Patricia Rice (19 page)

Her hands circled his strong neck. She explored the
warm flesh and supple tendons there, then traveled on to the silken
textures of Morgan’s damp hair while his mouth tempted. She knew what he
wanted this time, and her lips parted invitingly.

As his tongue accepted her invitation, excitement
twisted and circled deep inside Faith where she had felt the heat
earlier. His kiss was like fuel to the fire, and she rose to greet it.
Morgan lifted her against him so her mouth could seal more tightly to
his. The touch of his tongue ignited more awe than the falling stars
overhead.

His hands roamed as their mouths explored. The brush
of strong fingers over the sides of her breasts created new flames of
excitement, but when Morgan’s hand cupped her buttocks and drew her
closer, Faith’s newfound confidence faltered.

She pulled away and studied Morgan’s angular face
with bewilderment and fear. The fire still breathed inside her, and she
tingled in places best not thought of, but she knew more now of the
danger she courted, and she was terrified of where this excitement led.

The tenderness in Morgan’s green gaze reassured her,
and the gentle curve of his lip as he touched a finger to her mouth
sent panic back to its lidded box. This was Morgan, the only man who had
come to her aid, who provided for her better than her own father.
Despite his trade, she had no reason not to trust him.

“Don’t be afraid, little faerie. I’ll not do
anything you don’t want me to.” The soft caress of his voice did nothing
to reveal the two-edged sword of his words.

Ignorant of the way her body worked, Faith allowed
herself to be led up the hillock to the clearing behind the cottage.
Morgan spread out a saddle blanket and gallantly assisted her to a seat.
The stars spread out far and wide above them. It was sheer bliss to lie
back and imagine reaching that peaceful sky.

Morgan pointed out the constellations he knew,
trying to make her see a bear where there was only a dipper, and
laughing low in his throat when she insisted all she could see were two
dippers, and did they have any water?

His kiss brushed her forehead, then her nose, and it
wasn’t long before she pulled his head down to sample the giddy wine of
his lips again. It seemed so simple now, so much a part of the spring
around them, that she wondered why she had ever feared it. The throbbing
life of the earth rose and flowed through their their veins like the
tides to the shores. The warm breeze rippling the grass ruffled their
hair, and whispered along their skin, and the day’s heat rose from the
ground to blanket them.

The loose kerchief over Faith’s breasts fell before
Morgan’s searching fingers. The unfocused excitement now had a center as
he cupped the swell of her breast and caressed the flesh rising above
her bodice. Faith waited breathlessly for the removal of the encumbrance
keeping flesh from touching flesh. She offered no protest when the
hooks of her bodice came undone and only the sheer chemise stood between
her and the heat of Morgan’s palm.

“You are so beautiful,
cailin
, he murmured. “God made you to fit into my hand just so.” He filled his palm with her loosely covered breast and stroked.

Knowing he was as aroused as she enhanced her
desire. He gazed upon her with a rapturous expression that she returned.
His praises were no lie.

Silhouetted against the sky, he appeared more
demigod than ever. His wide shoulders filled her field of vision, and
Faith’s fingers searched the hollows and angles of his face as he
hovered over her. She didn’t know what was happening, but she wasn’t
ready to call a halt yet. The knowledge that he would stop when she
asked it of him was reassurance enough.

His strong fingers untied her chemise and pushed it
aside. The night air caressed her heated flesh, and her breasts rose to
sharp points. She held her breath as Morgan gently touched her there,
but the pleasure was an exquisite pain that swirled all the way down to
her middle and made her hips rise in expectation of something she did
not understand.

“Ahhh, Faith, you have the passions of a thousand
women all wrapped in one. Thank God I found you before anyone else did.
You’re a treasure, my love, and I’m not likely to ever let you go.”

His words should have terrified her, but instead,
they made her soul rise in rapture. Or perhaps it was just the way his
hands made her breasts swell as he teased and stroked until she was
heedless of his meanings. The question in Morgan’s gaze disappeared when
Faith raised her hands once more to bring him down to her kiss. As
their lips met, his eyes smoldered with renewed intensity.

