A Night to Surrender (14 page)

“You know what I think?” he said, coming closer. So close she could feel his breath wash warm against her cheek. “I think we’re having one of those vexing arguments again.”

“The kind where both sides are right?”

“Hell, yes.”

And this time, when they kissed, they both made that sound. That deep, moaning, yearning, whimpering sound.

That sound that said
yes
.

And
at last
.

And
you are exactly what I need
.

She could feel the tension and urgency coiled in his muscles. But his kiss was patience itself. His mouth brushed hers, teasing her lips apart. Her pulse hammered as he made that first tantalizing pass with his tongue.

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

There
was
passion, stockpiled inside her. He’d called her a powder keg, but that would be understating. She saw it all now, stretching in her mind’s eye. Vast storehouses, whole magazines. Here were crates of kisses, never shared. Casks of sweet caresses kept sealed from the rain. Row upon row of breathy moans and sighs, all carefully bottled and tightly corked.

He uncapped one now, with a clever flick of his tongue. Pressed his thumb to the hinge of her jaw, unlocking yet more desire. He kissed her slow and deep, taking time to explore.

“Bram,” she heard herself whisper. She pushed her hands through his cropped, sleek hair. “Oh, Bram.”

The further he raided, the closer he came to the other rooms. Those unused, cobwebbed chambers of her heart. Would he dare to venture there? She doubted. Jumping off a cliff was a flashy sort of courage, but a man would need true strength and valor to break through those padlocked doors. There were dark, uncharted spaces within her that had been built to house love, and even she was afraid to explore them. Terrified to learn just how vast and how achingly empty they truly were.

And her heart wasn’t the only aching, empty place. Between her legs, she was both. As they kissed, he slid his hands to her backside and lifted her, bringing her pelvis flush against his. The prominent, hot ridge of his arousal rubbed against her sex. She moaned into his kiss, a wordless plea for something more. Surely he would know how to answer.

And answer he did.

He bit down on her lip. Hard.

“Ah!” He winced away from her, completely breaking their embrace.

Susanna opened her eyes to see him clutching his head and grimacing with pain.

“What the devil . . . ?” he said.

“Take that, you brute.” Minerva Highwood moved between them, soaked to the skin and clutching a weighted pouch in her hand.

“Minerva?” Reeling from the abrupt interruption, Susanna touched a finger to her lip, testing for blood.

“Don’t worry, Miss Finch. I’m here now.”

She must have swum out from the cave and . . . and
seen
them. Oh God.

“I’m fine, truly.” Susanna’s gaze snapped to the pouch dangling from Minerva’s wrist. It looked like a reticule, fashioned from oilcloth. “What’s in that?”

“Rocks. What else?”

Rocks
. Good Lord. Susanna looked to Bram with fresh concern. The man had just taken a cudgel to the head. It was a wonder he hadn’t fallen unconscious. She started toward him, but Minerva gave a little shriek and backed up, throwing her body in front of Susanna’s.

“Brace yourself. Here he comes again, the . . . the rutting Zeus.”

Bram was clearly still dazed, rubbing his head with one hand. With a growl of pain and a sudden, lurching motion, he stood tall—rising head, shoulders, and exquisitely chiseled torso out of the water. Water droplets sprayed everywhere, catching the sunlight and flashing like tiny sparks.

Rutting Zeus, indeed
. He did rather look like a linen-draped Greek god, dripping with potency and a divine air of possession. The sight took Susanna’s breath away. She briefly wondered if
she’d
been hit over the head with a sackful of rocks. He was beautiful. Dazzling in his masculine perfection.

“Don’t worry.” Minerva scrambled onto a nearby boulder, readying her stone-packed reticule. “I’ll save you, Miss Finch.”

Susanna reached for her. “Minerva, no! There’s no need. He wasn’t—”

Splash
.

Thirteen

B
ram came to consciousness slowly, floating into awareness on a gentle, soothing wave. The world was dark, but he was warm all over. Delicious sensation lapped at his wounded leg, stroking away all the pain and soreness with a light, rhythmic touch.

As his eyes fluttered open, questions teased at the frayed edge of his mind. Where was he? Just who was touching him? And how did he make sure it never, ever stopped?

“Oh, Bram.” Susanna’s voice. “My goodness. Just look at this.”

He struggled up on one elbow, wincing at the sudden lash of pain. He saw a tangle of white sheets. He saw his own dark, hairy legs. He saw her hands on his skin.

Her bare, ungloved hands.

He fell back against the mattress, seeking sleep again. Obviously, he was hallucinating. Or dead. Her touch felt like heaven.

“This explains so much,” she said, clucking her tongue in mother-hen fashion. “You’re compensating for this withered appendage.”

Withered appendage?
What the devil was she talking about? He shook his head, trying to clear it. Colin’s dire predictions of shriveled twigs and dried currants rattled in his skull.

Wide awake now, he fought to sit up, wrestling the sheets. “Listen, you. I don’t know what sort of liberties you’ve taken while I was insensible, or just what your spinster imagination prepared you to see. But I’ll have you know, that water was damned cold.”

She blinked at him. “I’m referring to your leg.”

