Anne Gracie - [The Devil Riders 02] (29 page)

She arrowed her fingers through his hair, cupping the scar, massaging his head lightly. “You might have died,” she said softly.

He gave an indifferent shrug, as if he didn’t care. Nell was shocked. But she supposed it was how men at war had to think, otherwise they’d be paralyzed with fear.

As she almost was. She had to get on, on to the part she both dreaded and longed for, the part where they joined. She’d distracted herself with his scars, but he must be getting impatient. Not to mention cold.

“Are you cold?”

He gave her a slow smile. “Do I feel cold?”

She ran her palms across his shoulders and down his arms, then smoothed them across his chest and slowly down his stomach. No, he didn’t feel cold. Nor did she for that matter.

There was not an ounce of fat on the man; he was all hard muscle, sinew, and bone.

Power. She remembered how small and light and helpless she’d felt as he’d tossed her over his shoulder that time. She recalled how he’d throbbed against her palm in that darkened stable.

He could have taken her at any time.

She brushed her fingers across his small, hard nipples, and he arched a little and made a soft sound deep in his throat. He liked it. Did it feel like when she touched her own nipples? When she’d been pregnant, they were so sensitive . . . She could feel them now, brushing against the cotton of her nightgown.

She circled the small male nipples, around and around, feeling his involuntary response. She scratched her nails lightly across them. He inhaled sharply and the gray gaze darkened.

He didn’t try to control her. He just lay there, watching her with smoky gray eyes, letting her touch him as she willed.

She could feel her own heartbeat. It was racing and she panted, as though she’d been running a race.

Nerves, she told herself. The more she dallied in this pleasurable exploration of his body, the more the thing she had to do was delayed. Get it over with. Get it done.

She took a deep breath and let her hand continue its exploratory path down the hard ridges of his stomach, following the line of dark hair that led toward his . . . shaft. The word came to her at last. His shaft.

With one finger she stroked it from the base to the tip, then ran the tip of her finger around the head. His breath hitched in, and she took a quick glance at his face. His eyes were heavy-lidded and dark. Keeping her eyes on his face she ran her finger around the head of his shaft again, and again he gave a ragged gasp and clenched his jaw. The muscles of his arms and legs were corded. His heels dug into the mattress and he clenched the sheets in his fists, as if anchoring himself to the bed.

“It’s not pain you’re feeling, is it?” she asked, stroking him as she spoke. The skin of his shaft was velvety soft. Beneath it he was hard and hot.

He shook his head and gritted his teeth.

“You like this, don’t you?”

His eyes burned into her in silent, potent confirmation, and she felt a small feminine thrill. She was doing this to him. She gripped his shaft at the base with her whole hand and ran it very slowly to the knob at the end. He groaned and flung his head back. She ran her hand up and down again, squeezing firmly and again he moaned and clenched his body as if in pain. There was a bead of moisture at the tip and she ran the hollow of her palm over it, around and around, and he shuddered violently.

“No more,” he grated, his jaw clenched and his head flung back.

She let go of him instantly. “What is is?”

He opened his eyes and gave her a flat look. “I’m ready to mate with you and one more touch like that and I’ll ejaculate.”

She understood at once. Stallions did it, too.

She went cold. He was giving her a way out. Letting her know she didn’t have to go through with it.

But she did, she did. She had to get it over with. She would not live her life in fear of this, she would not.

The time had come. She pulled up her nightgown to halfway up her thighs and said, “Then come on, mate with me. Now.”

He didn’t move for a moment, so she reached out and grasped him again. He needed no second urging. He surged on top of her, spread her legs, and touched her there. She stiffened as she felt his fingers parting her flesh. He stroked her lightly and she started to relax, but then he touched something and a sudden convulsion arced through her. Before she had time to think, his hand moved again, and again a hot spear of sensation roiled through her.

He made a deep masculine sound in his throat and she felt him enter her. He thrust once, twice.

And she went blank.

