It Takes a Hero (29 page)

His fingers found her breast, rolling over the nipple back and forth until it was hard and full. He deepened his kiss until she was moaning, pressing her body against his.

And when she was panting with need, clinging to him like a tigress, and begging him in a breathless voice, "Love me, Rafe. Love me now," he set her aside.

"That's why," he told her.

"Why what?" she gasped, tossing aside her tangled hair. Her eyes blazed with desire. A fire he intended to slake, but not until he'd made his point.

"Your vicar would be in for a surprise when you arrived in his bed and made your demands. Your very passionate, unspinsterly demands. You don't want to marry a vicar."

She bit her lip and frowned at him. "How do you know what I want?"

"I know," he said. And proceeded to prove his point as no vicar ever would.

Love me, Rafe. Love me now.

What the devil was she saying?

Oh, I've fallen into it now
, Rebecca thought, as Rafe caught her once again in his grasp and tugged her up against him.

Giving herself to this man she barely knew? Didn't trust.

Loved so very much. It was madness, delirium.

It was heaven.

When she considered Miss Darby's romantic dreams of a tender kiss and an appreciative glance from her Lt. Throckmorton, Rebecca realized she had cheated her poor heroine, her readers. Tender kisses and appreciative glances be damned, and that honorable and insufferable Lt. Throckmorton as well.

Rafe's fingers wound into her hair, pulling her few remaining pins free and teasing it loose with his fingers until it fell unruly and untamed down past her shoulders.

He held her in place, refusing to give quarter, demanding and taking from her as if it were his due.

And she was more than willing to give herself to him—for she suspected he was the only man who could cool the fire spreading down from her gut and into a place so intimate, so demanding.

He hauled her closer, her breasts pressing against that wall of strength that was his chest, and she felt her nipples respond in kind, hardening and rising in ruddy peaks, aching for his touch.

He answered her silent plea. Masterfully, he undid her bodice, freed her breasts from her corset.

It obviously wasn't the first time he'd undressed a lady, and instead of being piqued, she was thankful for his skill.

In her current state, she doubted she could have done such a good job.

Then his lips left her mouth, if but for a few moments, before he claimed one of her breasts, sucking and lapping at one then the other until their pebbled peaks ached.

"Oh, Rafe, what have you done to me?"

"I haven't even begun," he promised.

Rebecca sighed.
Take me
, her heart clamored with a trembling beat, as her fingers uncurled from the folds of his shirt to splay over his chest and tug at the white linen in hopes she could remove it with as much finesse.

Instead she ripped it.

"Oh, dear me," she sputtered, looking at the torn seam. "Did I do that?"

"Miss Tate, you surprise me." Then he grinned and ripped it the rest of the way, until it was tossed aside.

Her mouth fell open as she surveyed the muscled expanse spread out before her eager hands. She wanted to touch him. To claim him, as he was claiming her.

She glanced up and found his dark gaze devouring her, like a moonless night, pitch black and so very dangerous.

That abyss excited her, teased her, drew her into nameless temptations.

Take me. Please, take me.

As she arched toward him, urging him on, he slipped his hand beneath her breast, cupping it for a moment. Then he made a low noise, like a growl, and it brought her no small measure of satisfaction to know that she excited him.

His thumb found her nipple and he rolled his finger over it, teasing circles that left her weak in the knees. He bent her back over the sofa, his bare chest towering over her. She clung to him as he kissed her, his lips teasing hers, leaving a trail of passion from her mouth, down her neck, to the curve of her shoulder.

A log in the fireplace sputtered, sending crackling sparks upward. She now understood what it was like to be on fire, to feel as if one's body might combust—for she wanted him to take her and suckle her, to tease her breasts and send those tangled threads of passion spiraling through her limbs yet again.

The ones that left her begging.

"Rebecca," he whispered, his voice thick with need, "I want you. All of you." His confession emboldened her. The light in his eyes pleaded for her acquiescence while his fingers plied at her gown.

