Marrying Winterborne (7 page)

A smile flickered across his lips. “How can you not have noticed?”

“I've never looked down there before!”

Absorbed in every minute variation of her expression, he swirled his fingertip up to the crest of her sex. Gently his thumb pressed the hood back, while he tickled around the little bud. “Tell me the word for this. The tip inside the blossom.”

Writhing in his hold, she gasped, “Anther.” Something was happening to her. Fire was creeping up the backs of her legs and gathering in her stomach, every sensation feeding into a pool of heat.

His finger slipped inside her again, where it had become deep and liquid. What was it? What—her body closed on the invasion, pulling at him in a way she couldn't control. He brushed silken kisses over her mouth, catching at her lips as if he were sipping from a fragile cup. The tip of his thumb found the sensitive peak. Electric tension spread through her in widening ripples, an alarming wave of feeling approaching . . . too strong . . . almost like pain. Sliding out from beneath him with a low cry, she rolled to her stomach, suffocating on her own heartbeat.

Instantly she felt Rhys at her back, his soothing hands running over her trembling limbs.

His voice was at her ear, velvety with amused chiding. “
Cariad
, you're not supposed to pull away. It won't hurt. I promise. Turn over.”

Helen didn't move, stunned by the anguished rush of pleasure that had begun to overwhelm her. It had nearly stopped her heart.

Pushing aside the tangled disorder of her hair, Rhys kissed the nape of her neck. “Is this the kind of wife you'll be? It's too soon for you to begin disobeying me.”

Her lips felt swollen as she managed to reply. “We're not married yet.”

“No, and we won't be until I manage to compromise you properly.” His hand went to her bare bottom, kneading gently. “Turn over, Helen.”

An approving sound, very nearly a purr, left his throat as she obeyed. He looked down at her with eyes as bright as the reflection of stars in a midnight ocean. So brutally handsome, like one of the volatile gods of mythology, wreaking havoc on hapless mortal maidens at a whim.

And he was hers.

“I want to know what you feel like,” she surprised herself by whispering.

His breath caught, his lashes lowering as she reached down the sleek muscled terrain of his body. Her trembling hand curved around the thick, erect length of him. The skin beneath her fingers was thin and astonishingly satiny, slipping easily over the hard shaft. She gripped him lightly, discovering fever-hot flesh, dense in texture, full of mysterious pulses. Daring to caress him lower down, she trundled the loose, cool weights in the cup of her palm, and he responded with an inar
ticulate sound. He wasn't breathing well. For once he seemed as overwhelmed by her as she had always been by him.

In the next moment, she found herself dominated by a large expanse of amorous naked male. He covered her chest and shoulders with voracious kisses, his hands cupping her breasts high while he fastened his mouth over the tips. With a quiet grunt, he grasped a handful of her chemise and tugged until the hem was around her waist. He settled over her, and she felt the stunning texture of naked flesh, hardness pressing against soft, furry, shivery heat.

He kissed her, ravishing her mouth, moving to her breasts, then lower. The tangled chemise was in his way, and he gripped it in both hands, rending it in half as if it were made of paper lace. With a savage flick of his arm, the ruined chemise sailed through the air in a ghostlike arc. He slid downward and she felt him lick across her navel. The slithery tickle drew a protracted groan from her. Indecent kisses wandered to the edge of damp curls and into the hollows of her inner thighs.

His arms slid beneath her legs, pushing upward until her knees hooked over his shoulders. The tip of his tongue separated the furled petals and traced an erotic pattern around the tender bud, and she whimpered in confusion. Turning ruthless, he sucked the full center of her into his mouth and licked at every throb and pulse, teasing and teasing until she felt a low, hot pressure inside. A loss of control was approaching, something powerful and frightening. The more she tried to contain it, hold it back, the stronger it grew, until finally she was wracked with violent spasms of pleasure. She stiffened, every muscle tightening and releasing, quivers running out to her fingers and toes. Eventually the
sensations quieted until she was limp with exhaustion. Her sex had become so sensitive that even the gentlest stroke was painful.

