The Sherbrooke Series Novels 1-5 (158 page)

He was flat on top of her, his face in her wet hair beside her head. He had been stomped into oblivion by the greatest pleasure he had ever experienced in his adult life. He had been stripped of all control. He had soared to the heavens by himself—in short, he had been a bore.

“I’m sorry,” he said, coming up on his elbows. “I’m very sorry, Helen. You are so bloody beautiful.” He couldn’t help himself and leaned down to kiss her again and found that he was again hard inside her.

“I am thirty-three years old,” he said between kisses. “I want you again immediately. You’re a witch. You’re incredible.” And he pulled out of her, throbbing and hard but not as hard as his heart was pounding. He was panting as he kissed her, his fingers finding her to begin a rhythm he did so very well, but the simple touch of her flesh beneath his fingers, the softness, the heat of her, but no, it was something more than that, and it flooded through him and he wanted desperately to see her pleasure. He kissed her and loved her until he felt the tension near to overflowing in her, and he lifted his head to look at her face when she arched against his fingers, her eyes frantic and vague, and she screamed as her own pleasure flooded through her, his fingers the focus of everything that was swamping her. She screamed again, this time into his mouth.

He kissed her more deeply, not at first aware that she was struggling to get away from him. When it finally got through to him, he blinked in confusion, his mouth open, but she screamed again. “Oh, my God!”

She wrapped her arms tightly around his back and pressed him hard against her. She rolled with him on the rotted floor. He heard the crashing of beams and ceiling not six inches behind him, exactly where they had been lying. It was a horrendously loud noise, so close it chilled him to the bone.

Then the silence of the thick rain enclosed them once again.

They were lying facing each other, still pressed very close. “The ceiling,” he said. “My God, the ceiling crashed in.”

Her eyes were closed. He leaned forward to kiss her. Her mouth didn’t move beneath his. “Helen?”

He pulled back just a bit.

She was unconscious. And damn him for a beast, he was still hard, deep inside her.

L
ORD BEECHAM CAME UP beside her and carefully rolled her onto her back. He saw the blood now, seeping through her wet hair just behind her left ear.

Something had struck her. He looked up. The sleeting rain was so close, the rubble flattening beneath its force. He pulled down her clothes, fastened his breeches, and sat back on his heels.

He shrugged out of his riding jacket and covered her with it. There was nothing else he could think to do. He was afraid to move her. But just lying there like that she would surely get chilled, and that could be dangerous. He eased her as far away from the rain as he could. His back was pressed to the wall. He stretched out beside her and pulled her tightly against him. “I’m sorry, Helen. You saved my lustful hide and you’re the one who got hurt. It will be all right now. We will just stay here until you come back again.” He kissed her ear and pulled his jacket more firmly over her.

They had been on their way to Dereham to find a text on ancient Persian. Now they were lying pressed against each other, soaking wet and Helen was unconscious, with a collapsed roof not two feet away.

It was at that moment that he realized it was getting toward late afternoon. It would get colder as the hours passed. What if it did not stop raining? He closed his eyes, his cheek pressed against hers.

He knew he could carry her, but not all that far, surely not far enough to make any difference. He doubted he could even get her back to the country road. And if it continued to rain like this?

No, they had to remain right here. No choice. He slipped his hand between them and pressed his palm against her breast. To his relief, her heart was beating slowly and steadily. He could do nothing but wait.

He thought about his reaction to her, and was still amazed. It had been too much, far too much. He had simply never felt anything like it, the urge to have her so powerful, so very urgent, that nothing else had existed for him in those moments, just Helen and being inside her, holding her tight and tighter still until they were joined so deeply neither of them could feel anything apart from the other.

What had happened—he distrusted it profoundly, now that his body had calmed from its incredible need. An aberration, he thought, just being here in the rain, in this ruin of a cottage, seeing her beautiful blond hair straggling around her face, and he had lost all sense. He supposed that she had as well. He had enjoyed many women over the years. He had always been the one to set the pace of things, but this time he had lost himself in the dust. And he had spilled his seed inside her, something he never did. He wanted no woman pregnant by him. But with Helen, he had simply leapt off a cliff, screaming with the joy of it, and hadn’t cared what parts of him had landed where.

She had quite simply stunned him.

A woman rarely got pregnant with just one mistake. Actually, he would have spilled his seed deep inside her a second time if the roof hadn’t fallen in on them.

At least she’d had pleasure in those moments before it had happened.

He kissed her temple.

He felt her move. Relief surged through him. She had been unconscious for only about four or five minutes. “Helen,” he said against her cheek. “Helen.”

He felt her moan deep in her throat.

“Helen, open your eyes. Come back now, Helen.”

She opened her eyes.

He lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek. “Welcome back.”

He said nothing more, waiting for her to gather herself. Her eyes were vague, just as they had been when she’d been on the edge of her orgasm. He pulled back a bit more so he could see her more clearly. To let her focus on his face.

“What happened?”

A skinny little thread of a voice, he thought, and smiled at her. “It’s all right. You saved us from being smashed beneath the collapsed roof. However, something hit you behind your left ear. There’s just a bit of blood. Tell me, how many fingers am I waggling in front of your face?”

“Too many.”

“Close your eyes, just think about nothing at all. I’m here and we’re safe. But don’t go to sleep. Whatever struck you knocked you a bit silly. Tell me when you want to count fingers again.”

“I’ve never done that before.”

He leaned down and kissed her pale mouth. “Never been hit on the head by a falling roof? Or saved the man who just lost his head over you?”

“That, too. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to race you back to the country lane. What are we going to do, Spenser?”

