In My Wildest Fantasies (19 page)

"My breasts were heaving with excitement, and in the warm, moist twilight, my skin became sticky and wet. I had never felt such burning anticipation. When I reached the clearing, I saw him. My dearest love, Jess. He had been sitting in a patch of purple wildflowers, but rose instantly to his feet when he heard my approach, and ran to meet me. I dashed into his strong, capable arms and together we sank down to the grass, our hungry bodies entwined, squeezing and thrusting, both of us sighing with delight and dreaming of erotic pleasures.

"He was eager tonight, more than ever before, and I knew I could not continue to deny him what he wanted. I parted my legs for him and boldly reached down to unfasten his breeches. He devoured my lips with his mouth while I pushed his breeches over his hips and kneaded his strong buttocks with my roving hands, pulling him firmly against my moist, open womanhood.

"If I had any lingering doubts about what we were about to do, they vanished instantly when he paused and looked down at me, with the hazy pink sunset reflecting in his eyes like firelight.

"'I love you, Lydie,' he said to me, tenderly, and I knew I would spend the rest of my days loving him with my whole heart and soul, and that he would be my joy, my lover, my life, until I took my last breath in this world..."

"Stop," Devon said, for he had felt a sudden, unfamiliar yearning in his gut, which was, quite frankly, astounding to him. For so long, he had been shunning the kind of all-consuming, romantic love that Lydie wrote about, believing it smothered common sense and resulted in eventual, inevitable ruin. He had always imagined he would marry for duty alone, and would choose wisely with his head, which is what he had set out to do that night he met Rebecca at the ball. But somehow their relationship had very quickly snowballed into something more, and hearing her read those passionate words tonight opened something inside of him. There was such truth and honesty and vulnerability in her voice, the very things he had wished to avoid.

Driven by impulses he had not succumbed to in a long time, he found himself reaching for the open diary and lifting it out of her hands.

Bewildered, she watched him roll to the side and place it on the table on the other side of him.

"You do not want to continue?" she asked.

He rolled toward her again and laid a hand on her flat belly. "I do, but I would prefer to do things our way tonight, not theirs."

He could not explain it, but he wanted to feel something real.

"All right," she said, lying very still.

He continued to admire the beauty in her eyes, the charming shape of her nose, and the soft texture of her skin. He ran a hand down the side of her curvaceous body and turned his eyes toward her long legs stretched out on the bed, one ankle crossed over the other beneath the lacey hem of her clean linen nightgown.

"You're so beautiful," he said.

"I'm glad you think so. I want to be beautiful for you, Devon. I want to give you everything and make you happy."

He remembered her confession--that she had come here dreaming of him in a romantic way, and for the first time he found himself actually wanting to be the devoted lover she desired.

Perhaps he could be that, if nothing else. It did not seem so impossible here on the bed with her, in the quiet privacy of this chamber where none of the palace madness could touch them.

And maybe this woman lying next to him was meant to be his respite from all of those hardships. His oasis. When everyone else expected him to solve their problems and save the palace and the dukedom, she only wanted to give him pleasure and love. She did not want anything from him, except love. It was a novel idea, to be sure. One he did not wish to shun, which again surprised him.

With careful tenderness, he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her lips, meeting her soft warm tongue and feeling a heated stirring in his loins.

He wanted her now. He wanted to plunge into her depths and feel the heat of her body, but not just to satisfy his own sexual longings. There was something else at work here this evening, a desire for more than just pleasure--a desire he did not fully understand.

Whether it was because of what his mother had said to him, or if it was simply Rebecca slowly inching her way into his heart, he did not know. All he knew was that he wanted to let down his guard for once--tonight--and not be the man everyone depended upon. He wanted to strip bare and place himself in Rebecca's hands, to relax and simply let her love him.

Could he do that? Was it possible?

She sat up and pushed gently at his shoulder to roll him over onto his back, then lifted his shirt and dropped wet kisses across his stomach and below his navel.

"I'm glad we found each other," he whispered, enjoying the sensation of her long silky hair brushing over his skin.

"So am I," she replied, looking down at him. "I know it seems too soon to say it, but I love you, Devon, and I cannot wait to be your wife. I will be the happiest woman in the world."

She loved him.

God, she had said it, and he had not felt the need to retreat, nor had he dissolved into dust. A miracle. All of it.

"I hope those are your words," he said with a smile and a touch of humor. "And not Lydie's."

She took his face in her hands. "They are words spoken from my own heart. I want only to be yours."

"Then you shall be," he told her, pulling her down for another kiss while she swung a leg over him, straddling his hips.

Gathering her gown in both fists, he inched it up past her waist until he could cup her warm, fleshy behind in his hands. He groaned with need and thrust his hips upward.

"Can we do it this way?" she asked, "with me on top?"

"We can do it any way you like."

With eager hands, she unfastened his trousers, while he lifted his hips to allow her to pull them off and toss them to the floor.

"Your shirt, too," she said, lifting it over his head and tossing it aside as well.

She removed her nightgown and sat lightly upon him, swiveling her hips in tiny little stimulating circles. Then she took him in her hand, directing the round tip of his shaft to her primed opening. Bearing down, she covered him like a hot, magnificent sheath.

"You don't want to play a little first?" he asked, his voice shaky with desire.

Her eyes clouded with passion. "No."

She descended all the way around him, taking his whole rigid length inside until he felt the splendid suction of her interior. Her eyes fell closed as she began to pulse slowly up and down.

