Betina Krahn (52 page)

“What are you …?” She tried to sit up, but he pushed her back down with a sensuous growl.

“Close your eyes, sweetheart, and just enjoy.”

Shocked by the sight of his head at her bare knees, she was grateful to do as he suggested. But to her surprise, the veil of darkness that closed over her sight somehow heightened her other senses. His mouth against her thigh felt as if it were reaching through her very skin. Pools of heat formed in her muscles, collecting the liquid sensations he was pouring along the curve of her leg. And he added tantalizing flutters and sensuous raking motions that caused her to hold her breath.

With exquisite patience he proceeded up the slope of one thigh and then the other, nudging the fabric farther up her leg with each brush of his lips. Then he paused and slyly pushed the back of her chemise up, using her own responsive movement to free it beneath her. When his kisses resumed on the curve of her hip, she squeezed her eyes tighter and tried not to give in to the urges that were trembling her limbs and slithering through her body.

Ah, but he wanted her to give in to them; he demanded she surrender to them unconditionally. And when he nuzzled the curls at the base of her belly, she gasped and squirmed, part in protest, part in invitation. His tongue
darted along that sensitive groove and found her aching center. Almost before she realized what he was doing, he had moved on.

Inch by delicious inch, her chemise retreated up her body: along her waist, up her ribs, and over her breasts. He literally kissed it from her, collecting and savoring every responsive movement of her body along the way. She writhed and undulated, exploring some sensations, begging others. Her hands flew over his bare shoulders, her fingers wound through his hair, and as he gradually stretched out over her body, her legs entwined with his, exploring his own long, muscular limbs.

She opened her eyes and found him staring down at her, his eyes black and hungry in the soft, filtered light. And as she watched, transfixed by the hunger in his face, his mouth reached her breast and fastened possessively on her nipple. She gasped, watching the movement of his mouth against her … suckling, teasing, nipping her tightly aroused flesh.

Suddenly every muscle in her body was hot and primed; she had to move, to find his body with hers. She tugged at him, whispering, “Now … now … now …”

He curved over her, molding to her, settling hard into the hollow between her parting thighs. He fitted himself against her and began to move, rasping her sensitive flesh, varying each thrust, watching her response. And when she wrapped her legs around him and arched against him, whispering his name again and again, he realized the time had come, drew back, and entered her.

She stilled, holding her breath, then met his second thrust, and his third with strained, seeking motions. It was familiar and yet so very different … the fullness, the liquid heat, the ripples of sensation, the sweet burning that was like an itch permeating her flesh. Only that divine
contact, only that searing penetration could relieve her need, and she tightened her legs around his, welcoming him, claiming him, taking him deeper. Suddenly he was there … all of him … hers … hot, driving. When he stilled within her, she still felt a pulse of movement. Through the churning roil of sensation came the realization that it was his heartbeat … within her … joined to her.

She went still and opened her eyes and lifted his head from her shoulder to look into his eyes. Could he feel hers, too? In all her life she had never imagined the intimacy of that moment. Breast to breast, bodies joined, hearts pounding … it was as if they were one body, one flesh.

“Two hearts, beating as one,” she whispered, unaware she had said it aloud, or that Remington would know both what it meant and where it came from.

But he did know. He sank his arms beneath her, cradling her head in one of his hands. “I feel yours, too, sweetheart. Come with me … now.…”

Then he joined their mouths and began to move within her.

Long-denied hungers flared and drove them together with an intensity that defied all attempts at control. They arched and strained, reaching for each other, exploring the depth and breadth of pleasures both had waited a lifetime to experience. She rippled and writhed beneath him, abandoned to all but the sense of him and the delicious tension mounting in her body. Quicker, closer, harder they pressed, until she was caught by a torrential updraft that flung her aloft, through barriers of self and sensation.

Her senses shattered, releasing her from her body and propelling her into realms of pure emotion, pure being. And as she soared, filled with brilliant, expanding light, she felt him rising and taking flight with her. The boundaries of self dissolved, and for a time they mingled without the
encumbrance of thought or even action. In the pure essence of love, each knew completely and was completely known.

And as they slowly returned to their senses, quaking with release, shuddering with pleasure, each knew beyond all doubt that they were loved.

Remington slid onto his side, turning her with him, sheltering her heated body against him as the passion-storm passed. He grinned at the feel of her bare skin under his hands as he stroked her.

“Ah, sweetheart, you feel so—” But as he drew back to look at her, he found her eyes closed and her body suddenly limp against him. She was exhausted. He smiled and brushed her hair back from her damp face, pressing a kiss on the end of her nose. And in moments he was asleep, too.

Antonia awakened some time later to an exquisite ache in her loins and the compensating warmth of a large, hard body pressed against her shoulder, hip, and thigh. She looked up to find Remington propped on an elbow against her, watching her sleep. His eyes were that soft chocolate color she loved and were half-closed to match the half smile he wore.

“I thought maybe you’d sleep the rest of the day,” he murmured near her ear, his hand skimming her waist.

“What would you have done if I had?” she said sleepily, running her fingers over his face, tracing the slope of his nose and the plane of his cheek.