“Oh.” His leg.
That
withered appendage.

How long had he been unconscious? An hour? More? She’d changed into a frock of striped muslin, but her hair was still wet, combed back from her face in dark amber furrows.

Her hands kept stroking. He saw that her fingers were glistening, coated with some sort of liniment. The herbal scent of it filled his head. Lust sent his blood rushing everywhere else. It had to be a sign of his prolonged celibacy that viewing her ungloved hands aroused him more than a woman’s full nakedness had in the past.

Or maybe it was a sign that he wanted this woman more fiercely than he’d ever wanted another.

“Where are we?” he asked, looking about the room. A light, airy bedchamber, done up in chintz and hardwood. The mattress beneath him felt bowed like a hammock, strained and tested by his weight.

“Summerfield.”

“How did we get here?”

“With great difficulty. You weigh as much as an ox. But you’ll be glad to hear your men rallied to the challenge.”

Deuce it. Damn it. Devil take it and fling it off a cliff. His second full day in command of new recruits, and he’d capped it by dropping unconscious, felled by a squinty bluestocking and her reticule. They’d carried his dead weight all the way here, likely passing through the village on the way and attracting a crowd of onlookers. Even the sheep had probably watched the processional, bleating with smug satisfaction. He was their lord and commander, and now they’d all seen him at his most feeble.

“Must have amused you, seeing me bludgeoned so soundly by a girl.”

“Not at all,” she said. “I was terrified.”

She wasn’t terrified at the moment. Just look at her leaning over him, giving him bold flashes of her pale, freckled bosom. Stroking his bared leg with talented, fearless fingers. Earlier, she’d called him a beast. Now she was treating him like a broken-winged bird.

He snarled down at his wounded leg. Withered appendage, indeed.

“Here.” She pressed a cup into his hand. “Drink this.”

He eyed it skeptically. “What is it?”

“Relief from pain, in liquid form. My own special preparation.”

“You’re a healer?” He frowned, and it hurt. “Should have figured you for one of those females with her little basket of herbs and sunshine.”

“Herbs are good. They have their uses. For a wound like this, you need drugs.”

He sipped. “Ugh. That is vile.”

“Too much for you? If you like, I can add some honey. That’s what I do for the village children.”

He tossed back the rest of her potion without comment. He truly
couldn’t
comment, what with the bitter taste scorching his throat.

After setting the drained cup aside, she returned her attention to his leg. “What happened to you?”

“A bullet happened to me.”

“It’s a miracle you didn’t lose the leg.”

“It wasn’t a miracle, it was sheer force of will. Believe me, those bloodthirsty field surgeons tried to take it.”

“Oh, I believe you. I’ve known my share of bloodthirsty surgeons. My youth was rife with them.”

“Were you ill as a child?”

She shook her head. “No.”

She dipped her fingers into the crock of liniment and moved her attentions up his leg, to his aching thigh muscles. Of course, by soothing the pain in those muscles, she was only creating new aches in his groin. Didn’t she know how dangerous it could be to provoke a man this way?

He ought to tell her to stop. He couldn’t.

Her touch was . . . God, it was just what he’d been needing. She was talented indeed.

“So how did you fend them off?” she asked. “The field surgeons.”

“Thorne,” he said. “Sat by my bedside with a pistol cocked, ready to fire at the first gleam of a bone saw.”

“I imagine Thorne could have scared them off with a look.” She traced a scar on the side of his knee, a thin line that stood out against the gnarled mess. “But someone operated here. Someone skilled.”

He nodded. “Took three days, but we found a surgeon who promised not to amputate.”

She traced a horizontal line across his thigh, above the bullet wound. There was no scar tissue there, but a leather strap had worn him bald in a telltale stripe of pale, baby-smooth skin. A matching band of hairless skin circled his upper calf. She touched that, too. He winced, not at the pain, but at the exposure. He hoped she wouldn’t understand the significance of those bands.

“You’ve been wearing a brace,” she said.

He didn’t respond.

“Why did you remove it? Bram, you can’t simply ignore an injury of this magnitude.”

He had to ignore it. His purpose was not only training men, but leading them, inspiring them. How could he accomplish that with such an obvious weakness?

“I’m healed,” he told her. “It scarcely pains me anymore.”

She made a gruff, incredulous noise. “Liar. You’re in great pain. And more than the usual amount today, I’d wager, after all that marching about the countryside. The water must have felt good.”

“It did. But not as good as you.” He reached for her, suddenly eager to take the aggressive role. He’d been lying here helplessly for much too long.

She batted his hand aside. “You should still be wearing the brace. Look at this swelling.” Her fingertip traced his red, misshapen knee. “You’re not ready to march without it.”

Her pitying touch, those limiting words . . . Something in him snapped.

He seized her wrist in a grip so tight, she gasped. “Don’t tell me what I’m ready to do.” He squeezed harder still. “Do you hear me? Don’t ever tell me what I can’t do. Those surgeons told me I’d never walk again. I proved them wrong. My superiors think I can’t command troops. I’ll prove them wrong, too. If you mean to treat me like an invalid—a man you can coddle and nurse and stroke without any hint of danger . . .” He yanked on her wrist, pulling her atop him. He cinched his other arm around her waist. “I’ll have to prove you wrong, as well.”

