“What happened tonight?” he asked. “Why did you leave last week?”
“When I left . . .” She swallowed convulsively, turning her head away from his, her eyes finding some unknown spot on the floor. “He was enraged. He wanted to take me before the magistrate and have me hanged or transported or something, but his father was quite stern. If George made a spectacle of me, he’d lose his engagement with Miss Beckwith. And she was the daughter of a viscount.” She looked up with a wry expression. “It was quite the coup.”
“Did the marriage go forward?”
Anne nodded. “But he has never let go of his vow for revenge. The scar healed better than I might have expected, but he is still marked most visibly. And he was so very handsome before. I used to think he wanted to kill me, but now . . .”
“What?” Daniel demanded when she did not finish the sentence.
“He wants to cut me,” she said, very quietly.
Daniel let out a vicious curse. It did not matter that he was in the presence of a lady. There was no way he could stop the foul language that spat from his mouth. “I’m going to kill him,” he said.
“No,” Anne said, “you’re not. After what happened with Hugh Prentice—”
“No one would mind if I removed Chervil from the face of this earth,” he cut in. “I have no worries on that score.”
“You will not kill him,” Anne said sternly. “I have already injured him grievously—”
“Surely you do not make excuses for him?”
“No,” she replied, with enough alacrity to set his mind at ease. “But I do think he has paid for what he did to me that night. He will never escape what I did to him.”
“As well he shouldn’t,” Daniel bit off.
“I want this to stop,” she said firmly. “I want to live my life without looking over my shoulder. But I don’t want revenge. I don’t need it.”
Daniel rather thought he might need it, but he knew it was her decision to make. It took him a moment to stuff down his anger, but he managed it, and finally he asked, “How did he explain the injury?”
Anne looked relieved that he had changed the subject. “A riding accident. Charlotte told me no one believed it, but they said that he’d been thrown by his horse and his face had been cut open by the branch of a tree. I don’t think anyone suspected the truth—I’m sure people thought the worst of me when I disappeared so suddenly, but I can’t imagine anyone thought I would stab him in the face.”
Much to his surprise, Daniel felt himself smile. “I’m glad you did.”
She looked at him with surprise.
“You should have cut him somewhere else.”
Her eyes widened, and then she let out a snort of laughter.
“Call me bloodthirsty,” he murmured.
Her expression grew a little bit wicked. “You’ll be pleased to know that tonight, while I was getting away . . .”
“Oh, tell me you kneed him in the balls,” he begged. “Please please please tell me that.”
She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh again. “I might have done.”
He tugged her close. “Hard?”
“Not as hard as I kicked him once he was on the ground.”
Daniel kissed one of her hands, and then the other. “May I say that I’m very proud to know you?”
She flushed with pleasure.
“And I’m very very proud to call you mine.” He kissed her, lightly. “But you will never be my mistress.”
She drew back. “Dan—”
He stopped her with a finger to her lips. “I have already announced that I plan to marry you. Would you make me a liar?”
“Daniel, you can’t!”
“I can.”
“No, you—”
“I can,” he said firmly. “And I will.”
Her eyes searched his face with frantic movement. “But George is still out there. And if he hurts you . . .”
“I can take care of the George Chervils of the world,” he assured her, “as long as you can take care of me.”
“But—”
“I love you,” he said, and it felt as if the whole world settled into place when he finally told her. “I love you, and I cannot bear the thought of a moment without you. I want you at my side and in my bed. I want you to bear my children, and I want every bloody person in the world to know that you are mine.”
“Daniel,” she said, and he couldn’t tell if she was protesting or giving in. But her eyes had filled with tears, and he knew he was close.
“I won’t be satisfied with anything less than everything,” he whispered. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to marry me.”
Her chin trembled. It might have been a nod. “I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, too.”
“And . . . ?” he prodded. Because he was going to make her say it.
“Yes,” she said. “If you’re brave enough to want me, I will marry you.”
He pulled her against him, kissing her with all of the passion, and fear, and emotion he’d been holding inside of him for a week. “Bravery has nothing to do with it,” he told her, and he almost laughed, he was so exquisitely happy. “It’s self-preservation.”
Her brow furrowed.
He kissed her again. He couldn’t seem to stop. “I believe I would die without you,” he murmured.
“I think . . . ,” she whispered, but she didn’t finish, at least not right away. “I think that before . . . with George . . . I don’t think it counts.” She lifted her face to his, her eyes shining with love and promise. “Tonight is going to be my first time. With you.”
Chapter Nineteen
And then Anne said one word. Just one.
“Please.”
She didn’t know why she said it; it certainly wasn’t the result of rational thought. It was just that she had spent the last five years of her life reminding people that it never hurt to use good manners and say please for the things one wanted.
And she wanted this very badly.
“Then I,” Daniel murmured, bowing his head in a courtly gesture, “can say only ‘thank you.’ ”
She smiled then, but not the smile of amusement or humor. It was a different thing altogether, the kind of smile that took a body by surprise, that wobbled on the lips until it found its bearing. It was the smile of pure happiness, coming so deep from within that Anne had to remind herself to breathe.
