On Bended Knee, page 24
part #6 of Wicked Worthingtons Series
"Well, that won't do," she grumbled and scrambled to her knees. "Take off your shirt!"
A gasp left his lips, somewhere between a groan and a laugh. "Yes, milady."
His deep murmur made her belly shiver, but Gemma had work to do. She'd undone a few buttons in her day and his breeches were no issue for her. The sound of tugging fabric came from above but Gemma was very focused on easing the waist of his breeches down over the fascinating prominence held therein.
His drawers hung loose on his hips and it was no trouble to tug it all down at once. His rigid erection sprang free before her eyes.
Goodness me.
Well, she'd never been one to do things half-heartedly, and she wasn't about to begin now. It'll be an adventure, she told herself. A grand, long, thick adventure.
Absently, she pulled the legs of his trousers down and off, never taking her gaze from her latest challenge. Realizing she was staring, she blushed and looked away.
"Touch me," he whispered. It was as much a plea as a command. His need throbbed in his voice and Gemma's apprehension melted away. Yes. We will care for each other and all will be well.
AT THE FIRST TENTATIVE touch of Gemma's cool fingers on his cock, Lysander curled his fists tightly at his side and stood completely still. Nothing on this earth would make him so much as twitch, for fear of ruining this moment.
Had it truly been a thousand years since he'd been touched? Perhaps he'd never been touched, not really. The other man, Zander, had rolled about in bed with this woman or that, always with friendship and a good-natured sense of adventure. Yet he had never engaged his heart.
Perhaps that earlier Zander had possessed a few walls of his own, after all.
Now, he had no walls where Gemma was concerned. He was naked in every way, exposed and vulnerable. Yet he had never felt more powerful, more linked to the life around him, to the life in her. Powerless without care, vulnerable without fear. He had so much to say to her. He did not think he could express it, that his stumble-tongue would fail him.
Then don't speak. Show her.
All that passed through his mind in the instant before her lips kissed the tip of his cock. Then thought ceased.
GEMMA COULDN'T EXPLAIN THE impulse. She'd never done such a thing before. Her tongue flicked out between her lips and caught a salty droplet, then she wrapped one hand around the thick base of him and eased her tongue around him, licking slowly in a circle.
How wonderful to explore. How decadent, and yet at the same time it felt so trusting and giving. She dared a glance upward to see his eyes shut tightly and his jaw clenched. He looked as if he was trying very hard not to reach out to her.
What if she made him do so?
She opened her lips wider and took the blunt head of him into her mouth, still sliding her tongue over and around. His chest rose and fell in sharp rhythm, as if he'd been running, yet still he did not move.
I want you to break past it.
I want you to reach for me first, this time.
She shifted closer on her knees so she could slide a length of him between her lips, and made up for the rest with her hand fisted snugly around him.
The power she felt made a heavy ache between her thighs and she felt herself grow damp when he wasn't even touching her. The way she'd felt watching him pour water over his head, standing in the sun by the rain barrel, gleaming and muscled like the powerful animal he was.
Then, as now, he'd waited on her to call him to her, for her to touch first, for her to kiss first.
He was afraid of the darkness within him. She was not. She'd seen him become chaotic in a state of battle madness. Even when he was lost to himself, his instinct to protect had prevailed over his habituation to violence. She had no fear and she meant to prove his trustworthiness to him.
I want to be taken by you. I want to be claimed.
I want you to race free. I want you to run.
Run to me.
So, being a widow of a reasonable level of experience, she set about breaking down the last wall around Lysander Worthington — the wall of reaching for what he wanted instead of waiting silently for the scraps he thought he deserved.
You will run wild by my hand.
She wrapped her fingers tightly around him and began to move them up and down the base of his shaft.
You will lose all reserve.
She closed her lips around the thickness of him and drew upon him, sucking him deeper and then pulling away slowly, keeping the suction tight, sliding her tongue along the thick vein that ran beneath.
Reach for me!
