Usually he prided himself on his finesse—that was public knowledge—but as Annabel swayed into him, her slender body quivering, he lost all real sense of what he was doing. All he could think about was how warm and silky her mouth felt against his, how the shy delicate brush of her tongue sent a jolt of pure desire straight to his groin, how she tasted like heaven.
The planet could have stopped spinning on its axis, every bird on earth fall silent, the oceans all drain away, and his world could not have changed more.
He prolonged the moment, tasting, teasing, whispering her name in her ear, one hand at the small of her back gently holding her close against him.
But finally, there was no use for it; he had to lift his head and look at her.
Into her eyes, hoping, praying to see that same shining light that had been there a year ago before he darkened and destroyed it.
His eyes were such a vivid blue, with those absurdly long lashes, his nose straight, the line of his lean jaw masculine and perfect. And his mouth, capable of both that devastating smile women twittered over and such tender, persuasive kisses her knees felt weak—well, she couldn’t even begin to describe it.
However, at the moment Derek wasn’t smiling at all. He stared down at her, as if in unspoken question.
I love you.
When he said it this time, there was no hesitation. No sense he felt as if he were stepping off a precipice to fall to a painful death, no echo of uncertainty.
Derek loved her. When she reflected back on all the girlish—and then not-so-girlish as she got older—fantasies she’d had over this moment, she could not help the smile that curved her lips. “I’ve always thought my imagination to be excellent, but you’ve now convinced me otherwise.”
His arm around her waist tightened almost imperceptibly. “How so?”
“That was a most romantic kiss and I didn’t think you could possibly outdo the first one. I want to know more.”
“This time is going to be nothing like what happened last year, I promise you.” The altered tone of his voice made her feel a shiver of anticipation.
“I need that promise.” Her fingers feathered down his arm. Through his shirt, she could feel the tension in his muscles.
“I know you do.” He kissed her again, but lightly this time, just a brush of his lips on hers. “Tell me what else you want. All your dreams.”
The man didn’t ask much. A leap of faith into his arms and bed and her dreams too? Annabel hesitated until he said huskily, “Help me. I’m uninterested in making any more mistakes that take a year to correct.”
She might not be experienced like the women he usually became involved with, but she was nestled close enough in his embrace she could feel the hard bulge in the front of his breeches. Heat filled her cheeks and she pressed her burning face against his chest.
He wouldn’t let her. Long fingers caught her chin and tilted it up so their gazes locked. “Annabel?”
“I want
you
,” she confessed.
“Oh, you have me,” he responded, his embrace tightening, his breath warm against her temple.
The cost of it had been high, but how she’d yearned to hear him say those words. Maybe even a year of misery, denial, and disillusionment was worth it to have this moment.
He smiled. It usually made the heart of every woman in the room flutter, but this time it was for her alone and she was the only woman to see it.
She wanted this. Wanted him.
“Don’t stop,” she said. They were the same two words she’d uttered a year before, but they now held so much more meaning.
“I won’t,” he assured her. His eyes were darkened, his lashes lowered. “I couldn’t if I tried. If you mean this, come with me.” Derek gently tugged her hand and led her from the room down the darkened hallway until they reached a stairway. The hushed quiet of the house felt forbidden, but then again, what she was doing was very forbidden and yet she’d demanded it.
We can wait until our wedding night. . . .
Her husband.
She was going to marry the wicked Earl of Manderville. The furor that would ensue once society got wind of the match was daunting, but not as daunting as the prospect of holding his hand and allowing him to escort her up to his bedroom.
Because
she
had asked for it as a trial by fire.
There was no going back now, she thought as she took each step, feeling the warm, firm clasp of his long fingers around hers. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, because even though she’d felt the state of his arousal when he kissed her, she knew he would let her go if her courage failed her.
