Everything I Ever Wanted, page 18
As soon as they were gone from the room, Darrow removed the tray from his lap, threw off his covers, and dressed. He took his leave of the cottage by tiptoeing down the stairs, and when he met Mrs. Simon on the cobblestone walk he invited her to leave her parcels outside and join him for a meal in the village tavern. Nonplussed, she hesitated at first. It was when her eyes fixed on the great black stallion tethered nearby that she understood.
Mrs. Simon set her things down precisely where she stood. She folded her plump arms across her chest and stared at the cottage, her head cocked to one side. There were no raised voices, but then not everyone engaged in a row that could be heard by all and sundry. Mr. Simon had been one to bluster like a stormy north wind, and for the eight years they were married, she had given as good as she got. "So he's returned, has he?" she said plainly.
"He has."
She nodded once, her bow mouth screwed to one side as she mulled the consequences of this over. "I shouldn't be surprised if there's a murder to be done."
"I was thinking much the same thing. She doesn't easily ruffle, that Miss Parr, but his lordship has a way about him, you might say, that will surely test her mettle."
Her decision made, the widow Simon eyed Darrow with more interest than she had shown on any previous occasion. "You must be weak in the knees with hunger."
"Aye." He crooked his arm for her to take. "Didn't know if I could survive your curative powders much longer."
Slipping her arm into his, Mrs. Simon had the grace to smile apologetically. She glanced at him, a bit taken aback when she had to tilt her head so far. "My, but you're a tall one," she said softly.
Too hungry to wonder if he'd leaped from the frying pan into the fire, Mr. Darrow led the widow away. Behind him the cottage remained eerily quiet.
* * *
India followed South into the hall but hesitated when he turned toward her bedchamber rather than taking the stairs. Laying his hand flat on her door, he shot her a look that was at once impatient and challenging. It was enough. With impeccable timing, she swept past him just as he pushed the door open.
India was halfway across the room before she realized she was no longer advancing, but in retreat. She turned to make her stand. "I will not be bullied, m'lord." In contrast to her words and her posture, there were her eyes, drinking him in. The proof that these last nine days had cost him sleep and peace of mind lay open on his face. It was drawn, the skin pulled taut. His fine features stood out in sharp relief. India did not want to notice these things, yet she found that once noticed, she could not pretend otherwise. Neither could she pretend she was unaffected by them. That he could stir compassion so easily filled her with a sick kind of dread, yet hadn't she spent every one of these last nights praying that he had not already come to harm? It was only because she retained some small measure of pride that she persevered. "You cannot simply snap your fingers and expect that—"
"Have off, India," he said wearily. South leaned against the door. In the stillness that had settled over the room, its jarring closure was loud and discordant. He pulled off his riding gloves and looked around for some place to put them. India, as if moved by a force outside herself, stepped forward and took them out of his hands. Her fingers brushed his. It was the briefest of glancing touches, and yet they both drew back from it. She was able to hold onto only one of the gloves. The other fell to the floor between them.
India stooped to pick it up. She remained there unmoving when South's hand came to rest lightly on her shoulder and his fingertips grazed the bare nape of her neck. Tendrils of hair shifted against her skin. A shiver exposed her vulnerability.
She let the glove lie there and dropped the other beside it. The symbolism of the gesture was not lost on her. Two gauntlets thrown. No matter that it had been by accident, not design. No matter there had been no formal challenge. Something existed between them that was perhaps better left unstated, wanting only to be acted upon.
India stood. His palm made light and momentary contact with her upper arm, then her breast. He did not look away from her face, nor she from his. Tears made her dark eyes luminescent and spiked her thick lashes. "You will ease yourself with me," she said, taking his hand. "And I with you."
So simply said.
South's breath caught at the back of his throat. His lips parted around an unexpressed thought. There was much he needed to say and none of it that he wanted to. He suspected it was the same with her. So they would ease themselves first, just as she said. One with the other. The rest could wait.
India led South to the bed and pressed him without words to sit. She knelt at his feet and removed his boots. He could not tear his eyes away from her hands. They were slim and strong and exquisitely feminine, entirely capable. She pushed the boots aside, rose, and turned to the window. The curtains were drawn back by silken cords, and she ran her fingers slowly across one before she loosed it from its mooring.
"Leave it."
There was the briefest of pauses before she let the other one fall. Save for the thin, transparent flames from the fireplace, the room was shuttered in shadow. India smoothed the folds in the material, quieting their waving motion. She closed the small separation between them so even a slim beam of setting sunlight could not enter.
Turning to him again, her manner neither defiant nor yielding, India began to undress. After a moment, South stood and did the same. They were silent as they attended to this task, their eyes averted. Discarded clothing pooled around their feet. South stepped back as India approached the bed wearing only her muslin shift. She moved like a wraith, weightless, insubstantial. The urge to fall on her, to tear the shift from her body and feel the shape and heat of her flesh, was upon him so strongly that he dug his nails into his palms to stay his hands.
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, 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 onto 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, brushed it a second time. India moaned against his mouth, and he swallowed the sound. His thumbnail 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."
