Eventually he drew a curiously tight breath. “I wasn’t going to say anything, not until this was all over. But…I can’t let us go on, into the next two days, without saying at least this much. Downstairs just now, we made plans, all straightforward and direct—we do this, go by this road, and we reach Elveden and it’s over.” His eyes held hers. “But it won’t be that easy. We know the Black Cobra will be marshaling his forces between us and Elveden, that he’ll have his best troops—his elite—waiting to intercept us. He will be, should be, desperate to seize the scroll holder. That’s what we’re counting on—that he’ll be desperate enough to commit his forces so we can reduce them, and that at some point he’ll make a mistake that will paint him even more definitively as the Black Cobra than the letter one of us is carrying does of itself.
“And all of that,” he went on, “assumes action and real danger. A real threat of death looming along our apparently simple road.”
Gareth paused. His gaze locked with hers, he searched for the right words, the words he had to say. “I haven’t yet asked you to marry me.” His grip on her hands tightened; he felt the delicate bones beneath his much stronger fingers and gentled his touch. “Not properly. I want to—I intend to—but I might yet be killed, or badly injured, and if I was, I wouldn’t want you tied to me.” She frowned, opened her mouth, but he spoke over her. “I wouldn’t want you to stay by me if I didn’t have a life to offer you. But…”
This was the difficult part, and at least she’d remained silent and was listening as intently as he could wish. Keeping his gaze locked with hers, he drew strength and steadiness from her moss-green eyes. “I want to marry you, and I want a marriage like Jack and Clarice’s, like Tristan and Leonora’s. I don’t know if that’s possible—if I can do what’s needed to have that sort of marriage—but I think I can, and I want to try. With you. Because I want us to have that, even though I can’t describe what ‘that’ is.”
Understanding shone in her eyes, her expression transformed to one of glowing happiness. The hard knot of trepidation in his chest eased.
She stepped closer. Freeing one hand from his, she laid her palm along his jaw. “I can describe it. I’ve spent the last days thinking of nothing else—looking and studying to learn what made marriages like Jack and Clarice’s, Tristan and Leonora’s, what they are—what makes them work. I know what we need to do—that we need to trust each other, value each other, and share everything in our lives—and yes, I want that, too.”
She smiled, and in that shimmering moment he could see her heart in her eyes. “There is nothing I want more in life than to have a marriage like that, with you.”
His heart cartwheeled, but he raised his hand and placed a finger across her lips. “Don’t say anything more.”
Eyes widening, she tilted her head, looked her question.
“It’s an old…I suppose you’d call it a superstition. A soldier’s superstition, yet there’s logic behind it. In going into battle, any battle, you try to ensure that you, personally, have the least possible to lose. It’s tempting fate to go into an engagement knowing you have something worth more than life itself at stake. More, it’s dangerous, because going on the offensive inevitably clashes with defensive instincts—and you’ll be caught, torn, at the worst possible moment. Facing an enemy knowing you have something of immense and staggering worth to lose gives you a weakness that the enemy doesn’t have. It’s a distraction, a handicap.
“And that is why I want you to know what I want with you, but I don’t want us to speak of it—to make any declarations or decisions now.” He searched her eyes. “Do you understand?”
Her smile only grew more confident. She moved into him, molding her body to his. His hands slid around her, his arms instinctively closing about her. She raised her other hand to join the first, framing his face. “I understand—no declarations, no details, no mutual decrees. But you need to understand something, too—we’re already there. Words are necessary, but actions speak louder, and our actions have been declaring our truth for weeks, even if we haven’t been paying attention. What we need to have the marriage we both want—trusting, valuing, sharing all aspects of our lives, a partnership on all levels—we’ve been working on that, are well on our way to achieving that, and if we continue to grant each other those things, we will win through to the end. To the end we both want. We have to have faith in us—in what we are and can be together. And if we do, nothing—not even the Black Cobra—can deny us.”
