“I think I can manage,” he told her with a slow smile. Megan hovered close beside him as he released her hand and started to move with halting care toward the door. Although his leg really hurt him, he wanted to get them safely to the chaperoned confines. He mustn’t lose his head again. But his infirmity defeated him. He was able to ignore the throbbing discomfort of his injured leg, but when his good leg began to cramp, he knew he would have to rest before he could get back to the house. Grimacing at his own weakness, he cast his eyes around for a likely place to sit. Bales of hay were stacked neatly in an empty stall almost directly opposite where he was standing, and he headed for them, his movements growing more and more labored. When at last he reached the piled-up
hay, which extended like a shelf from the stable wall, he sank down onto it with a groan of relief, his hand moving automatically to massage his aching thigh.
“Are you all right?” Megan hovered over him. Justin looked at her, smiling despite his pain. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever laid eyes on. He watched the graceful flow of her body as she gently removed the crutch from beneath his arm and set it aside. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman in his life. But her innocence, even more than her position as his ward, prevented him from taking what he most desired. Only a complete bounder would undertake to seduce such a child, and he had already gone further than he should. But at this point, no real harm had been done to anything except his own frustrated senses. And really, he thought, although such kisses and caresses as they had exchanged might go far beyond the boundaries of what was considered proper, he might even have done her and her future husband (the mere idea of whom cost him a wince that had nothing to do with his leg) a service. He had always thought it was barbaric to expect a young lady to enter into marriage with no more idea than an infant of what was expected of her in the marriage bed. His own disastrous wedding night was a case in point. Alicia, when confronted with his eager, adoring lustiness, had gone into screaming hysterics which had robbed their union of its first bright promise within six hours of their having entered into it. It had taken him weeks of painstaking effort to
coax her into allowing him to consummate their marriage vows; it took the threat of an annulment before she consented. The whole experience had been a disaster. She had lain unmoving beneath him, stiff with distaste, tears trickling down her face, sobs racking her throat while he made her his wife. Afterwards, she had cried even more bitterly. Then she saw the virginal blood staining her legs, and started to scream. Nothing he could say or do would convince her that he had not rent her in two.
For a while after that, he had tried to get her to take pleasure in the sex act, but she continued to despise it—and to despise him. Within six weeks of their wedding, he went to her bed only reluctantly, aware of his duty to sire an heir; but as months passed and her dread of what she called “the marriage act” continued unabated, he had finally given up. Not even a son and heir was worth having to force himself upon the frigid body of his wife.
Initiating Megan into the joys her body could give her would be a far different experience, Justin thought, eyeing her as she came to sit beside him. He envied her inevitable husband-to-be very much.
“Let me do that.” He had been rubbing his thigh in an effort to ease the cramping, and now her soft little hands brushed his aside and kneaded the aching muscles with surprising strength.
“That’s good.” He was surprised at the way she found the painful knots with unerring accuracy. He knew he should call a halt to even these most practical
of ministrations, but her touch was easing his discomfort too well. She smiled whimsically at him as her hands continued to massage his leg, and he gave up the struggle with his conscience and lay back against the hay, his hands linked behind his head. His expression was absorbed as he watched those small, slender hands with their elegantly tapered fingers and oval nails. She rubbed his leg quite unself-consciously, her fingers alternately pressing and releasing every inch of flesh from his knee to his crotch.
“You should never have come downstairs!”
Justin, to his own amusement, like being scolded by her. She sounded very bossy, and very proprietary, and easily old enough to be his mother. He grinned at her.
“You should never have tried to avoid me,” he retorted amiably.
Megan sent a quick look flickering his way. “I was embarrassed,” she answered.
“I realized that,” he said. She continued to work, without looking at him. Justin stretched out a hand to turn her face to his. “You’re not embarrassed now, though.” It was both a statement and a question. Megan looked at him and smiled.
“No,” she agreed softly. Satisfied, he released her, and settled back again to enjoy being fussed over.
