Everything I Ever Wanted (22 page)

India turned back the blankets and slid into bed. It was only when she was covered that she removed her shift, drawing it over her head and letting it fall over the side.

South's eyes followed the movement. The fabric brushed his bare calf as it drifted past. His cock was hard, his balls heavy. He could recall no succession of moments from his past that were filled with such eroticism as India's modest disrobing. His mouth was dry and the words came with some difficulty, hoarse and rough. "Unpin your hair."

"Yes. Of course."

He had not meant it as a command. Now he could not make his tongue and lips conform to the word "please." In the darkened bedchamber, her pale hair was its own light, and he would have it framing her face. He could make out each gold and platinum wave as it was released and sifted between her fingertips. "Lie down."

India did. She stared at the ceiling while South shrugged out of his shirt and finally his drawers. She raised the covers only high enough to permit him to slip beneath. His body was close, not yet touching hers, just close. She could feel heat fill the space that separated them and caress her skin. For a moment it was difficult to catch her breath. India felt him turn, rise on one elbow, and she knew he was watching her, searching her features. She wished that it might be darker still.

"It will be better if you have few expectations," she whispered.

He bent his head, brushed her mouth with his. Her lips were cool and dry. "Why is that?"

India didn't answer. Couldn't.

South dipped his head again, this time catching the corner of her mouth. The tip of his tongue teased her lips, pressing lightly, tracing the lush pink line. It was all the urging she needed. India's mouth parted. The breath that had snagged in her throat was released in a tiny sigh. This time when he kissed her, she kissed him back.

The shape of her mouth changed, meeting the slant of his. She surged upward under him, lifting her face when he would have broken away. He pressed harder, tasting, raking. His tongue swept the ridge of her teeth, and she caught it and bit gently. He groaned, and it was as if she could taste the sound of that hoarse vibration.

One of India's hands lifted to South's shoulder. His muscles bunched under her touch, and more heat exploded against her palm. Her nostrils were filled with the scent of him. Man. Sweat. Lust. Leather. She found herself breathing deeply and still wanting more. He gave her that, subtly altering the rhythm of his stroking mouth and tongue, each brush slower and more deliberate than the last. The kiss was heavy and thick, his tongue like honey in her mouth, swirling about hers so that it felt as if she were drinking from his lips.

"Again," she said against his mouth.

"Greedy wench."

"I think I must be."

South twisted so that he lay partially over her. He cupped her face in his large hands and sunk his fingers into her hair. His erection pulsed hard and hot against her flat belly. One of his legs trapped her beneath him. For a moment he thought she might speak; her lips parted as if she meant to. Her body stirred under his. Restless, he thought. Needy and eager.

It was no different for him. When he felt her lift, her back arching, her heels digging into the mattress, he pressed back. He kissed her again, her mouth first, then the curve of her neck, the hollow beneath her ear, her temples. She moaned softly when he sipped the skin at the base of her throat. He made her do it again. And again.

India clutched his shoulders until the dizzying need to hold on to him passed. Tentatively her fingers slipped down his back, not stopping until they curved over his taut buttocks. His hips ground against her. She sucked in a sharp breath, her abdomen retracting, and she held on again, this time squeezing the firm flesh. South surged upward, her name on his lips. He buried his face against her hair. Soft threads clung to his cheek, his mouth. There was the fragrance of her. Of lavender. Of musk.

He wanted to be so deeply inside her that he was afraid he would hurt her. More frightening still was the knowledge that there was some part of him that wanted to.

With considerable effort he pushed himself away and fell onto his back beside her. He was breathing hard. She was holding hers.

India's heart hammered in her chest. Her breasts ached for the crush of his body, the sliding of his sweat-slick skin over her nipples. Her nostrils flared slightly as she released her breath and slowly drew another. She let her head fall to the side in his direction. Her eyes followed the line of his strong profile, now made a silhouette by the glowing embers in the fireplace. "What is it?" she asked, tentative and uncertain.

The silence stretched, and she began to think he would not answer. Then, "I thought if I touched you a moment longer I would hurt you."

His candor deserved honesty in return, and she surrendered that much of herself to him. "I think it will hurt still more if you do not."

South turned on his side. He laid the back of one hand against her cheek and drew his fingers across it. "What are we doing, India?" He sensed rather than saw her smile. Somehow he knew the shape of it was at once tender and sad. "Will it ease either of us, do you think? Or complicate our lives beyond reason?"

"Both."

He suspected she was right. South traced the shape of her mouth with his fingertip. Her lips were faintly swollen and no longer dry. They had been made wet by his kisses, by the damp edge of his tongue sweeping across them. "I would have you say my name," he said.

She had been prepared to let him have the use of her body, yet using his name struck her as somehow more intimate. India hesitated. "Please, m'lord. I do not"

South's hand fell away from her face but not away from her body. His fingers traced the sensitive cord of her neck and then trailed lightly along her collarbone. His hand slipped lower and slowly began bunching the sheet that still covered her breasts. Each clutch gathered more of the sheet in his fist, dragging the softly abrasive fabric across her tender skin.

He stopped suddenly. His curled fingers rested between her breasts, over the beating of her heart.

She actually whimpered.

"My name," he urged.

Frustrated, India squirmed.

South lifted his fist and the sheet away from her body. She moved against nothing but the air, and it was not enough. Not nearly enough.

"Southerton," she said, the sound coming harshly from the back of her throat.

He cocked an eyebrow and waited.

"South." She took hold of his wrist and brought his hand back to the valley between her breasts.

"That will do," he whispered. "For now." South drew his knuckles along the center of her belly, and she gradually loosened her grip on his wrist. He lowered his mouth to her nipple, brushing it first with his lips, then his tongue. He drew it into his mouth and sucked.