One tear rolled down her cheek. She reached up to wipe it away, but Daniel’s fingers found it first. “A happy tear, I hope,” he said.
She nodded.
His hand cupped her cheek, the pad of his thumb brushing lightly over the faint bruise near her temple. “He hurt you.”
Anne had seen the bruise when she had looked at her reflection in the bathroom looking glass. It didn’t hurt much, and she couldn’t even remember exactly how she’d got it. The fight with George was a blur, and she decided it was better that way.
Still, she smiled slyly, murmuring, “He looks worse.”
It took Daniel a moment, but then his eyes flared with quiet humor. “Does he?”
“Oh, yes.”
He kissed her softly behind her ear, his breath hot on her skin. “Well, that’s very important.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She arched her neck as his lips moved slowly toward her collarbone. “I was told once that the most important part of a fight is making sure your opponent looks worse than you do when you’re through.”
“You have very wise advisors.”
Anne sucked in her breath again. His hands had moved to the silken tie of the dressing gown, and she could feel the belt grow loose as he undid the knot. “Just one,” she whispered, trying not to lose herself completely when she felt his large hands slide along the tender skin of her belly and then around to her back.
“Just one?” he asked, cupping her bottom.
“One advisor, but he’s—oh, my!”
He squeezed again. “Was this the ‘oh my’?” Then he did something ent
irely different, something that involved just one very wicked finger. “Or this?”
“Oh, Daniel . . .”
His lips found her ear again, and his voice was hot and husky on her skin. “Before the night is through, I’m going to make you scream.”
She had just enough sense left to say, “No. You can’t.”
He lifted her against him, with just enough roughness that her feet left the ground and she had no choice but to wrap her legs around his. “I assure you, I can.”
“No, no . . . I’m not . . .”
His finger, which had been drawing lazy circles on her mound, dipped in a little further.
“No one knows that I am here,” Anne gasped, clutching desperately at his shoulders. He was moving within her now, languid and slow, but every touch seemed to send shivers of desire to the very center of her body. “If we wake someone up . . .”
“Oh, that’s right,” he murmured, but she could hear a wicked smile in his voice. “I suppose I shall have to be prudent and save a few things for when we’re married.”
Anne couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was talking about, but his words were having just as much effect on her as his hands, spinning her into a heated coil of passion.
“For tonight,” he said, carrying her to the edge of the bed, “I will have no choice but to make sure that you are a very good girl indeed.”
“A good girl?” she echoed. She was backed up against the edge of a sinfully large bed, wearing a man’s dressing gown that was hanging open to reveal the curve of her breasts, and there was a finger inside of her, making her pant with pleasure.
There was nothing good about her just then.
Nothing good, and everything wonderful.
“Do you think you can be quiet?” he teased, kissing her throat.
“I don’t know.”
He slid another finger inside of her. “What if I do this?”
She let out a little squeak, and he smiled diabolically.
“What about this?” he said huskily, nudging one side of the dressing gown with his nose. It fell over her shoulder, baring her breast, but only for a split second before his mouth closed over the tip.
“Oh!” She was a little louder that time, and she heard him chuckle against her skin. “You are wicked,” she told him.
He flicked against her with his tongue, then looked up wolfishly. “I never said I wasn’t.” He moved to her other breast, which was impossibly even more sensitive than the first, and Anne barely noticed when the dressing gown fell completely away from her body.
He looked up again. “Wait until you see what else I can do.”
“Oh, my God.” She couldn’t imagine what could be more wicked than this.
But then his mouth slid to the hollow between her breasts, and he moved down . . . down . . . over her belly, her navel, down to . . .
“Oh, my God,” she gasped. “You can’t.”
“Can’t I?”
“Daniel?” She didn’t know what she was asking him, but before she knew it, he had lifted her up so that she was now sitting on the very edge of the bed, and his mouth was where his fingers had just been, and the things he was doing with his tongue, and his lips, and his breath . . .
Dear God, she was going to melt. Or explode. She clutched at his head so hard that he actually had to loosen her grasp, and then finally, unable to support herself any longer, she fell back, landing on the soft mattress, her legs still hanging over the side of the bed.
Daniel’s head poked up, and he looked very pleased with himself.
She watched as he stood, then gasped, “What are you doing to me?” Because he couldn’t possibly be finished. She ached for him, for something, for—
“When you reach it,” he said, yanking his shirt over his head, “it will be with me inside of you.”
“Reach it?” What in heaven did he mean, reach it?
His hands went to his breeches, and within seconds he was naked, and Anne could only stare at him in wonder as he stepped between her legs. He was magnificent, but surely, surely he didn’t think that was going to—
He touched her again, his hands wrapping around her thighs, pulling her open to greet him.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered. She did not think she’d ever said those words so many times as she had in the last few minutes, but if there had ever been a time to praise the Lord’s creation, this had to be it.