She knew only too well what he wanted. Her naked and beneath him. Oh, and she wanted him just the same. Naked, over her, in her.

In her?

The thought was followed by a ripple of panic. The practical Rebecca wondered if a spinster had any business having such thoughts.

And as Rafe pulled her gown over her head, unlaced her corset and consigned it to the farthest corner of the room, and she was all-too-quickly naked before him, all her maidenly fears came to the forefront, overshadowing her unfamiliar wantonness.

"You are so beautiful," he whispered.

What had he said? She was so beautiful?

Perhaps her passion-enthralled senses had left her hearing muddled.
Beautiful?

"I am?" she whispered in disbelief.

"Oh, yes," he said with a nod and a lascivious grin on his lips that suggested his hunger went well beyond kisses. His fingers reached up and pulled a strand of her hair down so it fell over her breast. "Your hair is like heaven, as soft as silk." His nose nudged the tendril out of the way and he sought out her breasts again.

She closed her eyes and sighed.

"
Dios, mi ángel
, where have you been hiding these? Never wear that corset again." He paused. "No, do wear it. I don't want any other man to know what he is missing."

She laughed, languid and glowing beneath his praise. Until he dipped his head lower, laying a trail of kisses down past her stomach to her thighs.

"Oooh," she managed to gasp, catching hold of his shoulders as his fingers tenderly parted her fevered flesh and his tongue darted forth to savor that place. "Oooh, Rafe," she gasped as he started to lap at her. Her breath caught in her throat, her world began to spin out of control.

"You taste like something forbidden," he murmured. "Sweet and forbidden."

"No, don't," she gasped.

"No?" he asked, glancing up at her.

"No, don't stop," she pleaded, her legs falling open, her hands pulling him closer.

He laughed, his breath hot and steamy. Then he continued, stroking her, teasing her. And when she thought she couldn't stand it any longer, he pressed a finger inside her, easing her open. He moved it gently, but she was past that. She needed more.

"Oh, please, Rafe, please save me from this madness."

His tongue flicked over that sensitive point, over and over, until her insides coiled so tight, she thought she'd burst from longing, her hips rising to meet each stroke.

Then all of a sudden… like the sparks in the fire, she combusted, a fire erupting inside her. Spasms of release coursed through her limbs and she writhed and shuddered with pleasure.

"Oh, Rafe," she panted, grasping for him as she fell from the dizzy heights to which he'd carried her.

He caught her and held her close, kissing her, teasing her still with his gentle touch.

Breathless, she looked up at him. "Oh, my!"

He laughed, a sound that spoke of his own pleasure in her pleasure. "Did you like that?"

"Oh, yes," she whispered.

"I wanted to see you well pleased."

"I am," she laughed. "But what of you? I think you deserve your pleasure as well."

And she reached up and caught his strong, rugged jaw in her hands and pulled him toward her for a daring kiss.

Rafe didn't think his body could get any harder, but when Rebecca caught hold of him and hauled him down atop her, her legs winding around his thighs, he thought he would burst with need.

Need for her, his tempting little spinster.

He wanted nothing more than to bury himself inside her and stroke this madness, release this fire from his veins. To feel her body arch and rock as she reached her climax.

He wanted to hear her call out for him again, to plead with him. For her cries, her needs, only echoed his own.

And despite being spent and sated moments before, she was alive with desire once again—her nipples taut and pressed to his chest, her hands combing over his shoulders, down over his body to his breeches. Impatient and greedy, she tugged at his waistband.

And she called him reckless!

"How do you get these off?" she complained.

Helping her, he loosened them, and to his surprise and delight, she finished the task, tugging them free and tossing them aside, a victorious and hungry light in her eyes.

If he'd had any second thoughts, any fears for her maidenly delicacies, they were forgotten as he watched her gaze at him with a mixture of awe, and then longing.

She glanced up at him and smiled, sly and feminine, like a cat ready to seize her prey.

And take him she did, with her hands at first, caressing him, as he had her, running her fingers up and down his length in tantalizing strokes.

