The Mammoth Book Of Regency Romance Part 5

He shook his head and finally released the chair. He flexed his aching hand to restore the blood flow. "And I meant it. But let's do this properly."

Her hand fell away from her s.h.i.+rt to lie loose in her lap. "Shouldn't I take my clothes off?"

Dear G.o.d, she was going to kill him before she was done.

He closed his eyes and prayed for control as images of Alicia's naked body crammed his mind and turned him as hard as an oak staff. When he opened them, she stared at him as if he were mad. She wasn't far wrong.

"We've got plenty of time." He stepped towards the bed, his hands opening and closing at his sides as he fought the urge to seize her and tumble her back against the mattress. "Why rush things?"

"Kinvarra . . ." she said unsteadily.

"You called me Sebastian before."

"You weren't looking at me as if you wanted to eat me before." She clutched at the sheet although she didn't pull it higher. He was close enough now to notice the wild flutter of her pulse at her throat and the way her breathing made her swelling b.r.e.a.s.t.s rise and fall.

"Believe me, I'd love to." He couldn't move too quickly. He had to rein himself in or the sweet promise of joy would disintegrate into dust.

Her scent washed over him, floral soap and something warm and enticing that was the essence of Alicia. He drew a deep breath, taking that delicious fragrance deep into his lungs.

Slowly, he reached to hold the hand that clutched the sheet. At the contact, she jerked and released a choked gasp.

"Don't be afraid, Alicia," he murmured. "I won't hurt you." He hoped to h.e.l.l he spoke true. His hand tightened on hers even as he told himself he needed to be careful with her.

"I'm . . . I'm not afraid," she said on a thread of sound.

He laughed softly and lowered himself to sit on the bed. "Liar."

She blushed. As a girl, her blushes had charmed him. They still did, he discovered.

"I'm nervous. That's not the same as afraid."

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. He felt her s.h.i.+ver. Turning her hand over, he kissed her palm. As he heard her breath catch, desire spurred him to take more, satisfy his pounding need. With difficulty he beat the urge back.

Tonight what he wanted didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was his wife's pleasure.

She remembered him as a selfish lover. He needed to vanquish those unhappy memories and replace them with bliss. His voice deepened into sincerity. "Alicia, trust me."

He held her gaze with his. Doubt, fear and something that might have been reluctant hope swirled in her eyes. He felt tension in the hand he held. In desperate suspense, he waited for her to agree. Surely she wasn't so cruel as to deny him now.

The silence extended. And extended.

Then finally, finally, she nodded. "I trust you, Sebastian."

Relief flooded him, made him dizzy. Relief and grat.i.tude. He didn't deserve her consent. Now he had it, he'd make sure she never regretted it.

"Thank you," he whispered, wondering if she knew how deeply he meant those simple words.

He leaned down to brush his lips across hers. A light kiss. A glancing touch that promised more. A salute to the woman who would be his partner in rapture tonight.

Her lips were impossibly soft. Smooth. Satiny. He lingered a second, savouring the sensation. He hadn't kissed his wife in nearly eleven years. He'd kissed her before they'd married. He'd kissed her during their first weeks together, but the spiralling misery of their days had soon made kissing seem a travesty.

Kinvarra started to pull away, even as the beast inside him surged against restraint. Then Alicia made a soft sound deep in her throat and her lips parted.

Her warm breath filled his mouth. She tasted familiar. Yet as fresh and new as a fall of snow. Hot darkness exploded inside his head and reaction ripped through him. He longed to ravish her mouth with all the pa.s.sion locked in his heart. He clenched his hands in the blankets. His control already threatened to shred and he'd hardly started his seduction.

She reached out and cradled his head between her hands, holding him close. He shut his eyes and prayed for fort.i.tude, even as she tilted her head and pressed her mouth to his.

Her kiss was clumsy, as if she hadn't kissed anyone in a long time. Shock rocketed through him. On an intellectual level, he'd known she'd never been unfaithful. But that pa.s.sionate, needy, unpractised kiss a.s.sured his soul that in all the years they'd been apart, she'd belonged only to him.

Automatically his arms encircled her, curved her against his body. She moulded to him as his mouth opened over hers. Blazing heat threatened to incinerate his good intentions. Even as he kissed her deeply, ravenously, stroking her tongue with his, he struggled to remember that he couldn't yield to this fire.

His resolution faltered when her tongue moved in unmistakable response. Restraint became even shakier when she sighed into his mouth and rubbed her body against his.

His shaking hands rose to her head to hold her as he plundered her mouth, stoking her pa.s.sion with every second. His heart slammed hard at her unfettered response. He'd never guessed she had such wildness in her. She was glorious. When he finally raised his head, she whimpered in protest and her eyes were dark and slumberous under heavy, drooping eyelids.

A soft, shaken laugh escaped him as he feverishly stroked his hands through the soft hair at her temples. He couldn't resist touching her he couldn't rely on fate being generous enough to keep his wife in his arms. "I'm struggling to be gentle, my darling, but you make it almost impossible."

