Must Have Been The Moonlight (14 page)

Michael caught himself above her. Braced on his palms, breathless, he looked down into her unfocused gaze—then joined his mouth to hers again, sucking her tongue between his lips. He felt the feather-light touch of her hands against his chest, her palms opening over the powerful, corded muscle that delineated his shoulders and curved into his back. Her nipples ruched against his hand. Then his lips replaced his hand and he suckled her through her chemise before he gathered the cloth in his fist and pulled it over her head, leaving her wearing only her stockings and shoes. The contrast was erotic, and he pulled back to see all of her splendor. Her skin was flawless, her breasts full and high, her nipples flushed.

Their gazes met and held. She’d never been touched the way he was touching her now. It shone in her eyes as she watched his hungry gaze go over her. “Are you frightened?” he quietly asked.

“Of you?” She shook her head—and something touched him, broke free inside him.

Her fearless passion for living, her sensuality, her innocence, was an irresistible lure, a shiny bauble in a pile of ashes that had become his life. She twisted around and entwined her body with his.

Her flesh was warm and soft and malleable beneath his fingers. He slid his hand, dark against the paleness of her stomach, to claim her completely. “Tell me what you want.” His breath touched her lips.

“You.”

“Show me. Show me what you want.”

Her hands went to his, hesitating, before she nudged them lower. “I want to know what it’s like to be touched by you.”

He moved a finger inside her, intimately stroking. Her body tightened around him. She was wet and hot. He felt her maidenhead. She did not look away from the intensity in his gaze, and he could not look away from her. “Why, Brianna?” His words were strained. “Why me?”

Her eyes drifted closed on a fragmented gasp. His fingers moved over her. “I…” She fumbled for words. “Because…you’re not afraid of anything.” The whisper touched his lips. “Because you would.”

Her musk mingled with the scent of roses on her skin.

The garters holding up her stockings pressed into the top of his thigh. She watched his eyes drift upward until he’d pinned her with his gaze, and he felt the kick of her heart against her ribs. She’d heard him laugh below his breath, and sensed the dark undercurrent beneath the sound. “It’s nice to know I’m wanted for something,
amîri
.”

“I…”

He knew she was too lost to understand what he’d meant, lost to the magic of his fingers, to the primal force that
became him. She became a twist of emotion, a knot of fire. Small sounds emanated from the back of her throat. “Do you like this?” His voice was a harsh rasp against her ear. “Tell me.”

“Yes. Yes, I like it a lot.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No!”

His mouth caught her cries. Instinctively, she arched against him. His kiss continued down the salty curve of her neck. Determined to take what he wanted, he was also determined to give her what she needed—but not yet.

Her breath broke as he pulled away, leaving her stunned and boneless on the rumpled bed, watching the reflection of the water dance on the ceiling. She slowly turned her head when he returned naked and stood in front of the bed.

She pushed up on her elbows, her dark hair spilling around her face. Michael felt the heat of her blue gaze go over him like a painted stroke, and he wanted more of her touch, more of the fire that claimed his senses. When he could bear the weight of her gaze no longer, he touched her chin gently, and she jumped, her gaze leaping to his.

Brianna couldn’t breathe.

“It will hurt the first time.” His eyes touched hers.

She watched as his long fingers worked the French
lettre
over the thick length of his arousal. The moisture left her mouth.

“Are you frightened yet,
amîri
?”

Her lashes drifted higher. “I want to touch you,” she breathed, and feathered her hands over him, touching him as intimately as he’d touched her, watching him close his eyes.

“What is this made from?”

“You don’t want to know. But it’s better than rubber.”

The backs of her knuckles rasped the swirl of dark hair that surrounded his sex—hair the same color that arrowed up his abdomen and sprinkled his chest. “You are not what I imagined,” she whispered.

He pulsed with life.

His head fell back on his shoulders. “Why is that,
amîri?
”

She felt awkward and young in his very male presence. She didn’t want her inexperience to show, but it did just by looking at him. “You are far more than I dreamed,” she said.

“Christ!” He grabbed her hands and placed his knee on the mattress between her thighs. “That’s good.” His lips brushed hers. “Because I’m going to give you more than you ever dreamed.”

Locking his fingers with hers, he kissed her, plunging his tongue between her lips, bringing them both back to the precipice where they’d been earlier. With a sigh—or was that a moan?—she let him kiss her into submission, and no matter the searing tightness in her own body, let him seize from her what she wanted so desperately from him.

“I want to touch you.” Her voice was a rasp.

“No.” The word trapped between their lips was uncompromising. He took her down with him to the bed, flesh to flesh. “Not like that. Not right now. When I come, it will be inside your body.”

