[Samuel Barbara] The Black Angel(Book4You) (28 page)

"Oh, God," she whispered when he pulled away for an instant, and her hands were somehow on his face, on that lean and beautiful jaw, feeling the sharpness of his high cheekbones and the hint of whiskers along his upper lip.

And as if her soft whisper was the blow that broke the dam, he grasped her face and captured her close and kissed her again, this time with no restraint in his wildly probing, devouring hunger, no restraint and no grace, only reckless passion. She kissed him back, too, able finally to express all the sorrow and rage and joy and despair that had hurtled through her these past weeks. She grasped him closer, putting her hands in his hair and rising on her toes, and pressed her body into the length of his.

She felt tears on her face, and could not halt them. As he kissed her with such deep need and deeper regard, she felt a sense of the world expanding all around her, inside of her, as if she stood at the door of her closed garden and saw a wild, open field beyond. She fancied she smelled fresh mown grass and a wind bearing the freshness of the sea, and all of it was simply Tynan.

Tynan.

She had dreamed of his lips and kiss, but had never imagined his big hands could be so gentle while his mouth was so rough, that there could be such a sense of holiness in the way a man touched her.

And when he broke away with a soft cry, she clutched his jacket and pressed her face into his neck, unable to speak the rush of feelings in her. His strong arms came down around her back, and she felt his lips on her hair, and for a long time they simply stood there, both of them wounded and heartsore, drawing strength from the other.

It was he who spoke at last, spoke quietly into her hair. "Forgive my fit of temper tonight, Adriana. I was cruel and you did not deserve that."

"No, I did not," she agreed. With a strength she did not know she had, she pushed away and lifted her head. "That's twice. I forgive this time, but not a third."

His face was sober as he nodded. He brushed a lock of hair from her face. Then, with an effort, he stepped back. "Good night, then."

Stunned, Adriana watched him cross the room, and the words were out before she could halt them. "Will you not stay?"

"No," he said roughly. "When it is time, you will come to me. That act I leave to your will."

Adriana watched him leave and the door swing shut with a sense of… what? Astonishment. Frustration. And below all that, a sweet, pure kind of song that made her feel as tall as a cedar, as wise as a queen. With a dizzy pleasure, she crossed her arms around herself and spun around in a circle, feeling her hair fly out from her body and the heat he'd roused on her skin.

And she knew exactly what to do. To Tynan Spenser, who was man enough to apologize and man enough to walk away from coercing her, that hot-tempered but very gentle man who had so many layers she wished to explore, she would offer the only gift she had.

Tynan dismissed Seamus once he'd assisted him with his boots and coat. Shirtless, he poured water into the bowl and washed the grime and fight from him, wincing a little at the bruise on his face. Ruefully, he leaned into the mirror to examine the place, shaking his head at the foolishness of expressing his roiling emotions with his fists, like a boy.

Bloody terrified, that's what he was feeling. He'd come to England intending to be sensible and make things move, and what was he doing? Bloody falling in love with a woman too many would call a whore. His mother, God rest her soul, for one.

What about Aiden? Tonight he ached for his brother's calm wisdom, his ability to see through to the heart of a matter. Would he, too, condemn Adriana as a whore?

And suddenly Tynan knew his brother would not. Staring into the dim reflection, he could almost imagine it was Aiden staring back at him, with that quirky bit of smile on the edge of his mouth. Absently, Tynan raised his hands in the prayerful gesture his brother had often employed, increasing the illusion that his brother stood on the other side of the glass, and he imagined the conversation.

She's lovely, Tynan. And strong. You came here knowing there was a scandal.

"Aye," he said quietly, crossing his arms on his chest as himself. "I didn't know how bad it would be. How can I hope to manipulate a House full of men to my favor, when they're all thinking of the sex I'm having at home and wonderin' how long she'll be faithful?" He scowled. "And the English are so bloody polite they'll never say a word straight to me, they'll just chuckle in their clubs all night about the—hell!" He broke off at the impossibility of it all. How could he do this? How could he love her and marry her and still do anything at all for his country and to avenge his brother?