Her breath escaped in uneven gasps from moist, parted lips. Her face was flushed with arousal. "I'm not seventeen any more, Sebastian," she whispered. "I won't break."

Almost reverently, he cupped her jaw. "You deserve tenderness and respect."

Her smile was tremulous. "Is that what you feel for me?"

"Of course," he said immediately. Then after a pause: "And desire."

"Show me the desire."

He bit back a groan. Leas.h.i.+ng his hunger was the most fiendish of tortures. "I promised I wouldn't hurt you."

Her gaze was steady. "You won't."

Shame bit deep, chastened his craving, although nothing could ease his need apart from having her. And he already suspected that one night, no matter how dazzling, wouldn't be enough even then. "I did once."

She touched his cheek with a tenderness that filled him with guilty awareness of how badly he'd once treated her. "We 've both grown up since then, Sebastian. I trust you. Please, trust yourself."

The yearning to prove himself worthy of her confidence flooded him. He couldn't fail her now. But nor could he continue to treat her as if she were made of spun gla.s.s. It would destroy him. As he looked into her beautiful face, he realized she was right. She was no longer the frightened girl he'd first married and he was no longer the greedy, thoughtless young man who hadn't appreciated the treasure he held in his arms.

Time had changed them and now it offered the opportunity to start again, to move beyond their mistakes and create something new and invincible and s.h.i.+ning. He wanted to insist on promises from her, but he was wise enough to know that it was too early to burden the moment with talk of the future.

His hands were gentle as he undid the next b.u.t.ton on her s.h.i.+rt. By the time he slid the garment from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor, she was trembling. Her hands had dropped to her sides.

It seemed she left everything to him. Was this a test?

Her scent filled his head and his thirst for her maddened him. Even so, he held back. Carefully he undressed her. Finally she was bare to his sight and he paused in wonder. In ten years, she'd changed. Her body was a woman's, ripe, voluptuous, alluring.

He drew a shuddering breath and reminded himself of all that was at stake. His blood beat hot and hard but he managed to cling to control.

Just.

Alicia lay before him in shy wantonness. A flush lined her slanted cheekbones and the breath came fast between her lips. Almost hesitantly, Kinvarra reached out to cup one full breast. It curved into his hand as if created for his touch and the raspberry nipple pearled into tightness. When he bent to kiss that impudent peak, Alicia's surprised gasp of pleasure was his reward. He drew harder on the nipple and ran his hand down the soft plain of her belly to the curls at the juncture of her thighs.

She was already damp. This slow seduction worked its magic on his wife too. He took her other nipple between his lips and nipped gently at the crest. She s.h.i.+fted restlessly under his hand and he caught the scent of her arousal. She buried her fingers in his hair, urging him closer.

He needed no further encouragement. But even as he licked and bit and suckled, let his hands roam her soft skin, some trace of reason lingered. She wasn't ready yet, however her touch and her sighs of pleasure urged him to further depredations. He kept coming back to her mouth. He had ten years of kisses to make up for. Each kiss was hotter than the last.

"You're wearing too many clothes," she said in a broken voice.

"Whereas you're dressed just right," he whispered with a low laugh, tasting her breast again.

She'd been lovely as a girl, fresh and dewy and as rich with promise as a furled rose. But the woman in his arms now took his breath away.

With every minute, he felt her confidence increase. When she dragged his s.h.i.+rt up from his breeches, her touch on his naked back shot lightning behind his eyes.

"Sebastian, I want to see you."

He couldn't remain immune to her pleading. He rolled off the bed and tore his clothes off, flinging them into the corner in his haste. Then he paused, wondering if he should have been more circ.u.mspect. Would the sight of his rampant nakedness terrify his wife? When she was a girl, his unabashed maleness had frightened her. Could that have changed?

She slid up against the headboard, making no pretence at modesty by covering herself with the sheet. Dear Lord, she was a sight to set any man's pa.s.sions afire. Her face was flushed, her lips were full and red, her body was a symphony of curves and hollows. Her thick golden hair cascaded around her shoulders, teasingly covering one breast and leaving the other bare. Kinvarra felt himself grow harder, larger, needier.

Her eyes widened as her inspection continued down past his chest and belly. h.e.l.l, what would he do if she stopped him now?

Could he stop?

Yes, something inside him insisted.

"You're magnificent," she said softly, her eyes glinting blue fire under their heavy lids.

She sent him a smile of such joy that his foolish heart performed another somersault. She'd always been able to confound him with a word. Ten years without her hadn't changed that. She stretched out one hand in invitation. To his astonishment, she wasn't shaking. All her earlier uncertainty seemed to have vanished.

"Come to me, my husband."

Alicia watched the expressions cross Kinvarra's striking face. Somewhere in the last years, she'd learned to read him. When they'd first married, she hadn't known how to pierce the sh.e.l.l of physical perfection to reach the man beneath. He'd seemed a G.o.dlike creature, too far above mere mortals for her to feel worthy of being his wife.

But the man who stood before her now, superb in his nakedness, was all too human.

For all his strength and beauty, he was vulnerable. How had she never seen that before?