He sank lower against her, drawing first one breast then the other into his white-hot mouth, sinking still lower, over her concave stomach. She twisted restlessly beneath him. Pleasure and desire became one. His mouth was thorough, his possession of her body complete. Before she could grasp what he was doing, he put his face between her legs. Dark, silky hair brushed the inside of her thighs.

Then his mouth pressed intimately against her. With a tortured cry, she clamped her hands in his hair, the rush of heat shattering her frail resistance. She mumbled incoherently. And she opened her legs farther, sinking against the thrust of his tongue, surrendering to the wet plundering heat that engulfed her.

When her gaze again came into focus, he was above her, reading her wicked mind with an amused glitter in his eyes.

And the inherent dare that was as much a part of him as the color of his eyes.

He knew her.

He knew her body better than she did. She wanted to know his.

Twining his fingers with hers, he spread her legs. He was not a small man. Not any part of him. Her eyes were fixed on his, and his on hers. She felt him hesitate, then push through her maidenhead. She had heard that the first time would hurt. That a woman would bleed from the invasion. The pressure between her legs increased.

And it did hurt.

When he entered her, her hands fisted against his.

“I’m not in, Brianna.”

“Don’t…stop.”

“Relax.” His voice was gravelly against her ear.

Her mouth was too dry to allow speech.

He withdrew slightly, then pushed, gaining another few inches.

Without warning he pulled her up, still partially impaled on him. Her bones melted against him. He sat her on his lap, her weight driving him deeper into her body, until he was buried.

“Hug your knees to my waist,” his whisper bade. His face taut with primal hunger, he waited for her to adjust to his size, then began to move inside her.

Shameless.

It was the way he made her feel.

Brianna inhaled his carnal scent, his breath; she let him fill her body, her senses.

In the wild rush of her heartbeat, she found her own rhythm and began to move. His breathing turned harsh and ragged, his eye contact broke. He grabbed her hips. Her mind clouded as he lowered his face to the fullness of her breasts and drank of her skin. She arched, pressing her rose-tipped breasts against his hot mouth, her tumble-down hair spilling over his thighs, and soon she was lost to the rocking rhythm of her own body, her labored breathing the single hushed sound between them. With a groan that was her name, he wrapped his arms around her, one palm going to
her bottom, the other pressing into the thick waves of her hair. She spiraled upward as her body moved toward the elusive pinpoint of light that seemed to surround her like a misty shroud. Nothing had ever felt like this, and when the spasms fueled her cries, he silenced her outcry with the force of his hand against her nape, crushing her lips to his and kissing her deeply with a possessive urgency as powerful as her own. His breathing fractured against her lips. Swallowing his deep-chested groan, she returned his kiss, finally drinking in the sounds of his release.

When their hearts had quit racing, he pulled back to look into her face, his silver irises dark on hers. She sensed that she’d somehow throw him off balance, and that made her smile.

“Are you mine today, my wild Irish rose,” his voice was rough, his gaze tender and searching, “or am I yours?”

“Wild Irish rose?” She wrinkled her nose at him, that he would equate her to a flowering bramble. “I’m insulted.”

“Don’t be.” He twisted her around and took her down to the bed, capturing her hands above her. Her hair fanned out around her like an inky cloud. “It was a compliment.”

Then he proceeded to show her how much of a compliment it was, and what it was like to lie in the strong arms of Michael Fallon.

L
ying naked in the twisted bedcovers, Brianna opened her eyes and stretched. Sunlight filtered through the blinds. Her hand went to the pillow beside hers and she twisted around on her elbow. Her body ached, every inch bearing the mark of Major Fallon’s complete possession of her. He had outlasted her. She could barely move.

A pitcher of water sloshed on the commode. A towel and rag had been laid out for her convenience. On the dresser, she saw a bottle of wine set beside a platter of fruit and cheese. Someone had gone to a great deal of effort to see that she was made comfortable when she awakened. Pulling the sheet to her chin, Brianna smiled at the play of light and water on the ceiling before finally sitting up.

After washing, she opened the armoire and found a man’s robe. Brianna lifted a feminine slipper, turning it over in her hand. A chemise had been neatly folded into a drawer. Thrusting her arms into the robe, she then belted it at the waist. She grabbed the fruit platter and, tucking the flask beneath her arm, edged out of the bedroom, only to find the saloon also empty. Her clothes had been laid over the settee atop a British uniform. Brianna fingered the sun-warmed
sleeve of the jacket and, bringing it to her nose, bent to look behind the blinds. A glimpse outside told her that the
dahabeeyah
had turned and was heading back toward Cairo. The sun was now on the other side of the river. She’d been asleep for a couple of hours.

Major Fallon was sitting on deck when she found him. With his long legs stretched out in front of him and propped on the rail, he wore his uniform trousers tucked into his boots. A white military issue shirt stretched across the width of his shoulders as he dropped his gaze to the glass in his hands. All she could do was inhale the sight of him. She must have made some sound, because he turned in his chair, and Brianna felt that stirring essence of protectiveness when he looked at her.

