Cates, Kimberly (35 page)

"We
don't have to continue, Norah, unless you want to."

He
was making her decide. Offering her a chance to retreat from what he'd begun in
a fit of pure devilment. Why? Because he was beset by some errant twinge of
guilt about the day's events? Or because he was as shaken as she was by the
emotions he'd unwittingly unleashed between them, this sizzling heat that
pounded in her blood?

He
had hurt her, confused her, trampled over the hidden, vulnerable places in her
soul. He had taken their wedding day and cast it aside as if it had meant
little more to him than the sheaf of cards strewn across the bed. And yet,
after all that had happened, he had come to her tonight because she had asked
him to. He had come in order to spare her further humiliation.

If
she turned him away, what purpose would it serve? To hurt him, when he was
already so filled with emotional scars? To maintain a grasp on her pride?

Her
pride was a cold bedfellow. One that had shared her nights for twenty-some
years. Now this man, with his hot hands, his sulky, sensual mouth, his green
eyes that lit fire beneath her skin, was offering her a night far different.
Perhaps he could not give her the love she craved with all her heart, but he
was offering her the sweet intoxication of his mouth, the skilled play of his
hands, the carnal promise that shimmered in every dark strand of his hair,
every sinew of thigh and chest and shoulder.

To
surrender her virginity to a man she was in love with. To have him guide her
into rivers of passion for the first time, delve into places that had never
been touched, spill his seed deep into her womb. Had she ever truly believed
such a miracle could happen to her?

It
was a dizzying gift, one Norah hungered for in the deepest reaches of her
battered heart. If she only had the courage to reach out and take it.

Mustering
all her courage, she reached for the cards. Those unfathomable green eyes mated
with hers, an almost physical possession that left her aching.

"Norah."
Just her name. Ragged. Hungry, a fine sheen of sweat glistening on his
half-bared body. But that wasn't enough for her now.

"I
want to raise the stakes," she breathed, feeling as if she were a stranger
to herself.

"Name
your wager."

She
couldn't look at him, her pulse so wild for a heartbeat she couldn't speak.
"That if I lose, we... I mean that you will—will..."

"Will
what, sweetheart?"

She
raised her gaze to his. "Ravish me, Aidan."

Silence
gathered up a thousand threads of desire the game had woven between them into a
crushing fist of need. Norah watched as Aidan's eyes darkened, until they were
almost black, his nostrils flaring. Hunger. Primitive, raw masculine hunger. It
shivered in his eyes, deepening, intensifying, compelling response from the
most feminine parts of Norah's being.

She
dealt the cards, fumbling, but at that instant Aidan caught her hand, engulfing
it in long, hot fingers. "I forfeit."

"What?"

"I
admit defeat. No. I embrace defeat."

"But
you haven't even looked at your cards."

"You've
beaten me with weapons I doubt you can even understand. Or do you understand
more than I think, my sweet, solemn little bride? Do you know exactly what
you're doing to me with those wide, wondering eyes of yours, and those velvet
lips?"

A
tiny cry escaped her as he dashed the cards off the bed, letting them flutter
to the floor. He levered himself onto his hands and knees, shifting until he
was so close to her she was engulfed by his shadow, overwhelmed by the latent
power of his body.

"Are
you sure, Norah? That you want this? I'll be damned if I'll let you string
yourself out across this bed like some virgin sacrifice because Montgomery is
lodging across the hall. Do you want this? Do you want... me?"

His
voice was so hard, roughened with need, and yet there was vulnerability
underneath.

Do
you want me?

There
were shadows of another woman's rejections still in Aidan Kane's eyes—a rejection
that the arms of countless other lovers had not managed to cleanse. Women far
more beautiful than she had tried it, Norah was certain. Women with boundless
skill in the bedchamber, who would know what a man wanted and needed to satisfy
his carnal hungers.

But
she loved Aidan, Norah thought, her throat aching. Not the reckless scoundrel,
bent on his own destruction. But the battered knight who had somehow lost his
way. Surely that love should count for something.

His
breath teased her tingling lips. His heat seeped through the thin layer of her
nightgown. The musky-hot scent of male arousal filled her head, intoxicating
her. She wanted him to reach out to her, but he kept still, waiting for her to
answer.

She
did so the only way she knew how. She lifted her face until the pliant curves
of her lips brushed the hard lines of Aidan's own. With a groan of need, Aidan
delved one hand into the thickness of her hair, opening his mouth over hers in
a kiss that was all fiery hunger and fierce possession.

The
powerful weight of his body was lowered atop hers, the coarse hair spanning his
chest abrading the fragile skin revealed by the gaping bodice of her nightgown.
His thighs tangled with hers, impatient with the fine layers of cloth that
formed a barrier between them.

But
it was Aidan's lean hips that seduced her, rubbing with a delicious pressure in
a seductive rhythm against the subtle swell of her belly. Norah knew painfully
little about the rites she was about to be initiated into, but she knew enough
to recognize the rigid length of Aidan's sex for what it was as it branded its
imprint into her flesh.

She
gasped at the melting sensation it caused between the trembling columns of her
own thighs, a primal throbbing that tore a soft moan from her lips.

"Aidan,"
she breathed, as he trailed sweet kisses across her cheeks, her eyelids, her
throat. "Aidan..."

"Do
you want me, Norah? Then tell me. Tell me you want me.

"Yes.
I want you. I already told you that I—"

"Do
you want me to touch you? Underneath your nightgown, Norah? Where your skin is
all silky and soft?"

Her
cheeks stung, her body trembled. She'd asked him to ravish her, to ravish her
because she hadn't had the courage to ask him to love her, that plea too
painful in its impossibility. But why was he goading her? Why was he forcing
the words from her, when all she wanted was for him to kiss her and to hold
her?