“You’re still sure?” he asked as if reading her thoughts, his hand on the ornate knob of the first door in the upper hallway. “I can still take you home and hopefully you could slip inside undetected, but either way—”
There was no way she would back out now. She’d broken things off with Alfred, she’d risked her reputation by sneaking out of the house, and she’d bared her soul and made this outrageous offer. “Derek, I’m sure.”
He kissed her then. He kissed her as he urged her inside, he kissed her as he backed her to the bed until it bumped the backs of her legs, and he kissed her as he began to unfasten her gown. Annabel felt the material loosen only in a vague way, the only thing in the world the hot, hungry urgency of his mouth against hers. She threaded her fingers into the silk of his hair, felt the heat of his skin against her palm, and reveled in the knowledge he wanted her. They were so closely pressed together that the strong beat of his heart made the tips of her breasts tingle. Each thud reverberated through her very soul.
“Annie, Annie,” he murmured against her mouth, his hands dispatching garments, moving across her flesh.
There was no time to be embarrassed or shy, she discovered as he stripped her bare and lifted her onto the bed. It was wide, soft, spacious enough so that even when he jerked off his shirt and peeled his breeches from his body, when he joined her—all large and imposing and aroused male—there was still room.
He was magnificent. Hard, sculpted, beautiful.
“I need you.” His gaze seared her and she knew he spoke the truth, the throbbing heat of his erection against her hip. Strong arms gathered her close and though maybe she should have been afraid, she just . . . wasn’t.
“I’m going to pleasure you until you scream,” he promised, nipping along her neck. “Until you call out my name.”
Annabel arched, in disbelief she was doing this—giving herself to Derek at last. She gasped, “Do it.”
“Because you want to be compromised. Because you want no going back.” His breath tickled her ear.
“Yes.”
“Because you want . . . me?” His tongue whirled in an interesting arc along her neck. “Enough to surrender your virginity as an offering to seal our pact? It’s an effective strategy, let me tell you, my love.”
My love . . .
She might have objected under other circumstances to the implication she planned any of this when in truth she’d paced her room, brooded, been angry, and then pensive and then angry again. Not until the clock struck midnight had she gathered her courage and left the house like a thief in the night, creeping down the back stairs and out the servants’ entrance, running along the street to reach him. The light in the downstairs window of his residence had been a boon, a gift. She had pictured having to knock and ask for him, waking half the household.
This way was better.
This way was like a dream come true.
His mouth found her bare breast. Wet heat closed over her nipple and she gasped, arching back onto the softness of the pillows, her body suddenly on fire. Derek suckled gently, swirling his tongue around the taut tip until she felt as if she stopped breathing, and she realized this was really happening. They were naked in each other’s arms, his blond head bent over her, his mouth doing magical, magical things.
“Oh.” Annabel clutched at him, her body tense, feeling the effects of his ministrations in the pit of her stomach and deep between her legs.
Was this what it was like? Was this what women whispered over?
“God, Annie, I want you so.” The faint bristle on his face brushed her skin. His hands caught the mounded fullness and shaped it, and his thumb brushed the erect tip of the opposite breast.
“Derek.” Her voice was strained, uneven.
“I need to taste every inch of you.”
The harsh rasp in his voice increased her quivering reaction to his seductive touch. He leisurely explored the other breast with lips and tongue and then nuzzled the valley between the flesh cupped in his hands.
She wanted to cry out with pleasure and barely managed to stifle it. Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she smothered a whimper. Was it supposed to be like this? she wondered. Those drugging kisses, the hot, wicked sweep of his mouth on her skin, the feeling of abandonment and surrender.
Yes, she decided a moment later as he licked a hot path across her collarbone and made a sound low in his throat. This was exactly why he and the sinful Duke of Rothay had made that wager in the first place. Because he knew just what to do. He must, for
she
had no idea and here she was, beneath him, her body available for his carnal pleasure . . . or was it hers? The edges of definition were blurred, indistinct, her senses captivated.
When he moved lower, raining kisses across her stomach, she didn’t understand until . . .
