Hed cajoled her into marriage. For her sake. And for his. He couldnt claim unselfishness. Now Pen, or malign fate, or demons from hell paid him out for his self-interest.
He clenched his fists at his sides and faced her. She stood a foot away. Every sense was alert to her. Her violet scent drifted toward him. Do you need anything?
As she inhaled, her breasts shifted against her transparent nightdress. Dear God, she tortured him.
I think Another excruciating pause before her words tumbled out in a heated rush. I think I need to sleep with my husband.
Pen watched blazing excitement replace Cams resigned grimness. Despite her invitation, she was still nervous, but her heart gave a great swoop of anticipation as he swept her up against him. He swung her high and strode toward the bed.
Are you sure? Shed never heard that raw tone before, even in those fraught, incandescent moments on the Windhover.
Before she could answer, he bent his glossy dark head and kissed her hard and hungry, as if he starved. She kissed him back with despairing abandon. The rich flavor of brandy mixed with the even richer flavor of his mouth.
Cam had wanted her as a mistress, not as a wife. Cam desired her. Cam would never love her.
With his lips plundering hers and his arms lashing her close, she hardly remembered why any of that mattered. What mattered was that he touched her with mad desperation and he held her as if she was the only woman in creation.
She was doomed. But this was a doom of heated caresses and fevered moans and kisses that made her head swim with pleasure.
Hed kissed her like this on the Windhover before hed broken her heartyet againwith his insulting proposition. After those heady moments, the wild rush should feel familiar. It didnt. She felt as if shed never been kissed before.
The world dipped as he set her on the bed and lowered over her, shrugging off the crimson robe. She had a far too fleeting glimpse of his long, lean body before he caged her between his arms, his bare chest filling her view.
Dizzy with unprecedented, overwhelming excitement, she gasped as his weight descended. Automatically her legs parted to cradle his hips. She started up against him when she felt the insistent pressure against her belly. Huge. Demanding. Inescapable.
His mouth devoured hers, then nipped and licked her neck and shoulders. Roughly he shoved the frail batiste aside until he could kiss the ball of her shoulder and the line of her collarbone. He rushed her into a turbulent current of passion that permitted no pause. She flowed into his demands. She didnt want to think. She just wanted to feel.
Her heart thundered so loudly that she hardly heard the sharp rip as he tore the nightdress away.
Cam! With her last modesty, she tried to cover her sex and her breasts. Everything happened so quickly. She hadnt come to terms with one sensation before another crowded to replace it.
Let me see you, he groaned, staring down with glittering green eyes. Ive dreamed of seeing you.
She knew his dreams had involved passionate possession and nothing more. But she had no defenses against his pleading. Shaking with nerves, she lifted her hands away and buried them in the rumpled sheets.
Youre so beautiful, he said, bending his head to her breasts.
When he suckled, she cried out at the heat rocketing through her. Arousal tightened and coiled, making her writhe. With unsteady hands, she grabbed his forearms, fingers digging into the taut muscles. Once before, hed pushed her to the edge, but this time, her responses were stronger, deeper. She could hardly think. This was like living inside a furnace. Hed burn her to ashes. All the time he muttered words that shed heard so often in her fantasies.
Youre so beautiful.
Youre like fire in my arms.
Ive wanted you so long.
I want you. I want you. I want you.
He rocked against her stomach, setting her blood shifting like the tides. She edged closer to an exquisite pinnacle. The musky smell of aroused male overwhelmed her. The torrid intimacy astonished her, even if in her imagination, her body had thrilled to his hands and lips and voice ten thousand times.
Oh, what wicked things he did to her. Arching, she bit him on the shoulder, wanting him to know a fraction of this painful joy. He jolted under the rough caress and bit her nipple hard enough to make her shake like the dice in a gamblers cup.
Like his kisses on the Windhover, this mating held little tenderness. She didnt want tenderness. Tenderness would cut too close to her lonely soul.
He raised his head and gazed at her blindly. His pupils were so enlarged, his eyes were as black as her own. The skin across his face looked too tight to contain the hard, exquisite bones: so male, so strong, so noble.
Fleetingly her aroused trance receded and she stared lost into his face, knowing shed remember this moment as long as she lived. The burning gaze. The powerful arms straining beneath her clutching hands. The weight against her belly. The vulnerability betrayed in the line of his mouth. A vulnerability that she knew hed deny.