Harry felt it at once, felt her stiffen, her body freeze. He was sure it wasn’t hurting her. She was ready for him, she was warm and wet and slippery, and she’d been so sweetly responsive.

He stopped moving at once. “Nell, what is it? What’s the matter?”

She didn’t respond. She was stiff, but her whole body shook. And not in a good way.

“Nell? Sweetheart?”

Her eyes were closed, her face set in a grimace.

Harry knew immediately what he’d done. He’d effectively pinned her down so she couldn’t move. He cursed himself silently. There was only one thing he could think of to do.

Still deep inside her, he rolled over, taking her with him. Then, though it was just about killing him, he watched her face and waited.

It felt like forever before her stiffness drained away and her eyes cautiously opened. Confused, she stared down at him. “What are you doing? Finish it.”

He shook his head. “You finish it. Or not. Your choice.”

She stared down at him. “But you’re the man.”

“And you’re the woman,” he answered softly. “It takes two.”

Her brow furrowed. “How?”

“You can ride, can’t you?” He placed his hands on her hips and moved her a little, to give her the idea. “This way you control everything.”

Not quite believing him, she moved experimentally and he saw as well as felt her response. Scowling in concentration, she moved again. He groaned and slipped his hand between them. She started as she felt him stroke the tiny nub, then gasped. He felt her body clench around him in response.

It was going to be all right, he thought dazedly as the last of his ragged control dissolved and he surged upward, into her. She gasped and gripped him inside and out, with thighs and inner muscles. He bucked and thrust and she rode him as masterfully as any horse, faster and faster, gasping with each movement even as she urged him on.

At the last moment, when he knew he was about to come, he called her name. “Nell, Nell!” Assertively, needing her to respond.

Her eyes flew open and she stared at him, dazed, preoccupied, riding him furiously.

“Look. At. Me,” Harry grated, and her eyes locked with his, and in that moment, joined in mind and body, they arched in a long, shuddering climax. He heard a faint high cry join with his hoarse shout of triumph, then everything splintered around them.

 
 
A
fter some time, Harry became aware that she was lying on his naked chest, weeping silently.

Something in his chest clenched. There was nothing a man could do when a woman wept, except to hold her. He’d learned that from Barrow, when he was a young boy and was shocked to see Mrs. Barrow, the strongest woman he’d even known, weeping in Barrow’s arms.

“Men chop wood, or punch things,” Barrow had told him afterward. “Women weep. There’s naught to do, lad, except to hold them and love them until it passes.”

So Harry held Nell, soothing her with his hands, stroking her hair, holding her against him, loving her silently.

Loving her?

Oh God. He hadn’t expected that. He pushed the thought away. He wasn’t ready to think about anything like that.

He eased her down beside him, murmuring meaningless comforting phrases. “There, there . . . it’s all right . . .” Not having the least idea of what they meant.

Damp tendrils of hair clung to her cheeks and forehead, and as he smoothed them away, without quite thinking about it, he planted small kisses where each tendril had lain: her cheekbones, her temples, kissing her eyelids and tasting salt.

She looked up at him with tear-drenched eyes and he kissed the corners of her eyes, then down along her jawline to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. She curled against his mouth like a cat. Desire flared again as he tasted, kissed, comforted. And aroused.

This time, he resolved, it would be all about pleasuring her. Not copulation. Making love.

That word again. Love.

He closed his eyes and returned to kissing her.

“No,” she said suddenly and pushed him away.

He froze. What had he done?

“Didn’t you hear the clock chime just now?” She sat up. “It’s quarter to eight. Rafe and Luke will be here any minute.

We need to get dressed and get ready to leave.” She slipped out of his arms and out of bed.

Harry sighed and pulled a sheet around him.

 
 
A
nother fruitless day of searching. It had grown very cold, and Nell was huddled into a fur rug. Because of the rain this morning, Harry had hired a chaise, which had come with a driver. The closed chaise provided more privacy as well as protection from the elements. Nell sat beside Harry on the seat with her feet tucked up, leaning against him, tucked into the curve of his arm with her cheek snuggled against his shoulder.

