The Elusive Bride (24 page)

Eyes wide, the innwife asked about the cult. Leaning forward, Emily replied. Before Gareth could reassert control, she’d taken over relating their tale.

Her descriptions were more colorful, her answers more direct, and rather more sensational than his. He wasn’t at all comfortable with her tack, let alone her openness, but one glance at the innkeeper’s and innwife’s faces and he shut his lips, and let Emily hold the stage.

And it was a performance. She seemed to know just what to say, and how to respond to the innkeeper’s many questions. It wasn’t just what she said, but how she said it; her attitude seeded theirs.

All he was required to do was sit back, look suitably serious and sober, and offer corroborative nods and words when appealed to.

By the time Emily reached the point of explaining their requirements, the innkeeper and his wife were their devoted supporters. Their party may be English, but the cult was heathen, and violent and vicious. The innkeeper was in no doubt as to where his duty lay.

Gareth had considered Emily’s notion that the innkeep
er’s family connections would be sufficient to get them what they needed a long shot, but she’d been right. Spurred by their story—indeed, clearly thrilled to have been trusted and asked—the innkeeper summoned his sons and dispatched them hither and yon.

An hour later, numerous uncles and cousins had gathered, and the noise in the now otherwise empty front room had escalated as people exclaimed and shouted suggestions. Gareth had never seen the like before, but within a surprisingly short time, two fast traveling carriages had been organized, along with two experienced drivers who were very willing to offer their services in defeating the so-alien cult.

He shook hands with the two grizzled war veterans who had volunteered to take the reins and drive them to the north coast with all possible speed. “Thank you.” They’d discussed and settled on their payment. “There’ll be a bonus at the end, too.”

“Heh!” one said, making a very gallic gesture. “The money is one thing, but to be part of an action against a worthy enemy again—that is a better incentive.”

The other nodded emphatically. “But yes. Life has grown boring, you understand. A little excitement—this is what we seek.”

With the good wishes and enthusiastic support of the innkeeper’s family, their departure was organized for the day after the next.

“So you will have only tomorrow to get ready,” the innwife yelled. She flung out her arms in an all-encompassing gesture. “No matter—we will help.”

The gathering turned into something of a family occasion. Gareth took his lead from Emily, and they remained for some time, chatting with those who had come at the innkeeper’s summons to so readily offer them aid.

He was still somewhat stunned that they had, but they were sincere in wanting to assist him and their group against the cultists, and he was equally sincere in his gratefulness.

Eventually Emily bade the company good night and retired. Shortly afterward, he did the same, climbing the stairs to his room. The din from downstairs faded as he closed the door. Crossing to the small side table, he lit the lamp upon it, then quietly, still pondering the garrulous warmth of those downstairs, he undressed.

He’d doused the lamp and was lying on his back, stretched naked beneath the covers, arms crossed behind his head, staring up at the dim ceiling, when the handle of his door turned.

He came instantly alert, but in the same instant, somehow, he knew.

Sure enough, the door opened and Emily, clad in white nightgown and cloak, whisked through, whirling to shut the door quietly behind her before turning to peer at the bed.

The room was cloaked in shadows, but she saw him, and relaxed.

Even more alert, and distinctly intrigued, he watched as she clearly debated, then elected to walk to the side of the bed further from the door.

Muscles all but imperceptibly tightening, he waited, unmoving and silent, to see what she would do, say.

She halted when she was close enough to meet his eyes. She narrowed hers fractionally in warning. “Don’t say a word.”

He wondered why she’d thought he would argue.

Letting her cloak fall, she reached for the covers, and slipped into the bed. He shifted to give her room. His greater weight bowed the bed, and with a muffled squeak, she rolled into him.

Just as he lowered his arms and closed them around her, gathered her close. Bending his head, he nuzzled her hair, breathing deep and feeling the essence that was her sink to his very bones. He found her ear with his lips, lightly traced the outer whorl. Sensed her shiver. “What now?” he breathed.

She dragged in a breath. “Now…” She lifted her head, looked into his face, one small hand rising to frame his jaw.
Then she levered up on one arm, rising above him. She looked down into his eyes. “Now this.”

And she kissed him.

He kissed her back, took a long moment to savor the sweetness she so flagrantly gifted him with. Sensing she wished it, he let her keep the reins. For now.

She leaned into him, all soft, warm curves and slender, feminine lengths. Lying on his back beneath her, something within him purred. Closing his hands about her waist, he lifted and shifted her more fully upon him, settling her so her taut belly lay over his abdomen, the haven between her thighs just above the head of his engorged erection—both promise and torment, temptation and salvation. He vaguely recalled he’d decided to forgo her and this for the present, while they were traveling, but he could no longer remember any pressing reason why.

No convincing reason why he should decline the heaven she was so blatantly offering—and she’d come to him, after all.

She was already his—that was beyond question—so there was no reason he shouldn’t indulge.

So he did.

Increasingly ravenously.

It gradually dawned that while she’d initiated the exchange, and had chosen the position, she didn’t know quite how to proceed.

He showed her. Urged her up so she was on her knees straddling him, reached up, stretched up, and helped her draw her nightgown off over her head.

She flung the garment to the floor. She was already heated, already breathless and panting, already aching for him to fill her. The look she flung at him—eyes blazing fire in the night—said it all.

Before she could reach for him, and make matters that much more complicated, he hauled in a breath, locked his hands about her waist, positioned her, then nudged past her slick swollen folds and eased into her.