She saw something else too. Something that pierced her like a sword. For all Cams excitement, there was a distance behind those brilliant eyes. He might want her to yield unconditionally, but if he felt anything beyond physical urgency, it remained forever locked inside him.
As he tightened his hips and plunged into her, she released a broken sob of anguish.
Pens harsh cry pierced the air, but it was too late. As he seated himself full length, Cam felt the delicate membrane tear.
Appalled realization crashed down and he went utterly still. Beneath him, Pen lay stiff as a board. All the lithe looseness had vanished the moment he took her.
Incredulity and shame battled inside him.
Incredulity. Shame. And unforgivable pleasure.
Because lying here, the strongest sensation was pleasure.
Pen? he asked shakily. He loathed that he loved being inside her. He loathed that his deepest physical nature wanted him to stay. With clumsy tenderness, he brushed back the hair clinging to her damp face.
Pen, Im sorry. His apology was thick with regret and raging arousal.
Finish, she forced out in a guttural voice that he didnt recognize. For Gods sake, finish.
Every muscle in her body hardened against him as if her very skin rejected him. The hands that circled his arms were tight as manacles. She breathed in broken little gasps.
Damn, damn, damn.
Ill hurt you, he said, frantic with remorse.
Youre hurting me now, she snarled, nails digging deep enough to draw blood. The sting was the least he deserved.
Hed been so tragically, fatally, criminally wrong. Why the devil had he listened to the vicious lies? Hell, if anyone knew not to credit spiteful tattle, he should.
Like a coward, he buried his head in the warm nook between her neck and shoulder. What hed done was reprehensible. The result of arrogance, prejudice, stupidity, and selfish lust. Not to mention lacerating jealousy of her imaginary lovers.
Like a coward, he buried his head in the warm nook between her neck and shoulder. What hed done was reprehensible. The result of arrogance, prejudice, stupidity, and selfish lust. Not to mention lacerating jealousy of her imaginary lovers.
But hed wanted her so badly that hed been blind to the signs of inexperience. Her skittishness on the journey. Her volatile reaction when hed suggested an affair. Most of all, tonights crippling nervousness.
All this knowledge came too late, too late.
Hed been so convinced about the string of lovers. Whereas everything he knew of Pen declared her fastidiousness. Sod it all, at nineteen, shed been too fastidious to marry him.
The compulsion to finish beat in his blood. His heart crashed against his ribs. Every hot clench of her body awakened shudders of delight.
His mind insisted that her body tightened to expel the invader. His mind insisted that he must withdraw, beg forgiveness, leave her alone. His mind insisted that hed never make recompense for his actions tonight.
Even so, he lingered. Drew the scent of hot, aroused Pen into his lungs like incense. She smelled like the woman hed kissed, but different. As though lilies suddenly blossomed on a favorite rosebush. As though hed worked some deep change in her, beyond the mere matter of two bodies colliding in pain and pleasure.
The crackle of the fire played soft counterpoint to her panting distress. Somewhere outside a night bird called, a high, melancholy sound that echoed her cry as hed entered her.
Gradually she gave him what he waited for. Her shocked rigidity softened. So infinitesimally that unless hed tuned his attention to her so closely, hed miss it.
She was woefully removed from squirming urgency. But she was no longer so tense that shed likely break if he made the slightest twitch.
Every muscle howling for release, he rose on his arms. He opened his eyes and saw her bite her lip to stifle a protest at his movement. Hell, he knew he hurt her. Guilt sliced at him like razors.
She stared up at the tester, embroidered with gilt Rothermere unicorns. Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes to soak the black hair spread around her like tangled silk. Compared to her ashen cheeks, her lips seemed startlingly red, bruised with his kisses.
For pitys sake, end this. Her demand rasped across his nerves. I want this over.
My dear
He faltered into silence. After his ruthlessness, he had no right to speak endearments. His lips brushed hers in a kiss meant to comfort, but her nearness defeated him and he deepened the contact. He tasted tears.
Dear God, he was a swine. Self-disgust struggled to rise above his craving to complete the act.
Gingerly, he retreated. Her breathtaking tightness made every inch excruciating and rapturous. Then very carefully, he eased inside, hearing her muffled grunt of surprise at the unexpected smoothness. She didnt stiffen against his invasion, although he caught the flinch she tried to hide.
Brave Penelope.
He moved again, gently, although the need to lose himself shook good intentions. He hooked a hand beneath her knee, bending it to aid his entry.