The Coachman's Daughter (15 page)

“That it wasn’t me.” She put the cloth down
and scooped water, rinsing the arms, his chest, and her palm
gliding down his throat.

She met his gaze and murmured, “I found
myself telling her about the Wimberly’s, realizing how wonderful my
life had been with them. Moreover, I found myself saying, I am
usually in trousers and I can drive a coach. I talked of father and
your family—”

He captured her hand and brought it to his
lips, kissing it before teasing, “And did you tell her that you
dragged the Marquis of fielding arse out of one scrape after
another.”

Sitting back on her heels, she watched him
twine their fingers and then looked at him. “I did. I told her
everything—because as lovely as I looked, as good as it felt, it
was not going to be the real me she was meeting, unless I did. It
didn’t feel—like me.”

She sat forward on her knee and her free hand
smoothed back his wet hair then rested it on his jaw. “I like who I
am. I am proud of my father. It dawned on me that I am proud to be
the coachman’s daughter.”

Deme loosed her hand and sat up, cupping the
back of her head, bringing her to him for a lip dampened kiss.
Slanting his head, letting his tongue taste her deep, they were
both foggy eyed when he eased back.

Probing her gaze, he husked, “And that’s who
I’m going to make love to tonight.” He brushed his thumb over her
lip, then moved back and stood, finishing his bathing, dragging the
soapy cloth over his skin and muscle while she watched. Soap slid
over his dusky skin, over the indents of his hips, the hard firm
buttocks and rounded thighs. It made a runnel down his spine, and
slicked over the dark hair below his navel.

He rinsed much the same, using his hands to
sleuth off the water, then stepped out, rubbing dry with linen. He
turned to where she had gotten to her feet. Deme crossed to pick
her up in his arms, carrying her to the bed that was bathed in soft
saffron light.

Bracing up on his forearm, he smoothed her
hair and whispered, “I feel as if I have waited an eternity for
this moment.”

“Me too.” Her hand glided down his arm. “I
have dreamed of you, ached for you.”

He groaned and kissed her fierce and long,
before sitting up and helping her to her knees so he could peel
that gown from her.

Deme moved off the bed a moment, wanting to
savor the image of her there, her creamy body nude, nothing
covered. Lithe and sleek, round in the right places, and soft as
silk.

He could have drowned in the want in her eyes
when he joined her again. A desire for him that when she touched
him, skimmed him, held to him, he could feel to his bones.

Kissing, caressing, he traced every inch of
her skin with measured strokes that built the fire higher between
them. His palm glided over shoulders, arms, down her side, and
across her quivering stomach.

She responded, arched and moaned so in tune
to the erotic atmosphere that she trembled before he ever touched
his tongue to her nipples, or found the exquisite soft silk of her
sex and glided his fingers in it.

Sluggish and yet hot, their kissing, rubbing
skin to skin, touching, was a sensual dance with the music being
their breaths, their sighs, the whisper of skin on skin. It was
doing what had been dreamed, longed for, fantasized about.

Haven raised and pushed him back, kissing his
sensual mouth erotically before she began tasting his skin—his
throat, across his shoulders.

His hands in her hair, she suckled his
nipples, bit them, and mapped his gorgeous body with her hands. The
sight of her pale hand on the flesh below his navel or her tongue
teasing his nipples aroused them both.

In turn, he gave her the soft drag of his
lips and tongue on her throat, the wrapping of his mouth around her
nipples, and on a string of kisses down her body, he parted her
legs, and sensually laved the folds of her sex, wringing feverish
whispers from her lips.

Unhurried, they relished and savored, and
growing bolder, she felt the tender skin of his cock on her lips,
kissed it, breathed sweet breaths upon it, and touched her tongue
to the underside with flicks, rewarded with his rumbling moans and
roughly uttered words of praise.

The moment came when he covered her, her
knees against his sides and the feel of his sex at the entry of
hers. Her hands smoothed up the muscles of his back, body eager,
her soul needing it.

He rose slightly and flexed his hips, his sex
filling her slowly.