Tonight she'd learned that he blamed himself for their marital difficulties. How odd, when finally she admitted that she'd been at least as much at fault as he in the disaster that had been their early married life. She'd been spoilt, demanding, headstrong, too quick to take umbrage, too slow to offer understanding.

Tonight she surveyed her husband's powerful body and felt a woman's desire. And a woman's ability to forgive. Sensual need raged in her blood, made her heart pump with eagerness to know this man's possession. Fear lurked too but she refused to acknowledge it.

As she watched his face, she recognized he was still unsure of her, unaware how she'd changed. He didn't know that, after a long and difficult road, she'd discovered exactly where she ought to be.

In Kinvarra's arms. For ever.

How had she imagined poor, pathetic, inadequate Harold Fenton could compare with the man she'd married?

"Sebastian, I want you," she said softly, surprised at how easily the words emerged. "Don't make me wait."

Something in her voice or her smile must have convinced him she had grown beyond the skittish girl he'd married. Determination flooded his face, hardened his jaw, set his eyes glinting in a way that, for all her arousal, made her pulse race with trepidation.

And excitement.

How had she never recognized what an exciting man she'd married? She must have been insane ten years ago.

This was no time for regrets. Not when her tall, handsome, overwhelmingly virile husband prowled towards her with such purpose. There was none of his earlier hesitation in the way he drew her into his arms and tugged her under him. There was just hunger and a masculine strength that made her feel both delicate yet stronger than steel.

When he'd kissed her, she thought she'd measured his pa.s.sion. But now he was insatiable. He touched her everywhere, he kissed her as if he couldn't get enough of her mouth, he whispered praise and endearments until she was intoxicated with delight.

He touched her between her legs, stroking the sleek folds. She shuddered against him as sensation streaked through her. New, strange, astonis.h.i.+ng pleasure. She cried out his name and jerked her hips up to meet him. She wanted him to take her, to fill the lonely reaches of her soul, to appease her hungry senses. Her arms closed hard around him, feeling the coil and release of the muscles in his back.

He rose above her and she caught the turbulent emotion in his face as he stared down at her. The moment spun into eternity then shattered when he joined his body to hers with a sure command that made her heart slam against her chest.

Her body tightened. After the years without him, the invasion felt frightening and unfamiliar. He was a large man and she'd been chaste for so long. She dragged in a shuddering breath, struggling to adjust to his size and power.

Another breath, heavy with the musky, male essence of Kinvarra. She s.h.i.+fted, angled her hips, felt him slide deeper, more surely. Then magically all awkwardness flowed away and, with perfect naturalness, she arched up to join him in a union as much of soul as body.

And recognized with despairing clarity she'd never stopped loving him.

Her hands clenched in the hot, bare skin of his shoulders as the inexorable truth rolled over her like a huge wave. Then she closed her eyes and gave herself up to Sebastian.

Right now he was hers. She refused to let fear of the future destroy this moment of ultimate closeness. She refused to accept fear at all. Fear had already cost her so much.

She felt his tension as he held himself still, then with hard, purposeful strokes that built her arousal to an inferno, he began to move. The dance wasn't new to her, although the deep, joyous intimacy of this moment was.

She spiralled higher and higher until she touched the sky. This was beyond anything she'd ever felt. Beyond anything she'd even imagined.

At the peak, glittering light blinded her and she cried out. Such rapture. Such glory.

Such love.

Vaguely through the swirling storm of pa.s.sion, she heard Sebastian's deep groan. He shuddered and liquid heat spilled inside her. For a long moment, he held himself taut before he slumped, his body heavy with exhaustion.

The air was redolent of their lovemaking. It was as if she breathed the memory of pleasure. She tightened her hold on his back, feeling the sinews flex as he settled himself against her without withdrawing. She'd never felt so close to another person.

The fire burned low, leaving the room in darkness. Alicia stared up at the ceiling, watching the shadows gather. Nothing could dull the glow she felt or dam the satisfaction rippling through her body. She felt made anew. She felt ready to conquer the world. She felt tired and languorous and ready to sleep for a week.

So this was what a man's possession could be. She'd had no idea. No idea at all what she'd been missing.

With sudden desperation, her fingers dug into his back. Oh, dear heaven, don't let fate be so cruel as to take Sebastian away from her now that she'd discovered him again. Not now that she was finally woman enough to be his wife in every sense.

He'd undoubtedly wanted her when he'd taken her, not even the most inexperienced woman could have thought otherwise. But had Sebastian meant what just happened as a last goodbye to a bitter, unhappy past? Or was it the first step in a long, joyful journey together?

Kinvarra gasped for breath, his heartbeat drumming in his ears like a wild sea.

An ocean of satisfaction flooded his body. He'd intended to take his time, prepare Alicia, raise her to peak after peak of ecstasy before he found his own pleasure. But when he'd touched his wife's naked body and read desire in her s.h.i.+ning eyes, he couldn't hold back.

He'd been as hungry as ever the eager young man had been, although at least this time, praise the angels, she hadn't closed away from him in misery. Instead she'd achieved her own delight in his arms. He'd felt the way she tightened, and he hadn't mistaken her broken cry as she'd arched to take him.