After a few minutes more, her hands stilled against his leg, and she looked at him inquiringly.
“Is that better?” she asked. He smiled at her, thinking what a lovely picture she made with her hair tumbling in wild curls all around her face, her cheeks
glowing with color. She frowned as she waited for his reply.
“I think you just shifted the ache.” The suggestive words were out before he could stop them. Justin swore inwardly at her puzzlement. He hadn’t meant to bring up that subject again.
“What?”
She looked so bewildered, and so damned unknowing, that he grinned wickedly. He couldn’t help himself. Well, thank God she hadn’t understood what he had been referring to.
“Never mind, little girl.” His voice was teasing, and his golden eyes had a droll twinkle as they swept over her. She frowned at him again, her expression severe, and his grin broadened.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that!” Her hands rested unmoving against his leg, as though she had forgotten all about them. Justin wished that he could.
“All right,” he said obligingly. He took her hands and pressed them to his lips. It was a relief to get them away from the too-vulnerable area of his thigh. “What would you rather I called you instead?”
Her face softened as he touched his lips to the back of each hand in turn. “I think ‘my darling’ has a very nice ring to it.” The glimmer of a smile lit her eyes as she looked at him. His eyes lifted from her hands to meet hers, an arrested expression in their depths.
“I think so, too,” he said, his voice thickening, and he made no move to repel her as she leaned forward to press her lips with gentle ardor against his mouth.
He let her kiss him for as long as he could stand it, making no move either to help or to hinder as her mouth coaxed and caressed and pleaded. But finally, when her little tongue found its way between his lips, he could bear it no longer. He groaned, and his arms came up to close about her, turning her so that she lay flat on her back on the hay and he loomed above her.
“My darling,” he muttered hoarsely, his eyes feverish on her face, and then he was kissing her as she had longed for him to do with every fiber of her being.
Justin’s heart thudded furiously. Megan pressed her hand against his chest. Her fingers encountered the slightly coarse material of his shirt. She could
easily
feel the pounding of his heart. Two of her fingers found their way between the buttons of his shirt. At her touch his breathing quickened, and the arms that were holding her tightened so much that she feared for her ribs. Emboldened, Megan withdrew her hand to work loose first one button and then another, making enough room so that her whole hand could slip beneath his shirt to caress his chest. As she touched him, his lips left her mouth to press hotly against her neck. He groaned as if in torment.
Her hand explored the hard muscles of his chest, delighting in the soft pelt that curled around her fingers. She was entranced by the male nipples so like a woman’s and yet so different.
“God!” The word was breathed against her neck as she traced teasing circles around his nipples with her nails. It told her how profoundly she was affecting
him. With a feeling of triumph that she could arouse him so, Megan withdrew her hand again and unbuttoned the rest of his shirt.
“Justin,” she whispered after a moment, her hands pushing lightly against his chest. Desire blazed in his eyes.
“Let me look at you,” Megan murmured.
His eyes narrowed passionately at her barely audible words, and he allowed her to push him back without protest. Now it was she who leaned over him, her eyes wide with admiration. Truly, he was magnificent.
Her hands followed the trail of hair down to where it disappeared beneath the waistband of his pantaloons. He could stand her sweet torture no longer. His hands came up to capture hers, holding them tightly when she would have pulled them free and continued with her exploration. When he refused to release her, she pouted a little.
A lopsided smile twisted his mouth as he met her reproachful look. “I was taught that turnabout is fair play,” he said softly.
“So was I,” she agreed in a husky whisper, and thought she would die with the sheer wonder of it as he reversed their positions and began to gently remove her shirtwaist.