The sensation was like slim fingers of fire that left no scar. Here was pleasure so intense she wanted to withdraw from it like pain. India cried out, and the sound of it was naked and raw and yearning. She did not hear it as coming from herself at first. It had to echo softly in her mind for her to make it her own, and when she understood that he had wrested that cry from her, she pressed her lips together.

South lifted his head slowly. He nudged her mouth with his own."Let me hear you," he said. "I want to hear you."

"No." Not that sound, she thought. Not the one that he made erupt from her soul.

He kissed her again. Warmly. Deeply. She hummed her pleasure this time, and the vibration tickled his lips. Her fingers plowed into his hair. She held him still and kissed him back, running her tongue along his lower lip, suckling him His hand slipped from her hip to her breast, cupped the lower curve, and squeezed gently. His thumb brushed her nipple, then brushed it a second time. India moaned igainst his mouth, and he swallowed the sound. His thumb-rail scraped her nipple. The small of her back lifted off the mattress, and her fingers tightened against his scalp.

But she didn't cry out.

India felt the shape of his smile against her skin and found she did not mind that at all. He had a beautiful smile, she remembered, and now that she was branded with it, there would be that part of her that was beautiful, too. Her hands slipped from his dark hair, fingertips trailing over the planes of his face. She felt his knee nudging hers apart as he made a cradle for himself between her thighs. He moved over her, his erection pressing again. She was not so aware of her raised legs but of the space he had created between them.

South's hand slipped between their bodies. She made room for him by drawing in her breath. His palm grazed the concave curve of her belly, her hip, and came to rest on her mons. She held herself quiet now, aware of nothing so much as the heaviness of his hand and the stillness of his fingers.

"Shall I give you ease now, India?" he whispered.

She averted her head, her eyes closed. He kissed the curve of her neck and pressed his question again. This time she answered him and did not mistake the voice for any but her own. "Yes," she said. "Yes, please."

It was the "please" that did him in. So softly spoken as to be more an expulsion of air than entreaty, it still moved him powerfully. He was aware of her again as not just any woman in his arms, but as this particular woman. She of the corn-silk hair and sloe eyes, the fragile smile and steely spine. The one who challenged him from the stage. The colonel's spy. Perhaps a traitor. She was India Parr, much admired, often offered for, always watched.

Profoundly alone.

The first movement of his fingers was a caress between the damp folds of her flesh. He went slowly. Inexorable. Insistent. She shifted restlessly, no longer able to remain quiet under him. He stroked her. Pressing. Finding a rhythm with his hand that complimented the breathy little sighs that came to the back of her throat. He felt the rise in her bottom, her hips, the arch of her back, the lift of her shoulders as she was pulled taut by sensation and then released from it, never quite coming to ground, but resting each time on a slightly higher plane until she was lifted again.

India sucked in a breath, held it, and felt herself shatter anyway. Her hands had moved to stay his but had only ended up resting on his shoulders. A flush washed over her skin from her breasts to her face. She felt the slow and heavy throb of her body as sweet lethargy replaced excitement. The normal cadence of her breathing was returned to her in time. She opened her eyes and turned her head. He was raised on his forearms above her, watching. India wished that she might see his face better, but the price was that he would have seen hers.

How would she have explained her tears?

She lifted her hand to his cheek. "You will have me now." There was a moment's hesitation, no longer than it took her to draw another breath; then she felt him nod. His lips grazed her palm as she let her hand fall away. On either side of her hips, her fingers bunched in the sheet.

South pushed himself back. His hands curved around her bottom, and she lifted for him without urging or pressure. His cock pulsed heavily against her, and his hips made an involuntarily grinding movement. He knew again the almost violent need to be inside her before he spent himself on her belly and thighs.

He took her deeply with his very first thrust.

India reared back, her heels pressing hard into the mattress again, her hips bucking once to remove his weight from her. The unexpected force of his entry stole her breath. The pressure of him inside her, the need to accommodate the heat and hardness of him, made her clamp her jaw. There was the metallic taste of blood on the tip of her tongue.

Every line of tension South felt in India was matched in his own taut frame. He held himself very still, not daring to move even once, because he knew he would not be able to stop himself then.

"India?" His voice was low, hoarse. He asked all manner of questions in this use of her name. Was she all right? Had he hurt her beyond bearing? Did she forgive him?

"It is surprising, is all," she said quietly. At her sides her fingers slowly loosed their grip on the sheets. "I did not think there would be so much of you or so much of you so quickly."

The sound that escaped his throat was something between a groan and a chuckle. He carefully stretched out over her, bracing his weight once again on his forearms. Her body cradled his. Her thighs pressed against the curve of his buttocks. Deeper, she held his erection in a velvet fist. "Don't move," he said. She contracted around him. "No. Not even there."

Glad for the darkness that hid the heated color in her cheeks, India made herself go still. She listened to his breathing, then her own. She felt the thudding of his heart and the same in her. She considered the shape of his body as it was defined by hers, the breadth of his shoulders filling her arms, the slim, hard hips between her thighs. He had a flat and narrow waist. His legs were long and lean, sleekly muscled. Even against hers they were shapely, making as fine a line without breeches as they did in them.

She was unaware at first that he had begun to move in her. Somehow, he had waited her out, and in waiting had been rewarded. Here, most intimately, she felt the leashed strength of him, the power he would not press on her again so violently.

She did not need him to tell her that she could move now. Her hips rose and fell with little direction from her head that it should be done. In the beginning the rhythm was his; then it became theirs. Her thighs tightened; her calves curved around him. She ran her hands along his back, up his arms, and she would have had more of him if such a thing were possible. He held her with the slow, deep thrusts of his body, and she never thought a second time of trying to leave him.