Vermillion (The Hundred Days Series Book 1) (29 page)

He grabbed at one wrist, hand
shaking, halting her fingers' expedition to his collar. “Kate, if you're
teasing me, now is the time –”

She cut the rest of his sentence
with her lips. It was unlike any first kiss she'd had before. Matthew's groan
set her blood that much closer to boiling. No timid invitation, no care taken
as their mouths claimed a bit more with each advance. Kate recognized her own
desperate brutality, catching flesh, his and her own, again and again between
their teeth.

She punished him for weeks of
unrealized frustration. A faint taste of some deep claret wine coated her
tongue in his mouth, hinting at a spiciness that had mellowed since dinner. A
palm, warm against the small of her back, trapped her against his chest.
Matthew wriggled out of his coat, his grip on her neck pressing her close so
their kiss went unbroken a moment longer. Then his arms laced around her neck,
crushing her, combing fingers through her hair.

She felt him gather a handful of
curls, drawing a deep breath. “Have you any idea,” he murmured, “how often I
think of this at bedtime? Dream of you after?”

Unfair
, cried her body. He
could not speak those words and then go right on stroking her hair, brushing
lips behind her ear. Kate pressed her breasts against his shirt, begging
silently for him to do more than tease her. Matthew was too much of a
gentleman. She did not want manners or compliments. They had long since
established their affection, embers glowing faithfully. She wanted those embers
fanned into consuming flames.

Losing patience, Kate jammed fingers
into the waistband of his trousers. She wanted him and nothing else mattered.
With three sharp yanks, his shirt tail came free. It went off over his head,
but Kate had no idea which of them got credit. Matthew grabbed for her, just as
eager to close the distance, but Kate flattened a palm against his shoulder. He
had presented her with a singular opportunity, a fulfillment of a long-held
desire.

“Wait, wait,” she panted. Glancing
behind, she judged distance to the table and planted herself atop it with a
bounce. She hooked two fingers over the band of his trousers, towing him to
stand between her knees.

Matthew smiled, but it was colored
with a kind of wild desperation. “Woman, you are killing me. What are you
about?”

She smiled back, refusing to be
hurried. For a few moments, Kate did nothing but study his tattoo. Usually
reserved for sailors or convicts, on Matthew it had an irresistible effect. It
was a taboo attraction. His tiger hinted at the dangerous man Matthew had been,
still
was
inside.

She had indulged in little fantasies
from time to time, of exploring his tattoo further, stroking its bold lines
without the nerves and shame she had felt in the surgery. With the opportunity
now in front of her, she resolved to make the most of it.

Just as she had the first time, Kate
rested a fingertip alongside Matthew's breastbone, in the path of the tiger's
swipe. She drew the wild cat's sleek lines with an eager nail. Matthew sucked
in a breath, twitching against her hand. “Kate –”

“Shh.” Bridging his lips with
another finger, she cut off his protest. She bit knees harder into his hips,
scooting closer along the table top. Matthew's
'mmmm'
came on a rushed
breath, his head falling back.

Curving palms around his ribs, she
smoothed the tight skin of his back, scratching nails along the flesh above his
trousers. There was no feeling him enough. With the tip of her nose, Kate
traced a line along the tiger, feathering its length with slow kisses. She came
to Matthew's nipple, ringed by the cat's haunches and grazed it with her teeth,
tearing a groan from his chest. She realized too late, as his chest heaved,
that she had trespassed too far.

Wide hands pushed her back, then
drug her hungrily from her seat and against his body. Under the pressure of
Matthew's thumb, her shift's fabric scraped across a nipple. Gasping, arching,
Kate pressed into his palm. He murmured approval into the curve of her neck,
breath dampening fevered skin. It was a sound that ignited need low in her
belly. She wanted to hear it again. His hands were everywhere on her, tracing
her hips, arms, breasts, acquainting himself with her shape. Matthew sculpted
every curve.