"You'll unman me doing that," he gasped, his body taut, the familiar rising rush of his climax starting to rob him of his senses. "No," he told her, taking her hands away. "I want to be inside you. I want to feel you around me."

Rebecca grinned and stretched beneath him, her thighs opening, her legs tangling with his, pulling him closer. "Come to me, Rafe. Fill me."

He kissed her first, letting his tongue lap at her, tease her. He stroked her breasts, loving the feel of their response, of the soft moans that escaped her at his touch.

Reaching down further, his fingers delved into her honeyed center, opening her up, delving inside her still trembling flesh, teasing her back to a feverish pitch.

Only too quickly she was ready for him again, as he was for her.

"Please, Rafe," she whispered. "Love me."

It was all the encouragement he needed. He poised himself over her, and looked down at her trusting gaze.

Then it struck him. Such doe-eyed innocence meant only one thing.

Rebecca was a virgin.

"I shouldn't be doing this," he stammered. Widows and mistresses were one thing, but virgins? He avoided them at all costs. The price was far too high.

"Rafe, please," she whispered. "I know what this means, and I want to be with you."

"But—"

"Ssh," she told him, putting a finger to his lips, her hand moving to stroke his brow. "I want you so very much."

And he wanted her. More than he'd ever wanted any woman. But what left him bowled over wasn't her trust in him, or her faith that he would do the right thing, but that he wanted her not just for this night, but for the rest of his.

"This may hurt," he told her, still more than a little taken aback by the revelation that left him stunned.

He wanted her, wanted her always.

"I know," she whispered, now with a hint of impatience to her voice. "But right now, I need you ever so much. Please."

Rafe gave in to her demands. He'd never known a moment so freeing as the one when he pressed himself inside her, felt her body enclose him, felt his desire run hotter than he'd ever thought possible. He filled her quickly, pressing past the slight hesitation of her barrier, and only stopping when he was all the way inside her.

She had winced as he'd breached her, but now with him buried inside her, she rocked against him restlessly, clawing at his shoulders. "Oh, again," she pleaded.

He drew himself out, slowly, enjoying the feeling of her as he slid free from her captivity, and then just before he slipped loose, he drove himself in again.

This time, she cried out, the pleasure of her cries like the hail of trumpets to his desires. She called his name, she pleaded with him to go deeper, go harder, her hips rising to meet him until her body tensed and then shuddered around him, devouring his control and wrenching his own release from him like a torrent of cannon fire.

He continued to stroke her through her crowning, trying to prolong every surging peak that raged between them.

"Rebecca," he gasped. "Oh, Rebecca."

They collapsed together on the sofa. The few candles in the room now burned down to shallow stubs, bathing their naked and entwined bodies in shadowy wavers of light.

The garden window was open and a soft breeze fluttered through the curtains, the gentle wind cooling their heated flesh.

After some time, Rafe leaned up and looked down at her. "There will be no more talk of vicars, do you hear me?"

"Yes, Rafe," she promised, drawing him back down into her arms. "No more vicars."

And then to prove his point, he loved her again.

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Forgetting the past is as difficult as realizing you've mismatched your gloves. Why, no one forgets mismatched gloves.

Miss Cecilia Overton to Miss Darby

in
Miss Darby's Perilous Journey

R
ebecca wandered downstairs the next morning, nervous and anxious. What had she done? Gone and given herself to Rafe Danvers like a foolish nit. Hardly practical in the brimming sunshine of a May morning.

But it hadn't been just foolery. It had been glorious. And if she never gained his attentions again, at least she knew what it felt like to be loved.

Loved?
How easy it was to believe such things in the intimate, lonely midnight hours.

She paused at the foot of the stairs, perched on the last step, her hand clutching at the post. Could a man like Rafe really fall in love with her?

Oh, who was she to compete with the best coquettes and flirts in town? What did she have that would spark any man's attention?

Your hair is like heaven… Where have you been hiding these… You taste like something forbidden…