He closed his eyes. It was impossible, all of it was impossible. He should have stayed home to fight these battles, instead of chasing across the seas on this mad plan. He did not belong here.

And Adriana did not belong in his world. He could not ask her to don that mantle.

Do you love her, then?

He glared at the mirror, seeing in his own face the truth. "She's a good woman, too, you know. Such a pleasure to sit and talk with her, to listen to her laughing. She loves her family, and she'll love her children and they'll never be afraid to be too loud. She won't turn my daughters into little dolls, either. And she'll have a lot of strapping sons—that's a woman made to bear plenty of children, mark my words, and never weaken from it."

And in his mind's eye his brother smiled. It was the smile they shared that had always shaken folk. There'd been those who'd said no man with such a wicked smile should ever be a priest, that it was the smile of a rake. And in Tynan it had been. His brother's charisma had been turned to higher service.

Listen to your heart, Tynan.

But what portion of his heart? That which told him he'd not find her like again in this world?

Or the one that lived to serve his people, his land?

Or that which told him that a true love would not ask so much of a woman as he would end up asking. Too much—

A scratch came at his door, and he called out entry, watching in the mirror as the door opened and Adriana came in. His heart slammed to a stop for a moment, until he saw what she wore—a hooded cloak. In confusion, he turned. "Where are you going?"

She closed the door and lifted her head. "Only here." She took a step forward, then halted, and he sensed a little uncertainty in her. "Were you speaking to someone?"

He did not even consider a lie. With a gesture toward the mirror, he said ruefully, "The ghost of my brother. In my mind, if nowhere else."

A troubled expression crossed her lovely face. "You must miss him unimaginably. When I thought Gabriel and Julian were dead, I felt a part of me had been cut off."

"Aye." He rubbed his ribs, and wondered what had brought her here. "Why are you wearing that?"

"Oh. Well." A blush, deep and painful, covered her face, and she backed away. "I'd thought…" She took a breath and lifted her hands to the hood, pulling it off. Below, her hair was loose, and she'd woven flowers into it, flowers plucked from the plants in the conservatory. They were twined, red and yellow and white, into the silky, endless length of it. She gave him a faint, apologetic smile. "But I see that you have matters of… or thoughts… I'll come back another time." She turned toward the door.

"Riana," he said softly, suspecting her purpose. "Why have you come?"

She turned back, clutching the cloak close about her, furthering his taut, earnest wish that what he suspected might be true. "You've given so much, Tynan," she whispered. "I wanted to give… something… back."

"Have you come to make love to me?"

She raised her head. Nodded. "You see, I have often kissed and I have had a wild affair, but there has never been the luxury for me to…" She hesitated, and he thought he could see, in the dim light, a rise of color in her cheeks.

Tynan lost all sense of his own breathing as she squared her shoulders resolutely and met his gaze. But her speech was broken airily by the rush of her breath when she said, at last, "No man has ever seen… all of me." She pulled the cloak from her shoulders and let it fall. "It's all I have to offer you."

And Tynan, in that moment, was lost. He felt momentarily faint at the sight of her, the clear perfection of her uncovered flesh, from the pale, broad forehead to the creamy shoulders, and made a soft sound. Her breasts were magnificent, full and high, crowned with deep rose nipples. Her belly swayed in toward the small light square of hair at the base, and her hips were wide and womanly, a lush swell above long legs and thighs that were not slim. He did not breathe as he filled his eyes with the gracefulness of her limbs, all of it gauzed with the flower-studded frosting of her hair.

She took a breath, and her breasts rose with it, making him most gloriously dizzy. "I most earnestly wish to make love to you, Tynan," she whispered.

And still he could not move. His hands felt awkward and too large at his sides; in his loins and chest, and a pulsing dizziness at the back of his head, his need of her battered him. He was afraid to step forward. As long as he was still, he remained in control.

He gathered himself, closed his mouth and raised his eyes to hers. "You are," he said in a voice raw even to his own ears, "the most beautiful creature God ever made."