But
she forced the words from her lips. "Yes. Touch me, Aidan."

"Where?"

"Under
my—my nightgown."

"Do
you want me to taste you?"

"T—Taste
me?" He made her sound like some pagan banquet, laid out for his delight.

"Take
off your gown, Norah. I need to see you, angel, see you all over."

She
nodded, more embarrassed than she'd ever been in her life, and yet so intrigued
it was like a fire pulsing in every part of her. He rolled to one side, his
eyes clinging to her with a feverish light. Her skin felt as if it were on fire
with shame—shame because she was not beautiful. Shame because of her own
wantonness.

She
closed her eyes, unwilling to see Aidan's reaction when he first saw her,
fearful that it would wound her someplace she would never, ever heal. Then she
wriggled out of the flimsy garment that veiled her from his eyes.

The
silence was painful; the darkness behind her tightly closed lids failed to
block out her awareness that he was watching her. The cool drafts teased the
burning rosettes of her nipples, stirring the soft dusky down between her
trembling thighs. She clenched them together, covering her breasts
instinctively with her arms.

Dear
God, what did he want from her?
Tell me that you want me...
His words
echoed inside her.
Tell me
... Is that what this man needed from her? To
hear the words, to believe it was true?

"Aidan,"
she breathed. "Touch me."

"Where,
Norah? Where do you want me to touch you? Do you want me to touch your lovely
breasts? Those tight little buds that are throbbing? Or should I kiss them to
soothe away the ache?"

"I—I
don't know!" she cried helplessly. "I just... I told you I want you.
I don't know—know anything more. Why are you making me—"

"Because
I'm a scoundrel, Norah. A blackguard. Because I have to know that you want
this, or I swear by the devil himself I'll get up right now and leave your bed.
I had one wife who tolerated my caresses. I won't endure that again."

"I
told you I want you! How can I help it, with you lying there... your chest all
bare, your face... smiling that smile. It could seduce the very angels in
heaven."

"I
don't want to seduce any angel tonight but the one I just made my wife,"
he purred. "But be warned: I intend to seduce you most thoroughly, my
lady. Until you know what it is to be possessed completely by a man—even down
to your very soul. Until no other man can ever touch you so deeply, so
fiercely, no matter how many times you allow them to try."

"I
don't want anyone else... could never—" Norah's anguished protest ended in
a gasp she felt clear to her toes as Aidan's warm, callused palm cupped the
fluid weight of one breast. He lowered his dark head, and in a heartbeat his
mouth had fastened on the throbbing point of her nipple with an almost savage
hunger. No tender wooing, no gentle urgings, no awkward fumblings. Just
passion, in its most potent form. Desire without boundaries. Hunger that did
not assuage but consumed.

Hot
and wet, blessed with a fiendish skill, he suckled her, teased her, taunting
the hardened bud with the tip of his tongue until she arched into his moist
caress, urging him to draw harder, deeper.

Sensation
speared down to Norah's womb, tightening it in tiny, pulsing contractions, dampening
its entrance with dewy moisture, making her crave things only this man could
offer her: fulfillment, after an eternity of emptiness; the surging power of
Aidan Kane's passion after too many nights alone.

His
hands were everywhere—tracing her rib cage, splaying in ardent wonder over her
belly, tracing maddening patterns on the painfully sensitive flesh of her inner
thighs. He nibbled gently on the underside of her breast, traced his tongue in
a sizzling path down the delicate ridges of her ribs. Norah writhed, ragged
moans breaching her lips, her own hands clinging to Aidan's powerful shoulders,
threading through the thick, dark waves of his hair as he trailed hot kisses to
places she never dreamed a man's lips would dare find.

And
when he buried his face against the swell of her stomach, edged heated kisses
downward until his feverish breath stirred the dewy cleft between her thighs,
Norah all but screamed at the shattering sensation.

"Tell
me what you want, Norah. Do you want me to stop?" He dared her, taunted
her, insufferably certain of her answer. "Or do you want me to kiss you
here, sweetheart?" he asked, leaving the moist print of his kiss on the
inside of her thigh. "And other places if you'll let me."

At
that instant she thought she'd let him do anything, as long as he didn't stop
this slow immersion in an unforgettable fire.

"I
want
you to—to... do whatever you want. I—oh!" She gasped as his finger dipped
to the quivering pink bud hidden shyly beneath the dusky thatch of down.

He
chuckled, the husky, satisfied sound of a lover well pleased. "Open up for
me, Norah. I want to make you feel... delicious."

Her
muscles instinctively clenched tighter. He was luring her down forbidden
pathways, dark labyrinths she was certain most women had never explored. But
the callused tip of his finger danced with indescribable delicacy on a
pulsing-point of sensation, where every pleasure nerve of her body seemed
centered.

"Open,
Norah, or I'll stop." It was a teasing threat, one that infuriated her,
that stung color into her cheeks. If she'd had the slightest scrap of willpower
left, she would have rolled away from him, closed herself to him.

But
the thought of him ending this before she reached that shimmering cloud of
fulfillment that glistened just beyond her reach was unthinkable.

"You're
despicable," Norah breathed, her voice catching on a half sob. But she
forced her legs to relax, edging them apart beneath Aidan's burningly intense
gaze.

She
was rewarded by a shuddering masculine groan. His hand cupped her womanhood
with a firm mastery that made her quake, and his mouth fastened on hers with an
ardor that swept away everything but the mind-numbing madness that was Aidan
Kane's kiss.

Her
lips parted of their own volition, and his tongue swept inside the dark cavern
of her mouth, possessing, stroking, imprinting the taste of him until she was
certain if she lived a hundred years she would never forget the wild sweetness
of this Irish knight.