“I would have stayed here the rest of the day, watching you.” He looked deep into her eyes. “Watching over you.”

She felt a glow of sunlike warmth inside and tilted her head to look at him. “when I looked up and saw you standing in Cleo’s room … I don’t think I’ve ever felt so grateful to see anyone in my life.” She closed her eyes and nuzzled her face against his bare chest. “I’d already lost Aunt Hermione … I was so afraid of losing Cleo, too.”

He smiled at her kittenish movements, then wrapped his arms around her and drew her close, settling into a more thoughtful mood.

“You will, you know.” When she opened her eyes and looked up at him quizzically, he took a heavy breath. “You
will lose her someday, Toni. She’s lived a long and interesting life, but she won’t live forever. I don’t think she even wants to.”

She sat up abruptly, disturbed, and he sat up with her. “Toni?” After a moment he turned her face back to him. “They’re all old ladies, sweetheart. What will you do when they’re gone?”

She looked up at him with her emotions reeling. What would she do without them? They were her family, her life. She felt as if the bottom had suddenly dropped out of her heart. They would die one by one and leave her … alone.

He stroked her face to bring her gaze back to him.

“I’ll be here with you, sweetheart. Tomorrow, next week, next year … year after year … just as I was last night.”

As he was last night, when she needed him. The thought flowed through her with the clinging sweetness of honey.
She needed him
. It wasn’t frightening or diminishing at all, certainly not in the ways she had feared. She needed him as she needed the air she breathed and the food she ate, like sunlight and laughter and warmth. She had needed him last night, and he was there to comfort her, to share her worry and heartache. Now he was here to share her joy and pleasure. And there was no other in the world with whom she could share the powerful and soul-rending things that had just passed between them—not Hermione nor Cleo nor any of her ladies. She had not even shared such things with Sir Geoffrey, who had been her husband.

Somehow she understood: these were feelings and experiences shaped into loving acts by the love she bore him. It was her love for him that made the difference.

He watched her coming to terms with it and held his breath, hoping that he had said enough, and not too much. The soft melancholy of her face slowly gave way to a
sweeter expression, a glow of acceptance, then a loving look. And he knew it was all right.

“I was wrong. I do need you, Remington Carr.”

It was more than all right, he realized. He grinned and kissed her, wrapping her in his arms and sinking back onto the bolsters with her. But the joy in him was too exuberant to be contained in just kisses. He felt like running, jumping, shouting—like squeezing her to him until her body melted into his. He pulled her harder against him, his eyes snapping with sensual energy.

“Let’s see, now. You’ve decided you like me. And you need me. What’s left? Oh, yes.
Trust
.” A pulse of pleasure darkened his eyes as he ran his hands down her body and felt her shiver of response. “I think we may have dispensed with that little objection to me as well.”

“We have?” She blushed as she recalled her vehement charges against him. “You think I trust you now?” It was a question she asked herself as much as him. “And what gives you that idea?”

“This, sweetheart.” He glanced down at her bare body, pressed intimately against his. He dragged his fingers up the side of her hip, across her waist, and over the tightly contracted tip of her breast … watching the flow of his fingers and appreciating the lush territory they covered.

Her gaze followed his, watching his hand, feeling the delicious rivulets of sensation that trickled from his fingertips through her skin. What made him think …? Then it struck her, she was seeing
bare
skin. Stunned by the sight of his hand caressing her bare breast, she lay motionless, watching, feeling, and realizing that somewhere in the fury of their loving he had managed to coax her out of her chemise as well as out of her inhibitions.

“Ohhh—” She tried to cover herself, but he caught her arm and redirected it around his side. Then she tried to roll away, but he stopped her by sliding his body over hers.

“Sweetheart, it’s a little late for modesty. I’ve already made more than a passing acquaintance with your naked self. And with your encouragement, I might add. Look at me.” Slowly she opened her eyes and found herself looking up into his frankly admiring gaze. “You’re beautiful, Antonia … your face, your eyes, your body. And I love looking at you. Where’s the harm in that?”

It was easier to ignore her nakedness with him covering her like a blanket, and she calmed, though her face and entire breast felt as if they were on fire. “I’m not sure it’s quite decent, somehow. I would just feel better with …” She glanced away.

“With a few buttons between us?” he finished for her. “The sainted Geoffrey never saw you without your clothes, did he? Tell me, Toni. And I won’t ever mention it again.” When she wouldn’t answer, he began to worry. “Toni, did he hurt you?”

Her tension eased as she recognized the protectiveness that had shaped his question. She shook her head.

“No, Geoffrey was a kind and gentle man … just very … modest.”

“He made you wear a nightgown,” he supplied, adding on impulse: “with lots of buttons.”

She blushed and looked away, uncomfortable. But in the sheltered confines of her bed, with his warm, solid body pressed intimately against hers, she felt the urge to confide what she had never spoken of to anyone.

“After a while he declined to visit my bed—” Her eyes clouded with a memory that caused her to draw back. “Never mind. It’s not important now.”

“It is if it troubles you. He left your bed? What on earth could have happened to make him abandon making love to you?”

Some of the hot color drained from her face and she
tried to push him off her. “I really don’t see what that has to do with you … or us.”