Eyes closing, her expression one of fraught bliss, she took over and sank down. Down.

Wriggled at the last, and then, wonder of wonders, she’d enclosed him all.

He sucked in a tight breath, closed his eyes in sheer lust as experimentally, she tightened about him.

Then she settled to ride him.

By the time he’d recalled her reportedly wild and expert ride down from Poona, she’d reduced him to a state of ravening urgency almost impossible to deny.

But he wanted more.

Eyes closed tight, her entire concentration locked on where they joined, Emily felt the heat, the stoking friction, well, swell and rise, taunting and beckoning, tightening inexorably…then she felt him shift beneath her.

She cracked open her eyes as, releasing her hips, he locked both hands about her breasts.

And played until she was gasping.

Then he rose up, leaned forward, took one tightly furled nipple into his mouth—and suckled.

She only just managed to mute her shriek, but that didn’t deter him. He feasted—there was no other word for it. With lips, tongue, teeth and greedy mouth, he caressed, then blatantly possessed.

Eyes closing, she continued to rise up and slide down, increasingly intently, wanting, reaching, so tight she thought she would shatter, so hot she could feel the flames licking over her, sliding beneath her skin.

He released one breast, slid his hand down, tracing the curves of her waist, her hip, in almost languid, distinctly possessive appreciation. Then that questing hand veered inward, slid between her thighs, and touched her—there, where she was most sensitive, where suddenly her whole being seemed to reside.

With one hard fingertip he toyed, then pressed at the same time she sank fully down and he thrust in hard—and she imploded. Lost all touch with reality as searing delight and incandescant pleasure erupted and lanced through her, streaking and sparking down every nerve before melting
and merging into molten streams that flowed down every vein to pool in her throbbing womb.

He held her as she savored, as if he savored, too.

Then he turned. Taking her with him, he rolled, and pinned her beneath him.

A smile on her lips, she wound her arms about his neck, then arched beneath him, head falling back on a gasp as he thrust deeply and heavily into her.

To her immense surprise he withdrew from her, pulling back onto his knees.

Before she could react beyond opening her eyes, he grasped her knees and pulled them wide.

He looked down at her, at her most private place. Even though the shadows lay heavily upon them, she blushed, but she didn’t try to close her knees, didn’t try to inhibit his view.

The blood still pounding in her veins, she waited to see what he wanted, what he would do.

He bent his head and set his lips to her there, and she very nearly screamed.

Pleasure—different, sharper, headier—streaked through her. He pressed deeper, lapping, then probed with his tongue and in desperation she whispered his name—but what she wanted she couldn’t have said. His tongue circled, then probed. She caught her breath, and clutched at his head, but her fingers, tangling in his hair, had no strength.

His exploration, his flagrant tasting of her, sent her senses soaring.

She was his—she knew it, and clearly he did, too, at least on this level.

That was undeniable as he feasted as thoroughly as he had earlier, his hot mouth a brand searing her, his experience trapping her senses, making them and her whole body—her nerves, her skin, her heart, every curve—his.

His to plunder, to savor as he wished.

Head helplessly threshing, she could barely breathe when she whispered his name, an outright plea—she couldn’t take much more of the soul-wringing pleasure.

He heard, thank God. With one long, last lap, he lifted his head, gazed at her for a moment, then unhurriedly surged over her. Fitting his erection to her entrance, he thrust in, slow and relentless, deep and sure, impressing on her every inch of his length, then he sank home, reached down and raised one of her knees, hooked that leg over his hip. Poised on his elbows above her, he looked down at her face through the darkness, his expression a mask of intent, his features locked in the grip of a passion so intense she could feel its heated wings beating against her skin. Then he withdrew, and thrust home.

Again and again, harder and harder, deeper and deeper, until she sobbed his name, then, arched beneath him, fingers locked about his upper arms, nails sinking into his skin, she felt herself literally come apart.

Gareth swooped and covered her lips with his, drank her cry, her scream of pure pleasure.

Felt everything that was male within him exult.

Felt the primitive possessive being within him purr with a satisfaction that sank bone deep as he held still for an instant and savored the evocative ripples of her release, felt her sheath contract and grip.

Felt anticipation and blind need claw…

He surrendered and took, gorged, and filled his senses.

Eyes closed, he lost himself in her.

His day had been a distracting round of last minute checks and solutions. Nevertheless, as he climbed the stairs that night, Gareth felt quietly sure that they’d done all they could—that, indeed, courtesy of the Juneaux and Emily’s recruiting of them, their party was better placed to succeed in their mad dash north to the Channel than he’d dared hope they would be.

Reaching the upper corridor, he was conscious of a certain tension, familiar, almost reassuring—the tension that came on the night before a battle, when the certainty of being fully prepared warred with the inevitability of having to wait until morning to act.

He was too experienced to let it trouble him. Indeed, he embraced it.

But the other tension sliding through him, coiling beneath the first, was something else entirely.

That tension was wholly due to her—to Emily, and her appearance last night in his room. More, her performance,
their activities, in his bed. He would have preferred it to be otherwise, but he couldn’t deny it—couldn’t pretend that he didn’t feel expectation rise as he neared his door.

That anticipation didn’t leap as he closed his hand about the knob.

Already half erect, his heart already thudding that telltale touch faster, he opened the door and went in. His gaze went directly to the bed.

It was empty.

In the dimness, his eyes scanned again, just to make sure, but he hadn’t missed any alluring body.