“Hello,” she said, remembering herself almost at once and setting the wine and platter of fruit on the table to share with him.

A warm unfathomable smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Hello back to you,
amîri
.”

For the first time in her life she was struck speechless by an attack of maidenly shyness. He had done things to her body that no Kama Sutra manual could ever have prepared her for. She’d been naive to think that her experience level would ever equal his—in anything.

Brianna set her hands on the back of the chair that faced his across the table. “Who is sailing the boat?” Her gaze stretched across the length of white canvas unfurled to the breeze.

“The crew is on the other side of the cabins.”

The cabins blocked the view. Two walkways stretched the length of the houseboat. “Do they live on board year-round?”

“When the
dahabeeyah
is in commission they do. Their quarters are below the foredeck.”

“How often is this houseboat in commission?”

He leaned with his elbows against the table, cradling his drink between his hands, and observed her with alacrity.
“When I want it to be.” His eyes were smiling. “Halid lives on board when he’s in Cairo. There are two other cabins and a kitchen. At one time I’d wanted to sail all the way down to Aswan.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“I don’t know.” He looked out across the water, his expression nearly poignant. “After a while everything seems colorless.”

She watched a bank of clouds drift over the distant spires outlined against the bright blue horizon. “I think to enjoy this country, this city, one must be at heart a painter.” She turned her head and smiled at him. “For there is color in everything if one looks hard enough.” Pulling aside the length of her robe, she sat.

From the corner of her eye she saw his hand go to the tin of tobacco at his elbow. She promptly set her palm over his. “Is it necessary to keep temptation so close at hand?” She arched a brow. “I thought you were trying not to smoke that stuff.”

He sat there for a moment, an imperturbable expression in his eyes. His gaze rubbing across the opening in her robe, his bedroom smile was slow, and Brianna flushed as she was reminded of every place that his mouth had touched her. “What do you suggest that I do?” he inquired of her. “With this temptation of mine?”

“Throw it overboard.”

“Now, there’s a thought.” He relaxed back in the chair. “But what would prevent me from acquiring more? Temptation is all around me.”

“Then smoke.” She thrummed her nails, impudently surveying him as he’d done her. “But I don’t want to hear that you want to be free of your cravings.”

His roguish mouth tilted. “Did you have an unhappy childhood? Is that why you’re so cruel?”

“No.” She cut a slice of cheese and slipped it between her lips. “Though my mother died when I was young, I had a loving if not strict family. I suppose that comes from being
the only girl and the youngest. Still, we are close.” She sawed off another slice of cheese. “You should see us when we play croquet. Our family tournaments are very lively. World domination is a serious objective at the Donally homestead.”

He continued to observe her over his glass, as if she was a little touched in the head.

Maybe she was, she decided, when she turned her attention to the fruit. She wasn’t like other women.

Nor was she that different.

“In my family, my brothers Ryan and Johnny held some legendary burping competitions. Those two were always the most misbehaved. Far worse than I’ve ever been accused. At least I have manners and, though I’m rebellious and generally an anarchist, those are faults that I have turned into virtues.”

“Is there anything that you won’t or can’t do?”

“I can’t pee standing up. I tried when I was five. It’s very messy.” Brianna bit her lower lip to muffle her laugh. “I suppose
pee
isn’t a proper word in the feminine vocabulary.”

Shaking his head, he looked away and laughed. “I don’t suppose it is,” he offered in a voice rich and deep.

“What about your family?”

“Domination is achieved through manipulation and autocratic machinations.” He bent forward on his elbow. But this time his smile did not reach his eyes, and Brianna saw something of the dangerous man he was. “Our games are more serious than yours. And if anyone burped, my mother would have seen that we didn’t sit for a week. That didn’t mean we behaved, though. My brothers and I got into our share of trouble.”

“Your brothers?”

He studied the contents of his glass. “I’m the third of three sons.” Lifting his gaze, he grinned. His teeth were white against the beginnings of a shadow on his face. “Though if you ever knew my parents, you’d wonder how
they managed that many. Virgin birth was a very plausible theory among us. We didn’t know there was any other way until well into our teens.”

She laughed, and plopping a grape between her lips, stretched her hand across the table to play with his. “They can’t have been so bad as that. You turned out well.”

“One of my older brothers died of typhoid when I was nineteen.” He looked at her hand, turning it over to trace her palm. “He was the reason I stayed in England longer than I should have.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Even aristocracy is not immune to common diseases that obliterate the ranks of the poor. As our own queen can attest.”

Her voice hesitated. “Aristocracy?”