She answered in kind, palms moving
from stubbled jaw to the thick skin of his back and down the rigid muscles of
his stomach, teasing at his scar. He winced under her thumb's pressure, at a
throbbing she knew well. It came from near the bone and would last months after
the flesh had healed. She chuckled, burying her face in his shoulder. “I won't
press you, if you're too injured to go on.”

“You've put me together right enough
to get the job done,” he laughed.

As punishment, Kate ran a palm hard
down the front of his thigh. Matthew's knees buckled a little, and he gasped
her name. Every inch of him was perfect, made to be touched. And she
was
touching. Months of twining tighter and tighter around each other until now,
when they would finally become one. Kate's head swam at the realization, as
much as at their breathless kisses.

Matthew's hands worked at gathering
the hem of her shift, fumbling it twice with a groan. She offered help, but the
fabric was too voluminous, pinched in place by his chest and her arms. He
pulled away, searching the room. “Is there...can we –”

They shared the same thought. “Mmm.”
She jerked him by the wrist, one backwards step at a time across the tent, eyes
never leaving his. She offered guilty thanks for Doctor Addison's massive bed,
sparing them now from an unforgiving floor. Matthew's fists balled into the
fabric at her shoulders, taking them both to the feather mattress with a rough
shove.

Lips reunited, Kate fumbled a hand
between their bodies, pinching at the small pewter buttons fastening his
trousers. Matthew's hand caressed her hip, bunching the crisp fabric there all
the way to her belly. She tugged down on his waistband, panting desperately.
Her nails teased along the muscles of his buttocks, biting into his flesh and
earning a grunt. He pulled the shift over her head in one deft tug, and they
were naked together save for his trousers.
How long had it been
, she
wondered, shy about her body for the first time in years. Too mindless to add
the figures, Kate set the question free, losing it in the weight of Matthew's
hips pinning her down. It didn't matter. This felt right, all the way to her
soul. That left no room to be self-conscious. Kate arched her breasts against
his bare skin and inhaled sharply.

In what she guessed could only be a
fit of madness caused by passion, Matthew began to pull away,
standing up
to remove his breeches. “No!” She shook her head violently, clutching the open
waistband to draw him back. “Hmm mm.”

Falling against her, Matthew knotted
fingers into her tangle of hair, pulling gently and forcing her to meet his
gaze. “Kate...” He worked to catch his breath, squeezing eyes shut for just a
moment. Slow, ragged breaths rushed in through his nose. “By God it would kill
me now, but if there is a bit of doubt in your heart...”

Even through the heartbeat
thundering in her ears, Kate caught the gentle subtext of his words. He was not
asking if she had doubts about making love; he was asking if she had doubts
about
him
. Kate willed herself to fall completely against the mattress,
letting him weight her fully, and slid both arms over her head to the pillow in
a show of surrender. Slowly, slower than she'd thought herself capable of by
then, she raised her lips to his. Barely brushing his skin, she whispered, “
Matthew
.”

At the invitation, he pressed deep
into her with hunger, without preamble. Kate winced against the sharp
intrusion, then sighed. She was whole.

Digging fingers through the coarse
black hair smattered across his chest, she cupped his shoulders and laced
fingers at the back of his neck, pulling his mouth against her own. Teasing,
she drew away from the force of his hips and wriggled deeper into the mattress.

He chased her, arching harder,
nipping the skin of her breast. His mouth moved back over hers, making his
lower lip her target. Driven to the brink, Kate crushed it between her teeth
until he winced.

She had hurt him
. “I'm
sorry...easier?”

Matthew's fingers shackled her
wrists, pinning both arms above her on the cool mattress. “No easiness, love.”
Heated words tore from his throat into the sweat of her shoulder. “I have no
pace but desperation.” He demonstrated the words, every stroke gaining
aggression until her thighs ached. His chest crushed her lungs and his mouth
stole her breath. Still it was not enough.

Kate slipped her knees to his hips,
opening to catch his every move, to take him into her soul. She was desperate
to be pushed over the edge. Her groans echoed back where the flesh of his ear
brushed at her lips. Her tongue traced his corded neck muscles, tasting smoke,
salt stinging her lips. “Matthew...” She nipped hard on his earlobe, feeling
him stiffen against her. She whispered his name again.
“Matthew.”

