felt fine. Better than fine, actually. Energized. He moved quietly to his wardrobe to retrieve his coat, not wanting to disturb Calla. As he did, he cut a glance toward his bed. To his surprise, she wasn’t asleep at all, but sitting up and silently watching him.

She l
ooked strikingly beautiful. Her chestnut hair tumbled seductively over her shoulder, her face was soft and flushed. Unless she’d risen during the night to draw on a nightshift—which he doubted, as he’d been achingly aware of her every breath, her every movement—her body was gloriously naked beneath the sheets.

Silk sheets,
he noted silently. Even by his own standards, his room was stark, almost oppressively masculine. As the chamber was private, he rarely gave it any thought. But months ago he’d seen those scandalous linens in a shop window and knew he had to have them. Sheets that were a rich, lush blue. A blue that shimmered and danced, catching every light. Bed linen that was the blazing blue of the Bay of Bengal.

The same blue of Calla’s eyes.
Coincidence? he wondered. Or a foreshadowing of her explosion into his life? He considered the timing. It was entirely possible he’d purchased the linens on the very day Calla had set foot on the ship to England. Had he sensed her drawing near, the way a sleeper awakens at the presence of a stranger? Perhaps that was pure invention on his part, but somehow the conjecture rang true.

“Take me with you
,” Calla said, her voice husky with sleep.

“
I’ll arrange for a carriage ride later.”

“
That’s not the same thing.”

Derek hesitated.
There were a thousand reasons why she shouldn’t go, and only one reason she should. He wanted her with him.

“
Do you ride as well as you used to?”

She tossed back her head.
She arched one dark brow in an expression of mischievous pride. “Better.”

“
I’ll have the groom prepare the horses.” Derek smiled and left her to attend her toilette.

Hyde Park. Calla leaned low over her mare’s neck, the frosty air burning her lungs as she galloped across an open field. Exhilarating. Later, at a more respectable hour, crowds would gather as London’s fashionable braved the cold to parade in the chilly winter air, exchanging gossip and pleasantries. But for now, the park was nearly abandoned, leaving her and Derek to do as they pleased.

They raced.
Headlong and heedless of propriety, rushing across an open promenade, their horses’ hooves thundering beneath them in wild abandon. Calla sensed Derek’s mount pulling ahead, but he held the gelding in check, keeping abreast of her as the open field narrowed into a series of smaller paths. There they drew back, slowing their mounts to a steady trot, and then a walk.

Calla
let out a throaty laugh that was part satisfaction, part heady thrill. She turned and beamed at Derek.

“That felt wonderful,” she gushed. “We haven’t done that in ages.”

“No, we haven’t.”

Something in his expression
told her that his thoughts had turned in the same direction as hers. Softly she said, “You remember, then.”

“Yes. I remember.”

Their eyes met. For a moment they were no longer in a frigid park in London, but transported a decade back in time to a sultry afternoon in Calcutta, where they had raced as children along the banks of the Hooghly River.

Calla
allowed her thoughts to turn inward. Derek Arindam Jeffords had matured into a powerful, formidable man. But in that brief instant she could still see the boy in him. Lithe, limber, and daring. Full of masculine pride and swaggering disdain for his feminine guests. She had been aware of him even when he thought she wasn’t.

“You used to hide and watch my sisters and me
,” she said. “You were supposed to entertain us. Instead, you’d disappear. A desperate attempt to escape our feminine clutches, I suppose. It drove your mother crazy. She’d turn the house upside down sending the servants looking for you.”

“I
didn’t go very far away.”

“I know.
” She thought for a moment. “Your favorite spot was the attic rafters just above the nursery.”

“You knew
where I was?” Surprise showed on his face. “You never gave me away.”

“
Certainly not,” she replied indignantly. Then she smiled again. “Actually, that became my favorite game: finding you without letting on that I knew where you were.”

He studied her in silence, his eyes as gray and shadowed as the winter sky. Yet something about his expression was decidedly intimate. His gaze raked over her features. His lips parted. He shifted in his saddle, leaning slightly toward her. Calla braced herself for his touch, or perhaps just a word or two that would set her insides melting.

“
Your ears are bright pink,” he said.

She
laughed and shook her head. “And here I thought you were getting ready to say something shockingly romantic.”

He smiled. “I’m yours to command—but
first let’s find your bonnet before your ears get frostbite.”

They nudged their horses around and retraced their path.
After a few minutes of searching they found her bonnet—a beautiful straw confection lined with navy silk and trimmed with a festive sprig of holly—near the base of a group of evergreen trees. Presumably carried by the breeze off the path they’d ridden. Derek dismounted and disentangled the bonnet. He strode to her side and presented it to her with a polite bow.

Calla reached for it.

Instead of releasing the bonnet, Derek caught her wrist and pulled her from her mount, catching her against the wall his chest. Calla gave a startled cry, a cry that was immediately captured by Derek’s mouth. He kissed her hungrily, deeply. His tongue delved into her mouth in a kiss of scorching intensity. A kiss that made her weak at the knees. She was sure she would have dissolved into a puddle at his feet had his arm not been locked around her waist to support her.

His breathing ragged, he dragged his mouth away from hers to kiss his way down her neck, his breath sending waves of heat against her throat. Melting her resistance. He nibbled the sensitive skin at the base of her throat, just above her collarbone. Calla heaved a dramatic sigh. A shiver raced through her as her limbs turned to liquid. She capitulated completely, letting him take her, giving herself over to the pleasure of his touch.