Her eyes flashed. “Release me.”

“Not a chance.”

She struggled in his grip, and her short, quick breaths gave him a luscious display of her breasts.

“That won’t work, love. My leg might be injured, but I’m strong as a bull everywhere else.”

“Even bulls have their weaknesses.” He felt her wriggling, insinuating one of her lithe, slender legs between his. The hot friction of their bodies, through just the thin layers of her frock and a linen sheet, had him aching. She made a quick strike, trying to knee him in the groin. Oh, she understood how to hurt a man. But he was one move ahead of her. He scissored his good leg over hers, trapping her lower body. Then he flipped them both, putting her on her back.

“There. I have you,” he said, pinning one hand over her head. “And what will you do now?”

“I’ll scream. There are two footmen just outside this room. My father’s sleeping down the corridor.”

“Go ahead, scream. Call the footmen and your father in. We’ll be found in a very compromising position. My career will be over, you’ll be ruined, and we’ll be stuck together for life. We can’t have that, now can we?”

“Lord, no.”

Bram stared down at her. Odd. He’d spent his entire adulthood avoiding romantic entanglements. But here he was, completely tangled with this woman, and the idea of being forced to marry her didn’t horrify him the way it ought. In fact, if he let himself envision spending a lifetime of nights in a graciously appointed bedchamber, atop a soft, clean mattress, with her lovely scent of herbs in the air and her pale body writhing under his . . .

It was the strangest, most foreign and unlikely image. But curiously, he didn’t hate it.

She squirmed beneath him. “Brute. Beast.”

Chuckling, he kissed her on the forehead. “That’s more like it.” He’d much rather have her scorn than her pity. Pity made him feel helpless. Provoking her ire made him feel alive. And she was so wonderfully easy to provoke.

“God, having you under me, in a bed . . .” He kissed her, just at the corner of her lips. “You drive me mad with wanting, Susanna. We’d be so good together.”

He gentled his grip on her wrist, but kept it pinned with just the weight of his arm atop hers. He slid one thumb along the line of her jaw, covering her racing pulse. Then dipping lower, caressing the tender slope of her throat. Her skin was so soft. Had she bathed? he wondered. Or would she still taste of the sea?

“Very well,” she said. “You’ve made your point. You’re a big, strong man, and I’m a helpless female. Now let me go.”

“I’ll release you, if that’s truly what you want. But I don’t think it is.”

Flipping his hand, he slid the backs of his fingers down her chest, all the way to her bosom. He skimmed the exposed edge of her chemise. The sheer, lacy fabric rose and fell with her rhythmic breaths, like froth riding the edge of a wave.

If she wanted him to stop, she could stop him. Her arms were virtually unrestrained. He levered his weight onto one elbow. A quick dart to the side, and she’d be free.

She glanced in that very direction, obviously thinking the same.

But she didn’t move. She wanted this, too.

In a slow, sure claiming, he fitted his palm over her breast. She bit back a gasp.

Bram struggled to contain his own groan of pleasure. The soft, round swell fit his hand so perfectly, warming under his touch. As he held her, her nipple tightened to a knot, pressing against the center of his palm. Just a small, concentrated dot of sensation, but unspeakably arousing. Her body was responding to his,
calling
to his. His cock answered, stiffening to a painful degree.

He bent his head and pressed his lips to her bared throat, kneading the taut globe of her breast as he kissed a slow trail downward. She did taste of salt, and of sweet femininity. He licked her, sliding his tongue in a lazy, serpentine path over her collarbone. Then dipping down, to trace the border of her décolletage. There, her close-fitted bodice thwarted him. He slipped a single finger between fabric and skin, forcing the neckline to give, just a little. He needed to touch her there, feel that tight bead of her nipple press against the pad of his fingertip.

Working in tiny arcs, he skimmed his touch lower, exploring the warm satin of her skin. Learning the unique geography of the plump, delectable globe. His thumb finally grazed the textured edge of her areola, and triumph surged through him. He felt like a conquistador discovering a new territory. An enticing round island of promise, bordered by rippling dunes and capped with an upward-thrusting peak. He climbed it in increments, panting for breath. God, just a little further . . .

There
.

She gave a startled, breathy cry, and her whole body bowed against his. Her passionate response nearly undid him. His thoughts unraveled, leaving him with just one thread of concentration.

More
.

That was all he could think, all he could understand. More. He needed more of her. How could he stroke more, touch more, kiss more? He still had one of her arms pinned overhead. If he lowered it to her side, he reasoned, her neckline would have more give. He would make it yield to him, so he could take that delicious, straining peak into his mouth. But when he rose up a bit, meaning to draw her arm down to her side . . .

“Jesus.”

He froze, staring. Struggling to make sense of what he beheld. From wrist to elbow, her delicate skin was a crosshatch of scars.

With a sharp mental tug, he reined in the arousal charging through his body. So here was the reason she always wore those enticing, buttoned gloves. She was hiding something, too.