“Hold me, love.’ Deme managed at her tensing.
During the first few strokes, when she was yet used to the fullness
and the thrust, he uttered sweet words, silken hot and sensual
phrases, until the feel of truly being joined with him consumed
Haven.

His body moving sensually, ass and hips
erotically cadenced to stroke her inside slowly, taking her and yet
giving to her, Deme looked down into her tawny eyes, feeling her
sex silky snug on his cock, her smooth thighs stroking his hips on
each thrust.

When her hips were arching and their rhythm
was in harmony, he went higher, and became intoxicated by the thick
exquisite heat and pleasure.

There was only the two of them, an unseen
fire around them, every nerve and pore between them feeling the
least brush of flesh, and warm breath. Their eyes locked in
recognition that he was inside of her, and that she was surrounding
him. Every glide of his cock was as exquisite to him, as it was to
her.

Arching his neck, closing his eyes as the
fire burned them, Deme thrust harder, and deeper, hearing her
feverish cries, feeling her nails bite into his upper arms, and her
hips lifting. The fire raced like lightening and consumed him,
splintering through muscle and bone, blinding him so that he cried
out while spilling deep inside her.

* * * *

Haden lay in Deme’s arms watching the low
flames in the fireplace behind the screen. He had held her after
that incredible loving, and then they had washed and finished
another glass of wine. She was incredibly content for a woman who
had just lost her virtue. Wildly so. She could not imagine another
man making her feel so wonderfully sensual, another who could kiss,
touch, and move in her like Deme. Whatever she had thought of sex,
of lovemaking, she knew in her woman’s soul that Deme had made it
incredible for her. She knew it was something they created with
every touch and kiss. If she had thought him beautiful before, he
was more so in his mixture of vulnerable hungers and dominate
thrusting into her body. His green eyes had glittered, his lids
heavy and sinew in his face and neck had tightened. The way he used
his body to make love was eroticism itself.

Nude, she felt his hand skim her hip and
arose to glance over her shoulder at him.

His eyes were open, the green of them
shimmering between his raven lashes. Deme lifted up and kissed her
softly, then murmured, “I’m finished here and we could return to
Wimberly tomorrow. However, I think this will be where I spend the
off-season. What do you think of it?”

“It’s lovely.” She rolled and turned to face
him. Their voices were hoarse from the emotions they had
experienced. “Aside from the estate house, you have lakes, fishing,
hunting, and there is shopping districts and grand homes nearby,
everything that makes the area appealing. Your siblings will love
visiting, as well the graces I think.”

Deme nodded and reached up, stroking a finger
along her jaw line. “Would you mind staying a week more, helping me
get the permanent staff and perhaps working on building up the
stables?”

“I’d love to.”

He grinned slightly “You can wear
trousers.”

She laughed. “I intend to.”

“Or go necked.” His brow arched.

Her snort came with, “The staff would love
that.”

“Particularly the grooms.”

They chuckled, and then he leaned, rolling
her to her back, and kissing her for long moments. His hand eased
between her legs.

When she moaned, he stroked between the folds
and whispered, “I’m going to mount you again.”

She groaned and arched her neck.
“Oh-yes.”

Haven lifted her hips to his touch and for
the next feverish moments she was reaching for her climax and he
was taking her there, kissing her breasts, her lips, murmuring
explicit things that made the burning all the exquisite.

At the point she melted into it, his lips
were at her ear and he husked, “You love coming, don’t you,
sweet.”

“Mmm. Yes.” She shuddered with the spread of
it thorough her body.

Her eyes watched him withdraw his finger and
suck it between his lips.

He moved so that he was on his knees. “Let me
see that beautiful derrière.”

She turned and got to her knees, moaning when
his finger eased in her several times, before it was his cock
stretching and filling her still sensitive sex. It felt thicker,
bigger, and filled every inch of her.

His palms skimmed up her back. Hers were on
the mattress. He skimmed them back down and cupped her hipbones,
bringing a cry from her when he suddenly pulled out and slammed
in.

Hard, sweet, fast, the joining was as untamed
and as wild as the first was slow and measured.