The balsam scent of the trees mixed with the
rich, masculine scent of his skin and the leather of their saddles, an aroma she found thoroughly intoxicating. If she could bottle that scent and sell it, she’d be the richest woman in all of England.

An exuberant
whoop!
shattered the morning air. Calla jerked her gaze to a spot over Derek’s head. A group of young men raced one another through the park, releasing their excitement with good-natured jeers and catcalls.

“Derek—”

He drew her more deeply into the shelter of the trees. “It’s all right. No one can see us here.”

“Are you
certain?”

“Do you care?”

“I…actually, no.”

“
Excellent response, Lady Keating. The hell with propriety.”

With a satisfied smirk, he resumed his sensual exploration of her body.
He kissed and nuzzled and nibbled, sending tremors of fiery bliss through her body. Calla threw back her head and clutched his shoulders as a familiar ache began to build in her lower belly. Her blood began to race.
Pati
. Her husband. What he could do to her with a single touch. A simple caress. She could only surrender. Beg for more.

Drawing aside her
heavy wool cape, he nipped at the lace edge of her décolletage with his teeth. He had not yet had his morning shave. The prickly stubble on his chin grazed against the velvety softness of her breasts, a sensation that was maddeningly erotic. She felt her nipples pucker. The soft cotton of her chemise became unbearably grating on her overly sensitized breasts. She was desperate for the touch of his mouth, the soft swirl of his tongue against her hard, peaked nipples. She wanted him to take her into his mouth and lick and suckle. Yes, she wanted that.
Now
. She writhed against him and gave a throaty purr of need.

He freed her blouse from the waistband of her riding skirt and traced his hands up her ribcage.

Calla yelped and jerked out of his embrace. “
Oh!
Your hands are like ice.”

Derek drew back, blinking. “What? Oh. Sorry.” He blew on his hands, then briskly rubbed
his palms together. His skin was chapped and red, rough and raw from the cold.

“Where are your gloves?” she demanded.

“I recently realized I don’t need the bloody things.”

“Do
n’t need them? But it’s freezing!”

“
I found someone who needed them more than I did.”

“But—”

“
Forget the damn gloves.” He gave a low chuckle and shook his head. “They don’t matter. You matter.”

“
I matter more than gloves?”

“
Yes. You and everything you stand for.”

Calla studied him with a frown, thoroughly confused.
“What do I stand for?”

His expression—normally
so fiercely proud, perhaps even aloof and forbidding to those who didn’t know him—softened as he looked at her. He gently traced one finger along the scar that ran along her jawbone.

“
India,” he murmured. His lips followed the path his finger had taken. “England,” he continued, trailing kisses down the column of her throat. “You’re a veritable paradox,
jaanu
. Spicy curry and tea sweetened with honey. Blazing summers and icy winters. Fine English porcelain and cheap Delhi trinkets. A steel will hidden within a body softer than velvet.”

He pressed his hand against the small of her back, drawing her more tightly into his embrace.
“Now where were we?”

Calla lifted her face to his. Her lips parted in invitation. “I think you were about to—”

Another loud
whoop!
told them the fine young lords had returned, this time trailing a group of pretty maids running their morning errands. The group swerved closer, throwing curious glances their way. They passed without comment, but their presence could no longer be ignored. With the rising of the sun more hearty souls were venturing into the park. Clearly the magic of the moment had passed.

             
Derek released a defeated sigh and stepped back. “Your bonnet, Lady Keating.”

             
This time he allowed her to take it from his hand. He watched her secure the ribbons beneath her chin. Then he wrapped his hands around her waist and boosted her effortlessly into her saddle. Calla stifled the idiotic grin that threatened to break across her face at his gesture. She was utterly hopeless. Even that small display of strength had her mind imagining the rippling, corded sinew beneath his coat, had her wicked thoughts remembering the way his muscles flexed and quivered when she ran her fingertips over his skin.

             
“Ready?” he asked.

She gave a mute nod. They rode side-by-side, moving at a leisurely pace
through the streets of London toward the Keating estate. When they arrived, however, they found Derek’s normally well-ordered home had been pitched into a state of mild chaos.

Bellowes
greeted them in the foyer. “I wasn’t certain where your guests should be received,” he said. Obviously flustered, he withdrew a handkerchief and blotted the perspiration from his forehead. “If I had known they were expected…”

“
My guests?” Derek queried.

Bellowes nodded.
“They presented themselves at the servant’s entrance—which was quite proper—but it seemed unlikely you and Lady Keating would want to receive them below stairs.”

“Receive
who?”

The older man blinked. “Why, t
he lascars, my lord.”

Calla looked at Derek
. She expected to see confusion on his face—that was certainly what she felt. Instead, an expression of dark satisfaction marked his features.

“Where are they?” he
asked.

“The rear parlor,” Bellowes repli
ed. He gave a dignified sniff. “I didn’t know where else to put them. This is all highly irregular. Particularly at this hour. As I said, had I known to expect—”

“Thank you, Bellowes,” Derek cut him off.
He thought for a moment. “We will require tea, and perhaps some sustenance. Oh, and send a runner to Inspector Nevins’ office. I suspect he would like to join us, as well.”