He withdrew from her mouth and tugged her grip free. Gemma fell back slightly from her perch upon her heels and looked up at him to see the wild, dark heat rise in his eyes, turning them black and unreadable. She shivered slightly and ran her tongue nervously over her lower lip, but she did not break their locked gazes.
He dropped to his knees between her sprawled limbs and took her face into his hands. She'd never known anything like the kiss he gave her, the kiss he took from her. Oh sweet heaven, the kiss.
Never. Never had she been kissed like this, never truly kissed before, never knew it could burn so, heal so, ache so.
She closed her eyes and fell freely. She didn’t give a damn if she ever landed at all.
Run free with me.
His secret wolf unleashed, he wrapped his arms about her, sweeping her in a great circle that rolled them both back down upon the carpet.
I cannot breathe. I don't care. If I die beneath him, I will at least have lived.
For all his ferocity, he didn't hurt her. He was all rough passion and violent need, but his touch left her breathless with pleasure, not pain.
One large hand wrapped around the back of her head and the other slid down her neck, over each breast with a masterful squeeze, over her belly and down.
Oh, yes.
Touch me.
Hot fingers, slightly roughened by work and riding. Long, careful, sensitive fingers, playing her slit like a harp, sliding deep into her wet center and slipping out, fingertips circling and tugging, circling and sliding.
And all the while he kissed her. When she arched her body and dug her fingernails into his shoulders and came apart in his arms, he swallowed her moans and cries, never ceasing the pleasure he dealt her.
And when she fell back gasping and shuddering, he rolled upon her even as she shivered and thrust his cock slowly but implacably inside her. She heard herself whimper in surprise, but he swallowed that too.
He was careful and tender, but there was no doubt within her that he would have her and he would have her now.
Gemma moaned into his mouth. Her last conscious thought was, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
Then began the wild storm that was Lysander unleashed.
Each thrust near to split Gemma in two. Each withdrawal made her gasp with loss. The heat and weight of him upon her, between her thighs, pressing them wide with his big body, the way he cradled her so carefully in his arms with each powerful thrust—
I think I might die.
I think it might be worth it.
She came again, tossed helplessly upon the waves of pleasure, unsure of up or down, uncaring of wrong or right. Lost in him. Lost in the way he made her feel.
Lost, she thought as she floated dizzily down off the crest of her orgasm.
I never want to be found.
LYSANDER LOST HIMSELF IN the gift that was Gemma. He forgot his soul wounds at the squeeze of her silken thighs about him. He forgot his life in London when she cried out and he felt her orgasm ripple through her.
He forgot his own name in the urgent passion of her mouth and the languid tangle of her arms as he spent himself within her.
But he remembered hers.
Gemma. The wonder and revolution that was Gemma. She saw pain and it did not frighten her. She'd known violence and battle and horror in the medical tents that he'd never had the nerve to step within. She'd tended the shattered and dying. She had marched through the blood-soaked mud and the memory hadn't stolen her voice, hadn't shut her away in a locked room inside herself, hadn't left her floating a few feet behind her own body like a near-ghost.
I am in my body now. I feel everything.
I feel the warmth, the tenderness, the sweet, aching heat of her, the heart of her.
He turned his face into her neck as if he turned it up to the sun. He remained over her, within her, around her. He could hear her pulse in her throat. He could feel her sighs on his ear. She slid her hands upward, stroking his back in a blissfully weary way.
He didn't want to lose this moment. He didn't want to open his eyes and find himself unchanged, still broken, still locked in place and twitching with battle instincts.
But most of all, he did not want to look in her eyes and see regret or shame. Or worse yet, pity!
Passion could burn itself out. What if, to her, he was simply a relief from her cold widow's bed? What if he was nothing more than temptation gratified?
Then he must consider it an honor to be the one chosen to warm her chilled, lonely flesh and give her pleasure.
If she regretted giving herself to him, then he would never speak of this moment again. He would respect her wishes, walk out of her life and leave her be. He might die of the loss, in that inevitable way one did, with little shreds of self crumbling away, day after day, until the lungs still breathed but the heart no longer beat. But Gemma would go on, and that was the most important thing.