The tip of him nudged against her opening, but he didn’t push forward. Instead he seemed content merely to touch her, letting his manhood rub against her most sensitive skin, circling one way and then another. With every tiny stroke she felt herself open for him a little bit more, and then, seemingly without pressure, the entire tip slid inside of her.
She clutched at the bed, barely able to fathom the strangeness of the sensation. It felt as if he’d rip her apart if he pushed forward, and yet at the same time she wanted more. She had no idea how this could be so, but she couldn’t seem to stop her hips from pressing against him.
“I want all of you,” she whispered, shocking herself with her words. “Now.”
She heard his sharply indrawn breath, and when she looked up at him, his eyes were unfocused and glazed with desire. He groaned her name, and then he pushed forward, not all the way, but enough so that she once again felt that strange, marvelous sensation of being opened to him, being opened by him.
“More,” she said, and she wasn’t begging. She was commanding.
“Not yet.” He pulled out a little, then pushed back in. “You’re not ready.”
“I don’t care.” And she didn’t. There was a pressure building inside of her, and it was making her greedy. She wanted all of him, pulsing within her. She wanted to feel him slide inside of her, sheathing himself to the hilt.
He moved again, and this time she grasped his hips, trying to force him closer to her. “I need you,” she moaned, but he strained against her, determined to take this at his chosen pace. His face was contorted with barely leashed desire, though, and Anne knew he wanted this as much as she did. He was holding back because he thought it was what she needed.
But she knew better.
He must have awakened something within her, some wicked, wanton, womanly part of her soul. She had no idea how she knew what to do; she didn’t even know that she was going to do it until it happened, but her hands came to her body and she grasped her breasts, pushing them together, squeezing them, all the while watching him watching her . . .
He stared at her with desire so palpable she could feel it on her skin. “Do it again,” he said hoarsely, and she did, boosting herself like a naughty corset, until she looked huge and plump and deliciously ripe.
“Do you like that?” she whispered, just to tease him.
He nodded, his breath coming so fast that his movements were jerky and rough. He was still trying so hard to go slowly, and Anne knew she had to send him over the edge. He couldn’t stop watching her hands on her breasts, and the pure, primitive need in his eyes made her feel like a goddess, powerful and strong.
She licked her lips and let her hands roam to her nipples, catching each rosy tip between her middle and forefingers. The sensation was amazing, almost as electric as it had been when Daniel had been suckling her there. She felt a new jolt of pleasure, sparking between her legs, and she realized with surprise that she had caused this, with her own wicked fingers. Her head lolled back, and she moaned with desire.
Daniel, too, was caught on the wave of need, and he finally thrust forward, hard and fast, until their bodies were fully joined. “You’re going to do that again,” he growled. “Every night. And I’m going to watch you . . .” He shuddered with pleasure as he moved within her. “I’m going to watch you every night.”
She smiled, reveling in her newfound power, and she wondered what else she might do that would make him so weak with desire.
“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Right now. This moment. But that’s— that’s?
??” He moved again, groaning at the sensitive friction of it. Then he planted his hands on the mattress, on either side of her head.
He was trying to hold himself still, she realized.
“That’s not what I wanted to say,” he said, each word requiring its own ragged breath.
She looked at him, into his eyes, and she felt one of his hands take hers, their fingers entwining in a lovers’ knot.
“I love you,” he said. “I love you.” And then he said it again, and again, with his mouth, with his voice. With every motion of his body, she felt it. It was overwhelming, amazing, and utterly humbling, to feel so magnificently a part of another person.
She squeezed his hand. “I love you, too,” she whispered. “You are the first man . . . The first man I’ve . . .”
She didn’t know how to say it. She wanted him to know every moment of her life, every triumph and disappointment. Most of all, she wanted him to know that he was the first man she had ever trusted completely, the only man to win her heart.
He took her hand and brought it to his lips. Right then, in the midst of the most carnal, erotic coupling she could imagine, he kissed her knuckles, as gently and honorably as an ancient knight.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered.
She hadn’t realized she was.
He kissed away her tears, but as he bent over he moved again within her, restoking the turbulent fire at her core. She stroked his calves with her feet, lifting her hips in a feminine squirm, and then he was moving, and she was moving, and something was changing within her, stretching and tightening until she could not possibly bear it, and then—
“Oooooh!” She let out a little cry as the world burst around her, and she grabbed him, clutching his shoulders so hard she lifted from the bed.
“Oh, my God,” he panted. “Oh, my God, oh my—” With one final thrust he cried out, jerking forward and then finally collapsing as he spilled himself within her.
It was done, Anne thought dreamily. It was done, and yet her life was finally beginning.
Later that night, Daniel lay on his side, leaning on his elbow with his head propped in his hand as he idly toyed with the loose strands of Anne’s hair. She was sleeping—or at least he thought she was. If not, she was being remarkably indulgent, letting him stroke through the soft curls, marveling at the way the flickering candlelight reflected on each strand.