“Nothing at the moment. Don’t worry about a thing, Helen. I’ll do all the worrying. Now, how far are we from a village or a farmer’s house?”

She was shivering. He wrapped her more tightly against him. “I know you’re wet. Unfortunately I am just as wet, so I can’t help you.” He thought a moment. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to get all those clothes off you and strip myself as well. Then we’re going to get so close we’ll be hot as oven bricks in no time at all.”

Helen moaned, but said nothing. He stripped her, something he had done to many women many times in his adult life, but it wasn’t fun this time. Her clothes were wet and sticking to her, she was shivering, her teeth chattered, and her eyes were closed against the pain any movement brought her. “I’m sorry, Helen, nearly there now. Did I tell you how very beautiful you are? No, perhaps now isn’t time to talk about bodily sorts of things. Now, these clothes are wet. You’ll have my body against you in just a moment. Hold on just a bit longer.”

Finally they were both naked and he managed to pull Helen’s petticoat directly over them. The petticoat was just damp, so it wasn’t quite so bad. Then he layered all their other clothes over the petticoat.

It wasn’t bad at all.

“You’re hotter than the old brick oven my father had installed in his hunting box near Leeds.”

His eyes were crossed. He was hard against her belly, he just couldn’t help it. He kissed her temple. “Don’t pay any attention to me, Helen. I can’t control that part of me. Just ignore it. Are you feeling warmer?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, her breath warm against his throat. “You feel very interesting against me, but it doesn’t matter. I’m very tired, Spenser.”

“Blink your eyes and look at me. Yes, that’s it. Now, Helen, you’re not a fragile little miss. Don’t you dare go to sleep. Wrap your arm around me. Yes, that’s right. Is your back warm enough?”

Since he was stroking his hand up and down her back, over her buttocks and as far as he could reach down the back of her thighs, she was growing very warm, very quickly. And because he was a man, he probably spent more time stroking her hips. “This isn’t something you could have planned, is it, Spenser?”

“The roof collapsing?”

“No, I was thinking about all of it, each thing that happened that triggered the next. It is almost as if you put into motion a perfectly executed form of discipline. Except for me getting hit on the head. A master of discipline wouldn’t want that to happen.”

“No, the master wouldn’t.” His hand was on her buttocks, his fingers splayed. He was pushing her against him, and he was desperately hard again, nearly shaking with it. What was wrong with him?

“Just ignore me,” he said again against her ear.

“That’s rather impossible. You’re shoving me against you. My head is better. Yes, and I’m warm now. Oh, goodness, this is nonsense. I’ve never lost my head like this before. I don’t like it, Spenser, I don’t like it at all.” And without any shoving from him, she moved against him.

He didn’t care about liking it or disliking it. He just wanted her now, and it was as strong and prodding as it had been the first time. He rolled on top of her. “Helen,” he said, and began kissing her. He was between her legs and then he was inside her, her arms clasped around his back.

It was fast and hard, and when she yelled to the roofed sky that still held steady over their heads, he reared back and did his own yelling.

He didn’t want to leave her, and so he didn’t. He managed to cover them again and to his surprise, he went to sleep, his head beside hers, still inside her.

Helen looked up at the narrow slice of roof that covered them. She wasn’t cold now and her head didn’t particularly hurt. She was so surprised, so utterly bewildered by what had happened between them, that when the incredible feelings began to build again inside her, she just sighed deeply and kissed him back. She felt his fingers on her, and he didn’t stop his beguiling rhythm until she was panting hard into his mouth. He smiled down at her as he moved slowly, fully, and it didn’t take long, even this time, the third time, and he realized vaguely as he spilled his seed deeply inside her that surely this was something amazing, to want and want. He wasn’t a randy boy; he was a damned man and he was thirty-three years old.

When his brain turned outward, finally, he said against her left ear, “I really don’t want to expire in a ruined cottage, wallowing in the rain.”

“I’m well enough, just a slight headache. It will be dark in an hour. I should be exhausted, but I’m not. I feel marvelous. I can walk now.”

Actually, he himself could have leapt up and danced an Irish jig. His body pulsed with incredible energy. He didn’t want to, but finally he managed to make himself pull away from her. He rose and looked down at her. His face was hard with satisfaction. He gave her his hand and pulled her to her feet.

“No,” he said, “Helen, don’t look at my mouth or I’ll toss you back down again. We must dress. We must find shelter.”

She hated the layers of clothes that chilled her to her very bones. When she sat down to lace up her boots, he was leaning over trying to pull on his own boots.

She laughed. He looked at her and grinned. It wasn’t raining quite as hard when they made their way back to the country road, but it still took them an hour to return to Shugbourgh Hall.

“Oh, my God,” Lord Prith said when the two of them strolled like bedraggled urchins into the entrance hall. “I shall heat some champagne immediately.”

Lord Beecham begged for brandy and got it. Lord Prith shooed him off to his bedchamber, where Nettle was already pouring hot water into his bath. He stripped his lordship in a minute flat and wrapped him in a dressing gown. Lord Beecham added wood to the fire while Nettle nearly broke into tears over the state of his Hessians. When he was in the tub, leaning back, his eyes closed, he saw Helen, naked, beneath him, arching up when his fingers caressed her, and he saw himself leaning down to kiss her as she screamed out her pleasure.

Three times he’d taken her.

What the hell had he done?

As for Helen, she realized much sooner exactly what she had done, and she cursed the air blue. Teeny paced in front of her tub, back and forth, wringing her hands, completely misunderstanding why her mistress appeared so angry she could spit.