He held her hips in his hands, supporting her movements as she pleasured herself upon him. All he wanted to do at that moment was watch her in the lamplight and enjoy her expressions and reactions, but soon he became absorbed in his own blissful exertions, and he shut his eyes as they both worked faster, making love to each other with the full force of their desires and emotions.

He turned his head to the side, overcome with ecstasy, and drove into her with fierce intensity until she gasped and convulsed with rapture. When her shudders finally diminished and her sighs grew soft and faint, he sat up and turned her over onto her back, entering her sweet liquid haven again to bring the intimate union to completion.

Feeling lost beyond the reaches of his own mind, he drove into her as deeply as he could, kissing her and holding her and loving her until he became inflamed to such an unbearable point, he could hold back no longer. He gave in at last to the pounding ripples of orgasmic bliss and shuddered to a rich, powerful climax that shattered his senses.

Weak and spent, his brain almost numb from the violent onslaught of ecstasy, he sank his weight down upon Rebecca's soft, warm body on the bed, and lay there silent for some time, breathing softly and easily in the night, wondering how it was possible this woman could knock down all his defenses and make him forget everything that plagued him. He felt no heavy sense of obligation tonight. There were no reminders that he must do his duty and solve everyone's problems.

Rolling to the side, he lay next to her with his arm stretched across her hip. "I would like to stay a while," he said. "Here in your bed. I would like to sleep with you."

"Nothing would please me more," she replied.

And for the first time in his life he began to believe that genuine happiness just might be possible for the future Duke of Pembroke after all.

And perhaps curses could be broken.

Outside in the driving rain, somewhere between the Cotswolds and the village of Pembroke, Lord Creighton held tight to the side of the coach as it bumped and swayed ominously at a fast clip down a hill. His driver had freshened the horses a short time before, after searching the village inns at Corsham, and Creighton had instructed the man to push the team to its limit. There was not a moment to lose if he was going to find Rebecca and bring her home. Rushton was waiting, and he was not a patient man. He had said he would wait no longer than one week, and if Creighton did not deliver her by then, his own life and hers would be destroyed. He would have to endure the consequences of Rushton's threats--which were not idle ones--and Rebecca's future would never be the same.

The horses' hooves thundered noisily down the road, and Creighton rubbed at the pain in his temples. At least he had higher hopes for the next stop. He knew his daughter, he knew of her fanciful daydreams, and he had a feeling he would have better luck there. Yes, better luck in the village of Pembroke.

Chapter 13

"I'll wager you never imagined," Blake said to Devon, who was donning his wedding attire shortly after breakfast, "that when you stepped off that steamship from America, you would be married within a week."

Devon looked at his reflection in the mirror while his valet adjusted his sleeves, and felt as if he were looking at someone other than himself--a confident groom, heir to a dukedom, a calm man who had all the pieces of his life under control and was about to marry his future duchess and ensure the continuation of his ancestral line.

Inside, however, he was not so calm. He was far from it, for he was wrestling with the terrible fear that he had fallen completely and hopelessly in love with his bride and had already lost all sense of reality.

There had been moments over the past few days when he'd actually felt happy, and he could not fight the fear that his feet were going to slip and slide out from under him, and he would soon, without warning, begin the agonizing tumble down the hill.

Nevertheless, he spoke to his brother matter-of-factly, not wanting to reveal what he was feeling. "I always knew I would marry eventually."

"And you are doing so now because you found a wonderful woman," Blake put in, seeming as if he were reminding Devon of the bright spot in all of this. His future wife. Rebecca.

He faced his very perceptive brother. "Thank you, Blake. And I should inform you that as soon as we are declared husband and wife, I intend to speak to Father about changing his will back to the way it was. As far as he is concerned, I will have done my duty to this family and he will soon have his heir. There is no need for him to pressure you or Vincent or Garrett. All three of you should be free to choose the women you want, when the time is right."

Blake eyed him carefully. "And you are absolutely certain that this is what you want? To be married today? For your sake, I hope it is."

Devon recalled the unexpected tranquility of sleeping with Rebecca all night in her bed, not to mention the blinding intensity of his sexual urges, completely fulfilled. "I have never wanted a woman as much as I want her." It was the truth.

Blake's shoulders relaxed slightly as he nodded. "She is perfect, Devon. Not the slightest blemish on her character. Everyone thinks so. You chose well."

"Strangely enough, despite all the insanity around this house lately, I believe I did. And I will forever be baffled by what seems to be a miracle at work here." He turned to the mirror again and adjusted his tie.

"What miracle?"

"The fact that no other man has claimed her before now, and that I was the one lucky enough to come upon her and her father in the woods that night years ago." He smiled cautiously at Blake. "I am hesitant to believe it, but perhaps there is not always a mud slick in one's future. Perhaps just occasionally, the path is clear."

For four long years, Rebecca had never dared to truly believe that she would one day stand inside the Pembroke Palace chapel with a bouquet of white roses in her hands, with Devon Sinclair beside her as her groom.

She had dreamed of it, of course, and in her dreams, she always imagined it would be the happiest moment of her life--that she would look into his eyes and marvel at the peace and contentment she would feel inside her heart.

Peace, however, was nowhere near her present emotional state as she stood listening to the vicar's sermon, for since the moment she'd opened her eyes that morning, the only thing she knew was fear. It all seemed impossible to believe, and she was certain the bubble was going to burst at any second--that her father was going to come crashing through the doors, waving his cane and demanding to know what the devil was happening here. Or worse, that Mr. Rushton might rise from one of the pews at the back of the chapel and object to this marriage because he was her rightful groom.