With an incoherent protest, Helen pushed at his head, his shoulders, but he was rock-solid, impossible to budge. His tongue trailed lower, searching wetly until it pushed into the trembling entrance of her body. Opening her eyes, she stared at the dark shape of his head silhouetted against dancing firelight.

“Please,” she faltered, although she wasn't quite certain what she was asking for.

Both of his hands went to her sex, spreading it softly, his thumbs caressing over the little bud with alternating flicks. To her shame and astonishment, her body squeezed intimately at every inward surge of his tongue, as if to capture and hold it there.

Before she had even realized it, another tide of release rolled up to her. She dug her heels into the mattress, her hips lifting high and tight as wave after wave of heat went through her. He drew out the feeling, shaping it with delicate whisks and cat licks, feeding on her pleasure.

Panting and disoriented, Helen collapsed back onto the bed. She made no move to resist as Rhys rose over her. Something smooth and stiff nudged into the wetness between her thighs. He reached down, circling the head of his sex against her, pushing harder. It began to burn, and she recoiled instinctively, but the pressure was steady and insistent. A weak moan escaped her as her flesh stretched and pulsed around him in jabs of fire. More of him, impossibly more, until finally his hips met hers, and she was utterly filled. There was too much of him inside her, and no way to escape the piercing ache.

Taking her head in his hands, Rhys stared down at her, his gaze not quite focused. “I'm sorry to cause you pain, little dove.” His voice was uneven. “Try to open to me.”

She lay still, willing herself to relax. As Rhys continued to hold her, his lips pressing to her shoulder, then drifting to her throat, she felt the stabbing discomfort ease a little.

“Aye,” he whispered. “That's the way.”

A flash of embarrassment assailed her as she realized he had felt the slight loosening of those small, private muscles. She lifted her arms, her hands coming to rest on the powerful surface of his back. To her surprise, his muscles turned to steel. Intrigued by his reaction to the light touch, she trailed her fingers gently from his shoulders down to his waist, letting the oval tips of her nails scratch delicately at the small of his back.

He groaned and lost control, quaking violently just as she had, and she realized that he was experiencing his own release. Feeling curiously protective of him, she tightened her arms across his back. After a long moment, Rhys withdrew with a groan and eased to his side to keep from crushing her.

As the invasion slid away, there was a hot, disconcerting trickle between her thighs. Her flesh was sore and smarting, closing oddly on emptiness. But she felt sated, her body agreeably tumbled and lazy, and it was exquisite to feel the roughness and strength and smoothness of him all around her. With the last of her strength, she turned to her side and nestled into the crook of his shoulder.

Her thoughts were dissolving before she could fully grasp them. It was daytime, even though it felt like deepest night. Soon she would have to dress herself,
and go out into the bright, cold light, when all she wanted was to stay in this safe warm darkness and sleep, and sleep.

Rhys sought to arrange the covers, pausing to tug at something caught half-beneath her. A remnant of her chemise. Helen knew she ought to feel concerned—how could she return home without a chemise?—but in her exhaustion, it didn't seem to matter nearly as much as it should have.

“I meant to respect your possessions,” he said ruefully.

“You were distracted,” she managed to whisper.

Rhys made a faint sound of amusement. “‘Unhinged' would be the word.” After using the torn garment to blot the wetness between her thighs, he tossed it aside and shaped his hand over her skull in a brief, comforting gesture. “Sleep,
cariad
. I'll wake you now in a minute.”

Now in a minute . . . a Welsh phrase she'd heard him say before.
Later
, it seemed to mean, with no particular urgency.

Her body quivered with relief as she let herself succumb, sinking into the inviting darkness. And she fell asleep in a man's arms for the first time in her life.

F
OR MORE THAN
an hour, Rhys did nothing but hold her. He felt drugged with satisfaction, drunk on it.

No matter how long he stared at Helen, he couldn't have his fill. Every detail of her struck fresh notes of pleasure in him: the supple lines of her body, the pretty curves of her breasts. The white-blonde hair that spilled and streamed over his forearm, catching light as if it were liquid. And most of all her face, innocent in sleep, bereft of its usual composed mask. The wistful softness
of her mouth went straight to his heart. How was it that he could hold her so close and still want more of her?