Oh God, until she realized his mouth was in a place she never dreamed anyone would want to taste and he really meant it when he promised everywhere. The fiery rapture produced from the scandalous kiss between her open thighs made her mind spin. Derek pushed her legs apart for better access, lowered his head again, and won a telling cry she could not help from deep within her.
“Perfect,” he murmured, his mouth still moving against her sensitive flesh. “Flow with it, Annie. Let it take over. We are going to do this the correct way. I want you bound to me forever.”
Let what take over . . . ? Oh God, she jerked in response to the invasion of his tongue, whimpered at the deft flick of it in just the right spot, and felt her hand shake as she grasped his head to push him away.
Or pull him closer. She couldn’t tell; her body was in such a thrall.
It came then. Like a tall wave, moving forward, held suspended, and then dipping in an overflowing crash. She twisted, fought for air, and shuddered as it rippled through her in rapturous pulses.
It was . . . incredible.
So overwhelming she was barely aware as he adjusted his position, sliding upward, sliding inward. His sex penetrated her, at first just a blunt pressure, and then more fully as he began to take real possession of her body.
“If you want proof of my devotion, you surely feel it, Annie.” He kissed her, a brief hard contact of their mouths, and shut his eyes. He looked more beautiful than Michelangelo’s
David
, all marble defined muscle and sculpted features, his expression indicative of supreme control. “I’ll take what you want to gift me and intend to give back twofold. Open for me just a little more. I’ll be as gentle as possible.”
Still shaken from the depth of the pleasure he’d given her, Annabel didn’t resist, still drifting in the aftermath, letting him part her thighs wider.
“I’ve never done this before,” he whispered against her lips, sinking in a little more, stretching her female passage with his inexorable entry. “If I make a mistake, forgive me.”
Annabel fought the urge to laugh, inappropriate to the moment. “But you’ve . . .”
She stopped on a short breath as she felt the stinging pressure of her maidenhead being torn, and then he rested fully inside her.
All of him. All of her. Together. It was uncomfortable, but the pain was negligible compared with the marvel of being so joined, so close. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, kissing her cheek, the tip of her nose, the corner of her mouth. Then he murmured against her lips, “You’re mine now . . . forever.”
“I’ve always wanted to be,” she told him, fiercely triumphant, her nails lightly biting into his muscled shoulders. “Forever.”
He held still, impaling her but not moving. Derek’s face wore an uncharacteristic intense expression at odds with his usual lazy charm. “You haven’t said it. This seems like the perfect moment. I know I’m selfish, but even though you just gifted me with the most precious thing a woman can give a man, I want more than your innocence, Annie. Please tell me.”
She stared into his azure eyes, moved by the plea in his voice. “I love you. I always have. That was part of the problem. Even when I told myself I hated you, I knew deep down I still loved you.”
“At this moment,” he said softly, and his eyes held a suspiciously bright, liquid look, “I feel like the luckiest man on earth.” He shifted his weight to one elbow, and brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “I
am
the luckiest man on earth.”
Was the notorious Earl of Manderville truly moved to tears?
He was, she noted, reaching up with wonder to touch the feathery lashes at one corner of his eye as she gathered a minuscule bit of moisture. “Derek.”
One hand slid over her shoulder, his long fingers gliding in a persuasive caress. “We’ll talk later. Agreed?”
Annabel lifted her hips a little without thinking, glad the discomfort was easing as her body adjusted to the sensation of fullness and possession. “Is it over?” she asked, her voice breathless for a reason she didn’t quite understand, an odd excitement replacing any sense of trepidation.
“No.” His familiar grin surfaced—the one she’d so missed—impudent and boyish, the curve of his lips as intoxicating as a glass of fine wine. “Now that our mutual declaration of our feelings is done, let’s finalize this as you requested. Believe me, we are not nearly finished. Let me show you.”
Derek began to move, fluid, powerful against her—in her. His hardness slid backward and then surged forward and, to her surprise, the friction was at first an interesting sensation, and then became something else entirely.