Highlander Undone (29 page)

He sprang, thick and turgid, free of the cloth. Her hand closed about him, swift and clumsy. He gasped. She looked up, meeting his gaze. Her hand moved once and he groaned with pleasure. Triumph washed over her features. She pumped her fist once more about him. His hips jerked away from the bed and he groaned once more.

Her honey-gold gaze transfixed him. She looked feral and erotic, bold and demanding, so sensual the image of her alone was enough to make him spill his seed. She moved her hand again and he grabbed her wrist.

“I am just a man, Addie,” he gasped. “Don’t push this beyond what I can control.”

She could not free herself from his gentle constraint, so she bent her head and touched him with her lips. He flung his head back, grinding his teeth together and fighting for dominion over his body. He needed to wait, to master his responses, to temper his ardor so that he could give pleasure to his beloved. He wouldn’t last another minute at this rate.

She looked up. “Lose control, Jack,” she said softly, urgently. “Always, you have given me sovereignty. Let me prove myself to you now. I want your passion, Jack, as well as your love. I am not afraid of anything about you, anything you are, any aspect of your love or ardor.” She laughed softly. “Indeed, if I cannot have all your passion, I will be bereft. Let me show you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, quivering with want and doubt.

“Lose control, Jack.”

He groaned and his hands slipped down to her hips, pulling her roughly against him. She splayed her palms flat on his rippling belly and took him into her, the hard throbbing length of him. He shuddered and surged upward, labored and straining, his chest gleaming with moisture, heaving with each ragged inhalation.

He felt it, the swirling, irresistible passion of her intimate embrace. A sweet near-violence of desire flowing from her, spurring him beyond mere physical want. She met his passion, she wanted him.
Him
. He trembled, suspended between desire and fulfillment, and just as he found his ultimate release, he pulled her mouth to his, drinking in her cry of completion and giving back his own.

EPILOGUE

I
can’t believe she is marrying you.” Ted brushed a fleck of lint from his otherwise immaculate morning coat. “Marrying some paper-pushing bureaucrat in the War Office when she could devote her life to Art. How did Whitehall talk you into accepting that post anyway?”

“They convinced me my talents for investigation could avert miscarriages of justice.” He was still surprised he’d accepted, but Halvers and Mitchell had been persuasive.

“If she has the sense that God gave her, she’ll not show. We’ve never had a Scotsman in the family. It’s beyond lowering.”

“She’ll come.”

“Yes.” Ted sighed. “I expect she will. Poor besotted creature.”

Jack chuckled and turned from his post by the front window of the drawing room. The wedding guests, Lord and Lady Merritt, Gerald Norton, and a few other intimate friends from both the artistic and military communities were milling about, eyeing each other warily as they waited for the ceremony to begin. All they wanted was a bride to start the proceedings.

“Speaking of besotted creatures, where is Miss Drouhin?” Jack asked, his gaze straying once more to the street below.

“Doubtless playing a pipe while some poor officer dances to her tune,” Ted replied casually. He shrugged at Jack’s sharp glance. “It was too much of a challenge even to my talents to try and capture what was essentially a child.”

Jack’s brows rose.

“Yes. I told her we would resume sitting when—and if—she finally reached adulthood.”

“Ouch.”

Ted smiled, his usual suave curve of lips, but Jack saw the shadow in his eyes. “We’ll see,” he murmured. He looked out over the other guests, his gaze picking out the portly bishop.

“I must say, you showed remarkable restraint in not inviting Evan to officiate.”

Jack laughed. “We’re not Catholic. Besides, he hasn’t taken his final vows, or we might have.”

Ted studied his soon-to-be brother-in-law approvingly. “By God, I believe you would have. And I know my sister well enough to bet she’d have hand-penned the invitation. If ever there was an imp of Satan, it is Addie.” He frowned in mock consternation. “Tell me, Cameron, have you given this step the consideration it deserves?”

But Jack was not attending. He was leaning forward on the windowsill, his eyes alight with pleasure and love.

The street below was choked with morning traffic, making it impossible for the Merritts’ carriage to pull up directly in front of the townhouse. It had stopped a half block up the street. Suddenly, the door was flung wide.

Addie scrambled from the interior, a vision in ivory satin and lace, her long, flowing veil tossed cavalierly over one shoulder, her face flushed and beautiful.

She dragged the enormous train of her gown clear of the carriage and looked up toward the window at which he was standing. Their gazes met. A smile of perfect beatitude spread across her lovely face. Her honey-amber eyes glowed with joy. Picking her skirts up high in both hands, she dashed forward, pushing through the throng of street vendors and nannies and businessmen crowding the walkway, heedless of the stares she provoked. She made the front steps and disappeared from sight.

Below, he heard a door bang open, the sound of slippered feet dashing across tiles and up the stairs. He turned just as she entered. His eyes found hers and locked with promise and elation. The party started to close about her but she wriggled through the well-wishers, her gaze riveted on him alone, and ran down the aisle. Ran to his side.
His bride
.

“Am I late?” she asked breathlessly.

“No. No,” he said in joyful wonderment. “You’re just in time.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

There is no British regiment called the Black Dragoons. It is a fiction created for this work simply because I couldn’t bring myself to populate any real regiment with the likes of Charles Hoodless and Paul Sherville. Likewise, though the relief of Khartoum did in fact arrive but a day late to save General Gordon and indeed, Gladstone and Gordon had very different views on Great Britain’s role in Egypt, the suggestion that the relief effort was subverted is entirely a fabrication.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo
©
2010 Heidi Ehalt

New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author Connie Brockway has received starred reviews from both
Publishers Weekly
and the
Library Journal,
which named
My Seduction
as one of 2004’s top ten romances.

An eight-time finalist for the Romance Writers
of America’s prestigious RITA award, Connie has twice been its recipient, for
My Dearest Enemy
and
The Bridal Season.
In 2006 Connie wrote her first women’s contemporary,
Hot Dish,
which won critical raves. Connie’s historical romance
The Other Guy’s Bride
was the launch book for Montlake Romance.

Today Brockway lives in Minnesota with her husband, who is a family physician, and two spoiled mutts.