Maybe he heard something in the
word, a need she hadn't known was there, or perhaps his name alone was
encouragement. Matthew doubled his effort, coiling the tension deep in Kate's
belly near to snapping. She gave up on conscious thought, reason, even rhythm
as he drove her into the mattress again and again.

“Kate, Kate...” His voice came soft
and ragged, too delirious and exerted for the effort of entirely forming her
name. She realized he felt it too; Matthew's hoarse words mirrored her own
mindless worry that the end would not come, that they would reach the precipice
but never tumble over together.

That fear taunted her even as the
trembling began. His panting condensed on her throat, mingling with sweat
trickling off his shoulders and between her breasts. It ran down his back,
slicking her fingertips. The tremor spread to her thighs, moving outward like
ripples in a pond. When it finally consumed her, she would belong to Matthew
entirely.

Her gasps became a string of moans.
Hooking a leg over his back, she twined arms tight behind his neck, her every
muscle taut.

Matthew grunted his approval. He
ground her lips into his teeth, catching her cries in his mouth and mingling
them with his own. Kate arched, pushing against his hips, begging him closer.
He obliged her with a final unbridled thrust, her body clutching at the effort.
Matthew's groans canceled out her scream, caught by their mouths and muted into
something like a vibration in her chest. It joined the quiver in her limbs,
feeding the deliciously violent way that Matthew's body wracked against her.        They
fell tangled against the quilt, panting together, her eyes pressed shut.

Kate gathered herself, performing a
mental examination. They had crossed a point of no return tonight, and she was
anxious to see how different she felt. Perplexed, she discovered she did not
feel different at all, only
right
.

She feathered Matthew's hair where
his head lay heavy against her breasts. Their hearts pounded at each other
through her ribs and the sounds of camp came back into focus. His body's weight
pinning her to the mattress was a delicious restraint, and she lay silently
under Matthew for long moments until the sweat had cooled enough for her to
think clearly.

The men were bound to treat them
both differently, if they found out. That would be complicated enough. But what
if Matthew began making allowances, or showing her favor, even with the best of
intentions? She was used to working for and earning what she had. She didn't
want to be coddled. Trying more to convince herself than Matthew, Kate
swallowed a mouthful of nerves. “This does not change anything between us.”
Spoken aloud, she knew it sounded hollow and ridiculous in light of what they
had just shared.

Matthew's chuckling vibrated along
her length. He raised up onto his forearms, flesh peeling at hers from the
dampness between them. His grin stirred something in her belly, something
clearly not satisfied by his first assault. “You cannot mean that seriously.”
His hips shifted meaningfully between her smarting thighs. “Not when I'm still
body and soul inside you, Kate.”

Kate turned her face away, hot from
neck to hairline, and bit her lip at his frankness. She wondered at his use of
'soul' but refused to explore it and lose her momentum. “I don't want special
treatment because we're lovers. You
have
to challenge me.” She raked
knuckles idly up his back, smoothing the little curls of skin she had torn
free. “You keep me anchored. I need that, Matthew.”

He caught her cheek in one rough
palm, pulling her face back to meet the storm in his gray eyes. “Then promise
me the same. You've made me a better man, Kate. By your affection, your wit –
and
wits –
but mainly by your damnable, contrary will.” His every word
was softened with a brush of his lips.

Her heart squeezed, and she grinned.
“You mean I out-stubborned you?”

“Yes!” He laughed in earnest. “Yes.
And whatever comes now, I never want that to end. Do you understand?”

She nodded, holding silent, studying
Matthew's face in an effort to burn his features into her memory. Whatever
their future held, she wanted to remember him exactly, in these first few
moments after they had given themselves completely to one another. She could
lose him, Kate realized. Tomorrow or a week on. Battle could steal him from
her, and all she would have were these moments.

A sensation broke her reverie. She
became aware of movement, of Matthew's hips rocking against her, heat
rekindling deep in her belly. “What are you doing?”

His face drew up with genuine
concern. “Shall I stop?”