This time she helped him with the tiny buttons, helped him ease the severe black jacket from her shoulders, and then the shirtwaist itself. Her thin white lawn chemise with its rows of prim tucks was all that remained to cover her breasts. He pulled it down
from her shoulders with teasing slowness, his breath catching painfully when at last her small, high breasts with their milky-white skin and rose-bud nipples were exposed to his view. For long moments, he didn’t touch her, seemingly content to devour her breasts with his eyes. Then, finally, when Megan thought she could wait no longer, he lifted one hand to run a finger lightly from her left side over both swelling peaks. As his finger brushed across her nipples, they tautened with a suddenness that sent shudders coursing through her body. Her hands flew to his shoulders, her arms straining against the flimsy cloth of her chemise which bound them just above the elbows. Instinctively, she tried to pull him down to her, longing to feel his hair-roughened chest against the quivering bareness of her breasts. He resisted, smiling crookedly at her, his golden eyes hot as they touched her face. Both hands came up to cup her breasts, weighing them in his palms as he teased her nipples with his thumbs. Megan’s hands tightened on his shoulders. Her nails dug into his flesh at the unexpected shaft of pure pleasure that shot through her at his touch. She watched him, eyes heavy-lidded with newly awakened passion. He leaned over to take her right nipple gently between his teeth.
Her hands slid up to cradle his head. Her eyes closed as he bit lightly on her nipple. Behind her closed eyelids was painted the image of his dark head against the whiteness of her breasts. What he was doing to her was against every moral principle she
had ever been taught, but she was beyond caring. The touch of his mouth on her breasts drove everything else right out of her head.
He circled first one nipple and then the other with his tongue. She moaned. He reached up to kiss her mouth, drinking in her soft cries. His hand again sought her breasts. Megan returned his kiss with passionate abandon, her arms coming up to encircle his neck, writhing beneath him as she gloried in the feel of his naked chest crushing her breasts. He lay half on top of her, kissing her with a slow, heady expertise that made her head reel while his hand continued its teasing play with her breasts. His good leg moved restlessly against her thigh, and Megan became aware of the heat and pressure of that unknown part of his anatomy pressing against her hip. Curious, one hand left his head to move down his chest, her fingers raking through the thick pelt covering it as she stealthily approached her objective. When at last her fingers found the rock-hard bulge, he groaned, as she ran her fingers exploringly up and down the puzzling thing between his legs. From the sound of his breathing and the strength of his grip, she was clearly giving him much pleasure by her touch. She tried to grip it, her attempt not entirely successful because of the tightfitting pantaloons. She squeezed it experimentally and felt it seem to grow even larger in her hand.
“Sweet Christ!” he moaned as if in pain, and then his hand left her breast to press her hand even harder against him as his mouth moved back up to take hers
in what was almost a frenzy of desire. The heat of his passion made the sweet clamoring of her blood increase a thousandfold. She pressed herself tightly against him, writhing mindlessly, as his hand began to pull up her skirt.
Justin heard the sound of approaching voices before she did. He stiffened, lifting his head to listen. Megan moaned a protest, writhing against him, doing her best to pull his head back down.
“Someone’s coming,” he said, his voice still hoarse with passion. It took his words a few seconds to penetrate the haze of longing which enveloped her. By the time she became fully aware of what was happening, he had already pulled away from her and was buttoning his shirt with hands that were not quite steady.
“It’s O’Bannon and Jem,” he told her in a quick undertone. “I sent them into Maam’s Cross on an errand so that we could talk without interruption. Then I forgot all about them.” His mouth quirked with wry humor. Megan, horrified as his words sank in, sat up abruptly, struggling to pull her crumpled chemise back up over her breasts. Justin finished tucking in his shirt, then reached over and fixed her chemise for her. Megan’s expression of panic was not lost on him.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll get rid of them,” he told her softly. “Then you can get dressed and come up to the house. Hand me my crutch, please.” This was said hurriedly as the sound of voices came ever closer.
Blushing violently, Megan did as he asked. Justin tucked the crutch beneath his arm and got to his feet
with one heaving motion, then leaned over to press a quick, hard kiss on her soft mouth. When he drew back, she smiled rather tremulously at him.
“That’s my girl,” he murmured encouragingly, then, after dropping another quick kiss on her still smiling mouth, he swung around and prepared to divert the intruders.