However awkward and fraught with tension this morning’s lovemaking had been, the result had been a new physical easiness with each other. Harry was glad of it.

Nell had been silent for most of the last hour.

They couldn’t see much; the drizzle fogged up the windows, but the smoother ride told him they were back on main roads again and nearing London. The carriage lamps had been lit a short while before. Their blurry golden glow swung rhythmically in time with the horses’ hooves.

“Papa brought him to Firmin Court,” she said, as if continuing a conversation. “He’d been playing cards with him at some house party and he invited him home. For me, I suppose. Papa wanted me to get married, and Firmin Court was a tempting dowry.”

She was tempting enough as she was, Harry thought, but he didn’t interrupt. He’d known at once who she was talking about. He didn’t know what had prompted her to talk about it now—perhaps the intimacy of the closed carriage with the rain falling outside, the swish of the wheels, and the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves.

“I disliked him on sight,” she said. “You know how sometimes you meet someone for whom you have an instant, unreasonable antipathy?”

“Yes.”

“It wasn’t that I knew the kind of man he was,” she qualified. “I just disliked him. He was good-looking, I suppose, but his eyes were too close-set and he had a mean mouth. He smiled too hard at me and gave me all sorts of compliments but he never actually looked at me. All the time he was looking around the house, summing up its value.” She paused. “I could see he was disappointed. Papa always did put things in the best possible light. I was a beauty and the estate rich and full of priceless treasures.”

“You are a beauty,” Harry said. “And the estate will become rich, just you wait and see.”

She smiled. “Sir—he couldn’t see it.”

Damn, she’d almost let the name slip. Harry was determined to learn it.

She was silent for a while, then said, “He was the sort of man who chased the housemaids. Even when they’re not willing.” Her fingers tightened around his arm. “Especially when they’re not willing. Our housemaids were good girls. Both were betrothed to men on the estate. He didn’t care.”

“What happened?” Harry prompted.

“I caught him trying to rape one of them. I hit him over the head with a wet mop. He was furious. The mop was a bit smelly, but I didn’t care. I was furious, too. I berated him in front of her and all the other servants. I ripped into him, calling him all manner of unflattering epithets.” She grimaced.

“I made an enemy of him at that moment. It was too late for him to leave that night, but I told him he was to leave in the morning.”

She took a shaky breath and continued, “I didn’t trust him. I posted two footmen at the foot of the stairs to the maids’ quarters.” She shuddered. “It never occurred to me that he would come after me—a gentleman’s daughter in her own home.”

Harry hugged her tight, saying nothing.

“B-but he did,” she finished shakily. “And I brought it on myself.”

“Nonsense,” he growled fiercely. “It was not your fault in the least. You protected those girls and it was the right thing to do. Your father should have thrown him out then and there.”

She sighed. “Papa had lost the game, he was drunk, insensible. Besides, he never would have suspected a gentleman would . . . do that.”

The way she always defended her father irritated him. The man was useless. He’d let her down in every possible way, and yet she loved him still. “He should have done it to protect his servants. It was his responsibility as their employer.”

“Y-yes, but it was I who humiliated him—”

“By stopping his nasty habits?”

“By insulting him in front of the servants.”

He snorted. “You heaped insults on my head at the top of your voice in front of the whole of Bath and it didn’t bother me in the least.”

She frowned at him and said slowly, “Yes, but you’re different.”

“Exactly. I’m not a filthy rapist who preys on women. I’m a man.”

She stared at him for a moment, her lips trembling. “Yes, you are a man—a wonderful man.” And she flung her arms around him and hugged him convulsively.

He gathered her against him. “It was not your fault, not in the least.”

“No, no, it wasn’t,” she mumbled into his neck. Slowly he felt the tension drain out of her.

After a long silence she sighed and rubbed her cheek against the fabric of his coat. “I feel so much better now that we’ve talked about it,” she told him. “There’s just one more thing I need to tell you, and then it’s done and I will never have to speak of it again.”