Emily smiled into his eyes, her confidence, her faith, her unfettered joy all openly on show. “Together we’re stronger. Together we’ll weather this—whatever comes in the next two days—and then—”
“We’ll speak of our future. Of everything we want our future to be.”
Her eagerness was spiraling out of control. “How we want to shape it, and what it will hold.”
He bent his head. “How we want ‘us’ to be.”
Her lips were deeply curved when he covered them with his. She kissed him back with unrestrained passion, with elation and abandon. Her joy, her welling happiness, were so profound, so powerful, she couldn’t contain them—had to allow both expression.
Had to, was compelled to, reward him. This man—her man, her one and only “one”—was no more blind than she. Thank heaven. To have had to prod and nudge and work to make him see what would be best…she’d been prepared to do it, but to her soul she appreciated his courage in facing and embracing their truth.
This was what they were. What, for them both, their marriage needed to be. Breaking from the kiss on a laughing gasp, she steered him back toward the bed, along the way helped him out of his coat, out of his waistcoat while he dealt with his cravat. His legs hit the end of the mattress and he halted. Mouth watering, she opened his shirt, pushed the halves wide. Savored with hands and eyes while he muttered and reached around her to undo his cuffs.
Then she slid her hands down, palms to his warm, resilient skin, skating over muscles that tensed beneath her touch, to the waistband of his trousers. Two quick flicks and the buttons there were free. But before she could open the placket and reach within, he uttered a breathless laugh. “Shoes first.”
His voice sounded strained.
Eyes dark with desire, he stepped aside and toed off his shoes, stepped out of them, and reached for her. She flung her shawl aside as she went into his arms, needing his heat, rejoicing as it enveloped her.
She lifted her face, wordlessly offered her mouth. He bent his head and took, claimed, filled. She responded, letting the familiar sensations—the welling desire, the burgeoning taste of passion, rising urgency and hungry need—fascinate and absorb them.
While she plotted, planned.
He’d let her explore before, but the pleasure she experienced when he worshipped her with his mouth made her wonder if this wasn’t the time for turn and turnabout. For her to pleasure him.
She thought it would work, but knew of only one way to know for certain. Without breaking from their kiss, from the increasingly heated exchange, she slid her hands down, around, and sent his trousers sliding down his legs to the floor.
He was busy with the buttons closing the front of her nightgown. She only did them up so she would have the small pleasure of having him undo them, the hunger in his touch fueling her own, racking their desire one notch tighter.
While he was engaged, she reached between them, found the rigid rod of his erection, closed her hand boldly and stroked. Sensed the sudden hitch in his breathing, the momentary deflection of his attention.
But then he swung it back to her with renewed intent, renewed urgency.
Even greater hunger.
He wrenched the halves of the nightgown’s bodice wide, baring her breasts, but instead of bending his head to feast, he slid an arm around her upper thighs, lifted her off her feet.
She blinked, and was on her back in the middle of the bed, with him leaning over her, his hot gaze on her breasts, one heavy thigh pinning her l
egs.
One hard hand closed over one of her breasts, took possession. Her lids fell; she moaned with sheer pleasure as he worked her swollen flesh, tortured the tight bud…
In less than a minute, she would lose all chance to take charge.
Her hands had come to rest on his shoulders. She slid them down, flattened her palms on his upper chest and pushed.
“Later,” he murmured.
She knew by his tone he meant much later. “No—now.” She shoved. “Roll over.”
He made a guttural sound of frustration, but obliged, rolling onto his back, taking her with him so she ended atop him.
Her eyes met his. “Good.” Before he could use his hands, still on her breasts, and distract her again, she swooped down and kissed him—voraciously, hungrily, greedily. She poured every ounce of heated passion she could summon into the rapacious kiss—and succeeded in dragging his attention to it, succeeded in snaring his awareness and holding it there, deep in the kiss. Succeeded in sliding one hand down his chest, down his side and in, and closing that hand possessively around his erection.