But if he looked into those beautiful storm-cloud eyes and saw welcome? If she smiled at him and kissed him and said loving things? Then he would spend the rest of his days trying to be the man she believed he could be. He would rebuild himself whole even if he had to pack that damned ram's wool into the empty places until he could grow the wounds closed. For her.
He could feel again. He could hope again. Damn hope anyway, that sweet honey trickling though him once more, telling him that it could be done, he could be healed, he could be someone again. The wounds could become scars and the scars become stories and the stories become lessons in a life well spent.
A life spent with Gemma.
Then she shifted beneath him. His depleted cock slid from her warmth.
"Oh dear," she murmured. "The carpet."
Lysander couldn't help it. He'd been tragically planning his own demise from a broken heart. She'd been pondering much more domestic worries. He laughed.
It was a rusty, rasping sound, but his shoulders shook even as he wrapped her close to him and rolled over with her above him. When he looked up at her, still helplessly making that deep, appalling noise, he saw her eyes.
No pity or regret there. Only a sort of wry delight. She knew he was laughing at her, but she clearly didn't care. Her eyes gleamed with affection and enjoyment.
Lysander's heart began to beat again, not with the pounding gallop of lust and need, but with a steady strong pulse of utter devotion.
I love you, Gemma.
He didn't say it aloud. Not yet. He had no fear of exposing his heart, but only of startling her with too much, too soon. How could he love her? He could almost hear her say it. How could he love someone he barely knew?
I loved you before I kissed you, before I danced with you. I loved you before the pavilion fell.
How could he love someone wholly when he himself was broken?
That was a trickier question. Given time, he meant to work on the answer. He felt certain that she had begun to believe in him. Was it enough?
She grinned down at him. He smiled back, as best he could.
She dropped a kiss upon his chest and flopped wearily next to him, yawning and stretching to press herself to his side. "I never liked this carpet anyway."
Please, let it be enough.
Chapter 25
GEMMA BECAME AWARE OF a sharp pain in her shoulder, the one chilled from having the quilt slip down as she slept.
Poke. A skinny finger dug in deep.
"What?" Poked? In her own bed, in her own house? Gemma sat up blinking and furious, and not a little bit alarmed.
I'm not in my bed. I'm on the floor. Furthermore, I'm naked. She clutched the quilt higher and squinted against the light of a candle held too near her face. The light drew back and Gemma saw the bony yet perfect features of Miss Atalanta Worthington. Gemma drew back, bracing one hand on something that she suddenly realized was a hard, masculine buttock.
I'm naked on the floor with Lysander.
Oh, hellfire!
She almost took the opportunity to blush deeply and make vague waffling excuses. Then she remembered the only reason anyone ever woke her in the middle of the night.
"Who is ill?"
Atalanta nodded crisply, as if approving Gemma's lack of prudish driveling about. "It's the pregnant one."
Gemma smiled. "Oh, how wonderful! She's so weary of—"
"I think it's gone bad."
No more talk. Gemma pulled last night's ball gown over her head and impatiently turned her back to Atalanta, who did her up at speed. Twisting her hair up out of the way, Gemma grabbed a couple of pins off the floor as she pattered barefoot from the room. "Lysander! Fetch Mr. Bing from his room in the stable!" she barked over her shoulder as she headed down the hall. "You!" She pointed at Atalanta, for she had no time to pronounce that many syllables. "Build up the fire in the kitchen stove and put vast amounts of water on the boil!"
She strode briskly into her bedchamber and pushed a few hovering Gosling offspring aside to move straight to Jennie.
Oh God.
It had indeed gone bad.
LOOKING AT JENNIE, LYING sweating and delirious in Gemma's bed, the truth hit Gemma like a rockfall, crushing her with sudden awareness.
Witless. Blasted blind and stupid. It had been right before her eyes the entire time.