Haven felt his thumb playing along the crease
of her backside and circled her hips.

“You’re a wicked woman, Mulhern,” he groaned
with sexy hoarseness.

“I need it too bad to pretend otherwise,” she
panted feverishly. “Let me feel you, Deme.”

“With pleasure.” He proceeded to thrust so
deep and fast. The climax stole upon him without warning.

While he was yet gasping, he heard her laugh
huskily. Falling upon her as she rolled to her back afterwards, he
whispered in her ear, “I believe I fucked you that time,
Mulhern.’

“Mmmm.” She turned her head and bit his ear.
“And did it very well, my lord.”

He laughed and then groaned crawling off the
bed to reach the bathing chambers. “My arse is cramped.” He was
hobbling to her laughter and rubbing that nice round body part.

In the bathing chamber however as he cleaned
and then found a cheroot, Deme caught sight of himself in a
full-length mirror. He saw a strong and swarthy male with sex
puffed lips, heavy with pleasure lids, and a full thrusting cock
that already wanted back inside her.

Pulling the cheroot from his lips, he turned
and leaned his hands on the small vanity and closed his eyes a
moment. His legs were still trembling. One week. One week was not
enough.

Chapter Eight

London…

“Oh my God, I did not think you were ever
coming back!” Lisette embraced Haven in the foyer of the Duke’s
London townhouse. “That or we decided you and Deme had killed each
other. She glared at her brother.

Hardly,” Deme drawled lazily, getting an
elbow from Haven at that double meaning while he was trying to take
her cloak.

“Well, you look lovely. Positively radiant.”
Lisette held Haven’s hands and stepped back.

Haven was wearing a fashionable traveling
suit in cream and brown and a dashing straw hat.

“You are not going to stay in the carriage
house, are you? I need you, Haven. You have no idea what I have
gone through...”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Lisette looked from one to the other, Haven
who said yes, Deme who said no, and raised her brow.

Deme removed his own coat and murmured to
Haven, “Since there won’t be a need to drag me out of the gutter,
you have no excuse.”

He told his sister. “She’ll stay in one of
the guestrooms.”

“Famous.”

Haven muttered, “Not in London two hours and
you are already reverting to your usual high handedness.”

He arched his brow, grinning, and gave her a
rub on the derrière his sister could not see. “We’ll argue about it
later. I’m starved.”

He headed for the study.

Lisette, who was talking feverishly, dragged
Haven up the stairs.

“And although Juliette was here, I still had
to resort to drastic measures. He just will not take a hint. And
Mama, why she has decided she adores him, so you see what I have
gone through…”

They had reached the upper hall, the livered
footmen following with her bags, and Haven was led into a
guestroom, Lisette still talking while the footmen got trunks and
bags inside. A maid came in and began unpacking; Haven was removing
her hat at the vanity, still listening to Lisette…

“If I go to the theater he is there, or the
bookshop. But most horrid of all is that he showed up at a masque
ball and the salon…you know the one, not a place you’d find a bore
like Marston.”

“Perhaps he isn’t.” Haden turned to regard
her. “Perhaps you need to get to know him better.”

“You can’t mean it.” Lisette snorted and sat
down on the bed. She looked lovely Haven thought, with her hair
elaborately done and wearing a square necked low cut gown, empire
style with blue ribbons falling from under the bodice. Lisette’s
eyes were sparkling and her color high.

“He must feel something for you; else he
would not be so persistent.”

“Ha! He’s just too obtuse—too arrogant to
give up.” Lisette curled her lip. She stood. “I’ll let you get
settled in. I have a lunching to attend with Mama. Something I hope
Marston will not show up at.”

She left and Haven smiled at the maid who had
apparently been listening to Lisette, likely had for weeks.

“Would you like a bath?”

“Yes. I have something to do first. Perhaps
in an hour?”

“Very good.”

When the maid left, Haven went back down and
through the kitchens, across the flagstone path and to the coaching
quarters.

Her father answered on her first knock, and
they were in each other’s arms, embracing and laughing in
seconds.

“You look wonderful.” He said.