Even when she gave a small cry of fright as his lips
encompassed her breast, Morgan did not relent, and in truth, Faith
didn’t want him to stop. She writhed beneath the slow seduction of his
tongue, encouraging him with her stroking hands and fingers.

Morgan’s body was large and heavy, but he balanced
himself so only his hips pressed close. A heaviness in her lower regions
prevented Faith from moving away, and his tempting caresses filled her
senses like a heady wine. She wanted his kisses against her skin, she
wanted his mouth on her breasts, and when his hand stole down to her
skirts, she did not stop him.

The breeze playing over her bare leg as the heavy
material slid upward offered fair warning. The spring warmth was gentle
as the air lapped over her exposed calf, and Morgan’s deepening kiss
induced a languor that defied protest. But primeval instinct clamored in
the back of Faith’s mind.

Her hands began to tug rather than caress Morgan’s
thick hair. She needed time to think, to grasp what he was doing to her,
but there was no lessening of the pressure of his tongue and lips. His
callused hand slid higher, bringing her skirt with it. After her bath,
she had donned no petticoat, and the absence of any other protection
acted as a spur to the warnings in her mind.

Air rushed over Faith’s bare thighs. Though she
exploded with a need to arch upward when Morgan pushed the skirt higher,
her panic increased.

Faith tried to twist away from his mouth, to tell
him to stop, but his tongue slid like honey between her teeth and she
accepted him hungrily. He shifted his weight to run his hand over her
uncovered hip and thigh, and Faith cried out with more need than anger.
His heated palm slid beneath her, lifting her bare buttock toward him,
and she splintered in two at the forces fighting within her.

“No, Morgan, don’t,” she whispered as his tongue tormented her breasts once again.

His beard chafed as he peeled her bodice down and
shoved the chemise aside to better explore with his kisses. As long as
his attentions rested on her breasts, she felt safe, but his hand
returned time and again to stroke and touch beneath her skirts until she
was moist with need and a kind of panic that paralyzed her.

When his fingers finally touched her
there,
where she most feared him, Faith nearly jumped from her skin, but
Morgan was already plying her mouth with sweet kisses and tender words.

“’Tis so sweet and fair, ye are, my
cailin alainn.
So soft and gentle. I need you next to me, my love. Just let me feel
you close to me, just for a little while. I need you, little faerie. Can
you not feel it, deep inside you? We were meant to be like this. The
stars say it is so.”

The words were magnetic in their attraction, lulling
Faith’s senses as easily as his kisses. She did feel it, knew the need
he spoke of. And it did feel so right, so special. When he unfastened
his breeches, allowing her to slide her hands beneath his loosened
shirt, she felt Morgan’s intake of breath at her touch as a pleasure
beyond comparison.

She could
touch
him, and he
wanted her to. It seemed an amazing power, a secret never before
revealed. The self-contained highwayman needed her touch, and she
indulged in it wantonly. Her fear faded to smothered protests beneath
the onslaught to her senses as his muscles rippled beneath her fingers.

While her hands rode his back, Morgan’s unclothed
hips insinuated themselves between her thighs. She felt the hardness of
him burning her there where she was most vulnerable, but he had said
just for a little while. She needed his nakedness, and she wished for
all their cumbersome clothes to be gone. The play of muscles along
Morgan’s back as he braced himself above her aroused odd needs.

“You’ll never regret this, my
cailin.
’Tis a gift from heaven you are, and I’m not likely to forget it.
Spread your legs a little wider, lass, and I’ll show you what I mean.”

With her gaze trustingly fastened on his and his
persuasive words to chase away fear, Faith did as she was told. Just the
shifting opened her more fully to nature, heightening the sweet
sensation centered at the juncture of her thighs. When his hardness
moved warm and strong against her there, she rose to meet the pleasure
he promised.

“Yes, lass, now.” With a sigh, Morgan took her lips and slid deep between her welcoming thighs.

He stretched her beyond her capacity to take him.
But when her lips parted in an “Oh” of surprise, his tongue plunged in
and her hips bucked upward, and he tore through the barrier.