He raised his gaze. “My family’s ducal title comes from a battle fought during the War of Roses. Somehow we’ve always managed to be on the right side of every monarchy crisis in the centuries since.” His thumb rubbed her wrist. “Two years ago when my grandfather died, the Ravenspur title went to my brother.”

His brother was a duke? Brianna swallowed this news like a lump of salt. No wonder Alex felt camaraderie with him. They’d both practically grown up in the same circle of tyrants. “Did you ever know my sister-in-law?” she asked.

“I met her once when we were children. Her father heads the Foreign Services office. Lord Ware is my superior.”

Brianna’s gaze clung to his face. “Then you are probably aware that he’s a bastard, who practically destroyed my brother’s life.”

Major Fallon sat back in the chair. “No.” His mouth tilted. “I must have been away from England for that part of the opera.”

Dropping her gaze to her hands, now folded in her lap, she tightened her fingers. She’d sought to impress him, but feared she’d only managed to equate her life with a complete
lack of breeding. She possessed a sudden need to defend her family to him. “My family isn’t a bunch of uncouth Irish bumpkins, Major. My brothers have worked very hard to reach the pinnacle of success they have in British society. Each of them is very accomplished.”

But there was no censure in his eyes. Indeed, they were hooded. She could read nothing. “I don’t begrudge you your happy childhood,” he said. “Frankly, it’s refreshing.”

“Fallon isn’t your real name. Or people would know who you are.”

“The people whom I want to know the truth know who I am.”

She realized that he’d wanted her to know. It had been no accident that he’d let the information slip. “What
is
your name?”

A muscle worked in his jaw as he seemed to contemplate her question. “James Michael Fallon Aldbury.”

“Aldbury!”

Brianna knew that name. The Aldbury family was a British dynasty. She’d come across that name in more than one march on parliament.

“No wonder you can afford this kind of luxury,” she said suddenly, inexplicably disappointed and defeated.

“What I have here wasn’t bought with family riches,
amîri
.”

“What would make someone like you leave your life and become a soldier? To risk your life the way you do?”

“Now that is something I’m
not
willing to share.”

Suddenly feeling out of her element, she started cleaning up the table. “You don’t look like a James.”

“My name is Michael.”

“And what do your other women call you? You must have one or two hidden around here. I found their clothes in your armoire.”

Laughter lurked in his eyes. “Isn’t this the place in my confession where you’re supposed to fall into my lap and swear undying love?”

He was mocking her. “If you want that kind of adoration, there is a flotilla of debutantes here in Cairo eager to catch a husband with your credentials. I liked you better when you were just a soldier.”

He caught up to her in the saloon. “Why?” He spun her to face him.

“Because I thought that I knew you.” She shook off his arm. “Because you’re the man who saved my life when I would have perished. The man who brought Christopher back to Lady Alexandra, who visits invalid men and takes his children to the market.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and felt the hot burn of tears in her eyes. “I respected who you were.”

He tilted her chin. “And you don’t now?”

“I don’t know what I think, Major. I don’t know how you can be everything good and still hate the way that you do.”

“Say my name, Brianna. Is it so hard to call me something other than major?”

She turned her chin.
Your name is too intimate
she’d wanted to tell him, when he captured her chin and pulled her face around.

Yet, it was more than that, she realized.

It was the only line she’d drawn to separate the reality from the fantasy. From thinking that her relationship with Michael Fallon could ever be more than what it was when she’d had her own dreams to pursue, a whole world to conquer—when falling in love with anyone else in this lifetime would be, by and far, the biggest mistake she could make.

“Can’t we go back an hour to the way we were?” she quietly beseeched, her arms creeping up to enclose his neck. “We’ve digressed from our affair. Don’t you think?”

“I’m easy,
amîri
.” His thumb slid with tantalizing slowness across her bottom lip. “What man would turn down a roll with you?”

The stunned quickness of her breath came out in a gasp.

But he did turn her down.

Shrugging into his uniform, he turned to face her as he
settled his hands over the brass buttons that ran up the front of the jacket. “Halid will be waiting when the
dahabeeyah
docks.”

To Brianna’s mortification, hot tears welled up. “I’ve never known you to behave so insufferably rude, Major Fallon.”

“Am I?” He laughed, his gaze dipping to touch the fullness of her mouth before rising to encompass her eyes. “The truth about me would probably astonish you, Brianna.”

Clutching her robe in bewildered disbelief, she flinched when the door shut behind him. Later, she stood alone on the deck when the
dahabeeyah
docked. Brianna watched as Major Fallon disembarked. He looked so at ease in his place of authority, as if he did this on a regular basis. After saying something brief to Halid, who held their horses in tow on the dock, Major Fallon returned to her with such lazy good humor, she could hardly believe that he was the same relentless predator who had stalked his way into her heart.