And without a single other thought, he moved to her and fell to his knees to put his arms around her waist and kiss her smooth belly. Her flesh seared his own bare chest, and she made a small noise when he stood and kissed her mouth with all the need he'd kept pressed down. The fullness of her breasts pushed into his chest, and her hair brushed his arms, and her mouth was wild as an Irish dawn. He drank of that nimble tongue, smelling the exotic flowers she'd woven into her hair, and she kissed him joyfully in return, open and free, her arms twining about his neck, and even that brush—the flesh of her arm against his bare shoulder nearly made him cry out.

He swung her into his arms and put her on the bed, kissing her face, her eyes, feeling her hands on his back and chest. His hair suddenly fell around their faces, and she made a soft, pleased sound that broke through his stunned good fortune. He lifted up at little and grinned. "You like my hair," he said.

"Oh, yes." A glitter came into her eyes, too. "And you like my breasts."

He slid an open palm down from her shoulder, at last touching that wealth of flesh. He shifted his gaze to what his hand encompassed. "I like every part of you, Adriana. Within and without."

Her expression sobered and he thought for a moment there was a sheen of tears in her eyes. It pained him that any woman with such a gift for passion, the thing men sought beyond all others, should have been so foully treated. And by him, too.

"'Tis rare," he whispered, "to find such a beautiful woman with so sharp and quick a mind. And you—" He shifted so his hands could give proper homage, so he could begin to rouse her as she'd been roused in the coach. He curved his palms to fit her breasts, a tight hunger in his loins at the way they spilled over even his large hands. "You have passion, too." Reverently, he bent to kiss the upper swell, and ached at the softness. "There is naught on God's earth as soft as a woman's breast," he whispered.

And then there was no more reason in him. He touched the border of her nipple with his tongue, edging around the circle with a lost sense of excruciating anticipation, then touched the roused tip and at last took it all the way into his mouth with a low groan. Her back arched, and he felt her hands go to his hair, and she was pulling at him, dragging his lips to her own. "Kiss me, Tynan!" she cried.

He did, gladly, and there was a depth of intensity, a wildness of spirit in the joining of their mouths, that he found himself lost in the kissing for a long, long time, felt her lostness, too. There was sweetness and hunger and even relief in it, as if their lips had been carved from a single block of clay and now molded in recognition one to the other.

He took her breath into him, smelling the heat of her flesh and the nectar of flowers, and the length of her arms around his bare shoulders, the softness of her naked breasts against his chest. And it all struck him as unbearably precious.

But he'd been waiting for her a long time, and the pressure of his passion grew pointed and irresistible. He stroked her body. Her back. Her breasts, her waist, her legs, and felt her sinuous movements under his hands, and gloried in the stroke of her strong hands along his own body, felt her pushing away the offending cloth of his breeches.

And at last they were both as God had made them, flesh to flesh. He closed his eyes to feel the slide of her thighs against his own, the press of her belly, the whisper of her arms, the brush of her hair, shuddering when she arched closer, her breath hurrying over his shoulder, and opened her mouth on his neck, her mouth urgent, erotic.

This time there was light enough to see her as he shifted, and there was willingness in the shift of her hips, and there was a cry when they joined, such a deep and guttural and pleased sound that was both of their voices lifted and mingling, that he paused at the power growing at the base of his spine. She opened her eyes to look at him. "Kiss me," she whispered.

And he did as she asked, so their lips and tongues tangled as their bodies moved in ancient rhythm, until the movements were too violent and need overtook them. Tynan ached to make it last, this wonderment, this strangely sacred joining, but his body betrayed him and he went rigid, his hands too tight on her shoulders, and he knew it, his mouth hard against her neck. Even as the fury of his own passion ebbed, hers grew, and urgently he lifted his head and kissed her with all the fury of feeling in him, feeling teeth and bruises and never minding because her release was wild, wilder than his own, such a violence of reaction that he wondered how she could have lived with it inside of her. And still pulsing, he let himself down against her, pressing the whole of himself into the whole of her, his Adriana, his beautiful wife, and kissed her until they could not breathe.