Faith fought him then, terrified of the entrapment,
unable to escape, pressed into the earth by his heavy weight. Her hips
twisted and turned, but Morgan only sank deeper until she knew she was
only worsening the situation, and she emitted a sob of despair.

Morgan’s soothing words lost all meaning as he began
to move inside her. His thrust was frightening, bringing back the
memory of the stallion covering the mare. He filled her until she
thought she could bear no more, then withdrew, leaving her empty. He
repeated the motion, and tension began to stir inside her again.

Faith fought the feeling, knowing its consequence
now, but Morgan’s body posed atop and inside her refused to be ignored.
His thrusts grew quicker, more demanding. Losing her fear, she opened to
him, easing his entrance and taking him deeper, until his cries mixed
with her own.

With one final thrust he tore away what remained of
her innocence. The liquid heat spilling deep into her womb and to the
earth sealed all that had lingered of childhood and launched Faith into
the world as woman. Still pinned by Morgan’s heavy body, Faith felt
tears creeping to her eyes.

He gathered her in his arms and kissed a path along
her face. “Don’t cry, little one. I’m here to take care of you. We’re
good for each other, don’t you see?”

He brushed the hair back from Faith’s pale face and
felt his heart swell in sorrow at the tearstains down her cheek. He had
done this cruel thing to her, and he would pay for it for the rest of
his life, but it was a price well worth paying. She was his means to an
end, and he would use her as he used every resource at hand to gain his
goals, but he would risk heart and soul to see she didn’t suffer in
consequence.

Morgan slid off and pushed Faith’s skirt down to
keep her legs warm. His lips lingered on her young, sweet breasts, and
his pride soared at how much he had won this night. This was a prize to
be stolen and carried off just like any other, but this one he would
keep.

Faith stirred sleepily, but the ache between her
thighs jolted her closer to wakefulness. A wonderful warmth filled her
bed, and she tried to succumb to the temptation of sleep. Never in her
life had she been allowed to indulge in such sin as sleeping past dawn,
but it felt right this morning.

She rolled on her side, only to realize that a man’s
bare back formed a wall between herself and the bed’s edge. Shock
brought her to full wakefulness—and to the reason for her aching body
and the furnace of heat warming the sheets.

Humiliation swept through her, a humiliation so deep
and burning that she thought she would die of it. She was a fallen
woman, a common trollop, a tool of the devil. She had taken a man in sin
and would surely go to hell. How could she ever look Morgan in the eye
again, knowing what they had done together?

Her hand flew to the unfastened chemise over her
breasts. He had left her that, at least. It had been dark when he
carried her to bed. He couldn’t have seen everything. But he had touched
everything.

She couldn’t drive away the memory of Morgan’s hands
upon her, and the proximity of his nakedness served as a reminder of
what else had possessed her. She might never recover from the shock of
what he had done. She hadn’t thought it possible. How could he...?

Trying not to think of that part of Morgan that made
him male, Faith concentrated on finding her way out of this trap. First
she had to get out of bed. Scanning the long length of masculine body
blocking access to the room, she had to admit that was an impossibility
without touching him. And she couldn’t touch him.

Despair engulfed her, despair and deep, abiding
shame. Why escape when there was nowhere to go? She would be walking the
streets soon enough, for that’s what happened to women who did what she
had. Why hurry from Morgan’s bed to some other man’s?

She would never find honest employment now. The mark
of shame would be upon her. Would he take her to those men in the
tavern and sell her when he tired of her? She had heard of such things,
and with Morgan, anything seemed possible.

If only she could get away... Faith squirmed a
little more, trying to see if there were some opening at the bottom of
the bed. If she crawled from beneath the covers and over those lumps
that were his feet...

A heavy hand caught in the tangled thickness of her
hair, and Faith jumped nervously. He turned on his back and gazed up at
her, his eyes darkened to a jungle green that sent steamy, sensuous
messages. A shiver coursed down her spine as her body reacted to that
look, but her hands pulled the covers protectively to her breasts.