She'd dismissed the signs as the normal symptoms of advanced pregnancy, and tragically, they might very well have been. It was only now that she saw the truth. The swelling of Jennie's hands and face was edema. The shortness of breath was the fluids invading her lungs. The headaches, the florid cheeks, those indicated a dangerous rise in her blood pressure. The pain in her abdomen had not been the kicking of the child, but impending liver breakdown. Now, the confusion and panting.
Toxemia.
And when it was this bad, it could be a death sentence for both mother and child. Yet there was no time to hate herself now. She could practice self-loathing at her leisure once she helped her friend.
There was only one thing that could save Jennie and hopefully, her baby as well.
"She'll be alright, I tell ye. Knows what she's about, my Jen."
Shepherd Gosling's words were brave, but in one glance Gemma took in the ashen husband's stark terror.
"I need to work. Take the littles to the kitchen and give them some bread and butter. Have a cup of tea. I'll call you if I need you."
"I'll no' be leavin' my Jen!"
She leaned closer and whispered fiercely. "This is bad and you know it. Jennie wouldn't want them to see. Now go." She gave the giant sheep-herder a firm shove. It barely rocked him, but he swallowed hard, dropped a feather touch of his fingertips to his wife's pallid, sweating brow, and hauled his nervous brood off to the kitchen.
Bing rushed in, bleary-eyed in the dawn light now peeking through the draperies. Lysander lingered in the doorway. Gemma ushered him inside the room with a jerk of her head. Atalanta popped through the door with a pot of steaming water and, bless her wit, a cake of Gemma's lye soap.
"Bing, get some blocks of wood and put them under the head of the bed. I need to raise her upper body. Lysander, my case."
Lysander darted out and Bing lurched away, limping badly. Gemma wasn't worried. Lazy Mr. Bing could move like lightning when he wished. She scrubbed her hands well, ignoring the splashing of soapy water that ruined the delicate silk of the gown she wore.
Lysander returned with the medicine case and took his turn at washing in the painfully hot water without being asked. Gemma gazed at her open case with seeming calm but her mind raced. She selected some willow bark. "For thinning the blood and reducing swelling," she murmured to herself. She swiftly ground it into a runny paste with a few drops of laudanum, because she couldn’t bear Jennie's agony. After a moment, she added a very strong red raspberry leaf tincture because she feared the worst was yet to come.
She pried open Jennie's clenched jaw and poured the concoction down her throat. Jennie muttered and shuddered and tossed her head, pulling away from Gemma's touch.
Gemma looked at Lysander. "I need to induce labor. And I can't be delicate about it."
He nodded. "Tell me what to do."
Gemma reached into her bag and pulled out a long iron rod wrapped tightly in waxed linen. It was as slender as a pencil and tapered at one end. She'd prepared it as instructed in Childbirth and the Practices of Midwifery, even boiling it twice before sealing it in the impervious linen — and sincerely hoped she wouldn't have to use it. When Attie came back with the next boiling pot, Gemma threw the tool into the steaming water. Better safe than sorry. "I need you two to pin Jennie down. Attie, you hold her head in your lap. Lysander, you must tie her up as well. She's out of her head. Sit on her if you have to. If she moves even a fraction of an inch, I could kill the baby."
Attie climbed to the head of the bed and pulled Jennie's sweat-soaked head onto her lap. Gemma glanced at Lysander. He shrugged. "She's exceedingly strong."
Gemma had no time to protect Lysander's peculiar sister from what she meant to do. When Lysander had used strips of the bed sheet to fasten Jennie tightly to the bedrails, with the primary pressure being exerted just above the mound of her pregnant belly, he lay across the bottom of the bed and pinned Jennie's legs down.
"No, pull her knees up."
Gemma went on one knee at the end of the bed and took a breath. She couldn't falter. She couldn't fail. The only way to save Jennie and the baby was something she'd never done, nor ever seen done. She'd read it in a book. I might be wrong. I'm not a doctor. What if I'm wrong?