He stilled, and she pulled back from the kiss.
“Just wait,” she murmured, sliding lower in the bed as her fingers caressed, stroked, promised.
While her hand played, she dipped her head and placed kisses—hot damp kisses—across his collarbone. Then she searched the mat of crinkly dark hair and found the flat disc of his nipple, kissed, licked, then nipped.
He shifted beneath her. One hand rose, sliding beneath the fall of her hair to glide over her nape, then lightly grip her skull.
His breathing quickened as she shifted lower still, trailing kisses with abandon, the fingers of one hand lightly razing her path while her other hand remained wholly devoted to pleasuring his turgid member.
When she shifted lower yet, and her kisses reached his navel, Gareth sucked in a breath and couldn’t release it. Couldn’t breathe.
From wanting. From hoping.
Anticipation dug her claws deep, locked him in place—held him helplessly immobile for her.
Expectation was a rising tide within him, urgent and greedy.
Needy.
It had been a very long time since any woman had pandered to him as she was—as she was promising to do. But what held him in thrall, hers to tease and please as she wished—however and for however long she wished—was the simple fact that this was she—Emily, the woman he wanted as his wife—that it was she who was intent on pleasuring him.
Wonder and so much more held him ensnared. Held him captive as she slid lower yet and her lips finally—finally!—grazed the aching head of his erection.
Instinctively his hand tightened on her skull, fingers clenching in the silk of her hair as he fought to remain still, to keep his hips from jerking upward in greedy eagerness.
Head back, he stared unseeing at the ceiling, wondering just what she would do—willing her, hoping, praying…then he felt the wet stroke of her tongue sliding slowly, sinuously upward from the base of his shaft to the sensitive head.
His lids fell. He locked his jaw. But then with the tip of her tongue she traced the excruciatingly sensitive rim, and his lungs seized.
Her breath, soft and sultry, washed over his damp flesh. Every nerve, every particle of awareness he possessed was locked on her, on what next she would do.
The sensation of her soft lips and luscious mouth sliding over him, taking him in, drawing him deep into that slick heat ripped a groan from him.
Which was all the encouragement she needed. She set to work with the devotion, the abandon, that characterized everything she did. She might have been a novice, yet in short order she reduced him to a state of clamoring need. Both hands sunk in her hair, his breathing increasingly ragged, his heart pounding, blood surging, he clung to sanity—to some semblance of control—while she sent wave after wave of pleasure crashing through him.
While she shredded his reins and stripped away all pretense and left raw need and primal passion blazing through him.
Emily sensed the change—the escalation of tension, of that passion-driven strength that invested the muscled body on which she lay.
Gloried in it. This was even better than she’d imagined. She hadn’t realized pleasuring him would bring her so much joy.
Bring her so much satisfaction, a very feminine triumph in knowing it was she who had done this to him—that she held the power to drive him wild.
And wilder. He groaned again as, experimenting, exercising her newfound power, she curled her tongue about his length and slowly stroked upward, then took him in again and settled to suck, something he seemed to especially enjoy.
How far could she take him? She put her heart and soul into finding out.
Only to have him gutturally declare, “Enough!”
He eased a finger between her lips, withdrawing from her mouth and then grasping her shoulders, lifting her and rising in one smooth movement. She expected him to tumble her onto the bed and follow her down. Instead, he set her back on her knees; coming up on his, he seized the folds of her nightgown and lifted it off, over her head.
She drew her arms from the long sleeves. Her hair tumbled over her face; she brushed back the long strands so she could see.
The bed rocked around her. She nearly tipped over, but a steely arm around her waist caught her, held her up—she saw her nightgown drifting to the floor beyond the bed, and nothing else—and realized he’d come up on his knees behind her.
His arm about her waist held her steady as he shifted nearer, closer, until, head rising, spine straightening, she could feel his heat like a flame from her shoulders all the way down her back, all the way down the backs of her thighs.