Helen was not a placid sleeper. At times her lashes trembled and her lips parted with an anxious breath, and her fingers and toes twitched involuntarily. Whenever she became restless, he caressed and cradled her more closely. Without even trying, she pulled something from him, a tenderness he'd never shown to anyone. He had pleasured women, taken them in every conceivable way. But he'd never made love to anyone the way he just had, as if his fingers were drinking sensation from her skin.

Beneath the covers, her slender thigh hitched higher on his leg as she turned more fully on her side. His cock answered vigorously. He wanted her again, now, even before she had healed from the first time, before he'd washed the virgin's blood and his seed from her. Somehow in yielding to him so completely, she had gained a mysterious advantage, something he couldn't yet identify.

He had to steel himself from rolling over her and thrusting into her defenseless body. Instead he savored the feel of her tucked against his side.

A log snapped in the hearth, the implosion of flame sending ruddy light through the room. He relished the way it gilded Helen's skin, a sheen of gold over ivory. Very softly he touched the perfect curve of her shoulder. How strange it was to lie here so utterly contented, when he usually couldn't abide inactivity. He could lie here for hours, even now at the middle of the day, just holding her.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been abed at this hour, save for those three weeks at Eversby Priory while he'd recovered from the train accident.

Before that experience, he'd never been sick in his life. And the thing he had always feared most was to be at someone else's mercy. But somewhere in the miasma of heat and pain, he had become aware of a young woman's cool hands and lulling voice. She had wiped his face and neck with iced cloths, and given him sips of sweetened tea. Everything about her had soothed him: the delicacy of her, the vanilla sweetness of her scent, the gentle way she had spoken to him.

For the most blissful few minutes of Rhys's life, she had cradled his feverish head and told him stories about mythology and orchids. Until his last day on earth, that memory was the one he would return to most often. It was the first time he hadn't envied a single man on earth, because for once he had felt something close to happiness. And it hadn't been something he'd had to hunt down and devour in dog-hungry gulps . . . it had been gently, patiently spooned to him. Kindness that had asked for nothing in return. He had craved it . . . craved
her . . .
ever since.

A delicate blond tendril dangled over Helen's nose, fluttering with each soft exhalation. Rhys stroked back the glinting strands and let his thumb trace over a slender dark brow.

He still didn't understand why Helen had come to him. He had believed that his wealth was the attraction, but that didn't seem to be the case. Obviously she wasn't drawn to his scholarly turn of mind or his distinguished lineage, since he possessed neither of those things.

She'd said she wanted adventure. But adventures had a way of becoming tiresome, and then it was time to return to everything that was safe and familiar. What would happen when she wanted to go back and realized her life could never be what it was?

Troubled, he disentangled himself from Helen and arranged the covers snugly around her. Leaving the bed, he dressed in the bracing air of the bedroom. His mind fell back into its customary brisk pace, setting out lists and plans like marbles on a solitaire board.

Hell and damnation, what had he been thinking earlier? A grand wedding to show off his blue-blooded bride . . . why had he thought that mattered?
Idiot
, he told himself in disgust, feeling as if he were finally thinking clearly after spending days in a fog.

Now that Helen belonged to him, he couldn't give her back. Not even for a brief interval until the wedding. He needed to keep her close at hand, and he damned well couldn't risk having her back under Devon's control. Although Rhys was convinced that Helen genuinely wanted to marry him, she was still too unworldly. Too malleable. Her family might try to send her far from his reach.

Thank God it wasn't too late to rectify his mistake. Striding from the bedroom suite, he went to his private study and rang for a footman.

By the time the footman had reached the study, Rhys had made a list, sealed it, and addressed it to his private secretary.

“You sent for me, Mr. Winterborne?” The young footman, an enterprising fellow named George, had been well trained and highly recommended by an aristocratic London household. Unfortunately for the upper-class family—but quite fortunately for Rhys—they had recently been forced to economize and reduce the number of servants in their employ. Since many peerage families found themselves in straitened circumstances nowadays, Rhys had the luxury of hiring servants they could no longer afford. He had his pick of
any number of competent people in service, usually the young or the very old.