His head dipped; his lips cruised her ear. “You can be my houri any day, any night.”
There was a promise in his words that sent a shiver of expectation dancing down her spine. His warm breath washed over the side of her throat. His lips followed. Eyes closing, she felt the familiar heat rise.
Felt the insistent prodding of his erection, hot as a brand, against her bottom as he pressed near. One hard hand clamped over her hip. His arm about her eased, shifted, that hand drifting lower to splay over her belly. Then he raised his head, murmured close by her ear, “And like any good master, I’ll enjoy my slave.”
Her breath hitched. One of her hands had come to rest on the arm he’d wound around her. Her grip tightened, nails sinking in as he held her against him and the hand over her belly slid lower, fingers seeking.
Finding. Stroking. Probing.
Pressing in and possessing.
Until she was arching against him, sobbing and panting, wanting so much more.
Holding her hips against his, he pressed her shoulders down until on a gasp she braced herself on her arms.
And he slid into her from behind.
Her eyes opened wide, unseeing, her senses trapped, wholly focused on where they joined, on the feeling of fullness as his shaft stretched her sheath, as he thrust in and filled her to the hilt.
She heard a shuddering gasp, followed by a low moan as he slowly withdrew. But then he thrust in again and she nearly sobbed.
The friction was acute, the sensations of him filling her, taking her, claiming and possessing her, all so much more primitively, passionately real…her reality spun away into a furnace of primal heat, her wits suborned by the overwhelming need to mate, by a tattoo pounding through her blood, driving her—and him.
His hips thrusting steadily, repetitively, Gareth leaned forward and filled his hands with her breasts. Kneaded, found the tight peaks and squeezed.
Her head threshed alongside his. She was so close, almost there.
He felt his own release inexorably rising. Reached down with one hand, found the throbbing nub of flesh between her thighs and stroked, pressed.
With a barely muted scream, she fractured, her body molten fire in his arms—her sheath clamping scalding hot about him, her womb a beckoning furnace…with a long-d
rawn groan he thrust deep and let go. Let release have him, wash through him, hips bucking hard against her bottom as he spilled his seed deep within her.
She collapsed and took him with her. He sprawled over her, unable to move, his heart thundering, his mind an utter blank, his senses purring.
His more primitive self slumped, sated to its toes, satisfied beyond imagining.
With an effort, he disengaged and slumped on his side beside her. She turned her head his way. Moss-green eyes glinted beneath her lashes.
Then she smiled. “I rather think I like being your houri.”
Nineteen
19th December, 1822
Very early morning
My bedchamber at Mallingham Manor
Dear Diary,
I am huddling under the covers scribbling madly before Dorcas arrives with my washing water. Gareth has just left—and what a night, and a morning, we made of it. But the essential news I have to impart is that we are in accord—utterly and completely!—over our future life.
He saw the possibilities, too, and wants that type of married life as much as I do.
All my hopes have come true—all my dreams are hovering, about to become reality. Admittedly, he hasn’t yet declared he loves me in words, out loud, but after all I have learned from the Berber women, and from Clarice and Leonora, about how to interpret the actions of men like him, the truth could not be clearer.
We know what we must do, how we need to go on to secure everything we want our joint life to be.
All that stands in our way is that wretched Black Cobra, but after tomorrow…after that, we will be free to pursue our shared dreams.
I am eager beyond bearing.
E.
They left at first light, as the dark skies turned a paler gray and a chill east wind whipped snow from the lingering drifts bordering the roads.
Inside the carriage, tucked beneath traveling rugs and with two warm bricks beneath her boots, Emily watched the winter landscape slip past, watching for any hint of cultists. Gareth, seated beside her, his hand wrapped around hers, looked out the other way. They were all on edge, on the one hand ready to repel any attack, but on the other believing that while they might be followed, the cultists were unlikely to engage until they crossed the Thames.