Three Little Secrets (30 page)

Was there a prayer? Any hope at all?

He was sorely regretting his cruel words to her that afternoon in the inn. He had called her a shrew and a she-wolf, and possibly worse. He had been out of his mind with anger toward her father and his machinations, and he had been angry with Maddie for doubting his motivations for marrying her. His audacity that afternoon was trumped only by his earlier threats, holding their marriage lines over her head, and then threatening to exercise his conjugal rights.

“We are in deep water now, are we not?” Her soft voice cut into his consciousness.

Oh, she did not know the half of it.
“Aye, very deep.”

“I do not think the pole is touching the bottom.”

He stood, he realized, on the edge of the raft, the pole still clutched tightly in his hands. “No, but it quickly becomes shallow again as we approach the island.”

“Merrick, why do you not put that down and come sit beside me for a while?”

He looked down at her. “Do you not wish me to push us forward?”

She shook her head. “No, I think you should sit down,” she said. “Let’s just see where we go from here.”

Merrick almost laughed aloud. He believed a man went only where he pushed to go; Maddie thought they should just drift a while. There was a hidden meaning there, he feared, could he but figure it out. He laid the pole down, bound it tightly, then sat down beside her. A strange silence fell over them, and for what seemed on eternity, neither spoke.

Eventually, Maddie reclined on her forearms again. The trim, perfect ankles which peeped from beneath her skirts were crossed casually, as if she relaxed in the grass at a family picnic. He followed suit, pushing his coat against the low gunwale, and moving as if to stretch out on one elbow. But had not quite gained his balance when the raft jerked hard, throwing him half on top of her.

Madeleine shrieked, and grabbed him around the waist.

“Bloody hell!” said Merrick. He looked up through a shock of disordered hair at the tree branch hanging out over them. “Well, we have drifted into your little island, Maddie.”

Pinned beneath him, she gurgled with laughter. Merrick shifted his weight to lift himself away, then made the mistake of looking down at her. And just like that, it happened. Her smile faded to something entirely different. He was suddenly and very acutely aware of her body beneath his, of the curve of her hip, and the rise and fall of her chest, much of which was bared by the dinner gown she still wore.

Madeleine made no move to disentangle herself. And she had stopped laughing. Instead, her eyes were searching his face. Against his better judgment, he drew the back of his hand down her cheek. “Oh, Lord,” he whispered. Her eyes went soft, and the muscles of her long, elegant throat worked up and down. He lowered his head, and tentatively kissed her.

“Maddie,” he whispered against the corner of her mouth.

Beneath him, she exhaled on a sigh, and let one hand slide from his waist to his back, gently binding them together. Almost of its own volition, his arm circled around her, until his hand cradled the back of her head. He bent his head to hers, and kissed her again. Her lips were warm and pliant. Expectant. Eager. He molded his mouth over hers with a gentleness he had not known in thirteen long years, and Maddie melted against him, her head going back as she opened to him.

He thrust his tongue deep, and was lost. Lost in the velvety sweetness of her mouth. His eyes closed, and the world spun away. Everything moved with exquisite lethargy then. They kissed for what could have been hours. But eventually, her hands found his cravat, and drew it from his neck.

His hands cradled her face. Her slender fingers slid beneath the waist of his trousers, and slowly drew out his shirttails. But all the while she kissed him, lifting her head from the boat with a sweet eagerness. Their mouths met, again and again, until her lips were softly swollen, and her eyes were needy.

He lifted himself a little away. “Maddie, we—”

“Sh!” She lifted her head to follow him, brushing her lips lightly over his. “Don’t speak. Don’t stop. Just…”

“Drift?” he suggested. “And see where we go?”

“I know where I am going,” she whispered. “At least for tonight, if you will take me.”

He kissed her again, hot and open-mouthed, and this time, it was not slow. Beneath them, the raft gently rolled with the water’s motion. They came apart panting, and holding one another’s gaze as if they both feared the moment might vanish and bring them back down to earth.

“Undress me,” she whispered.

He looked at her incredulously, but hope already burned in his heart. “Now?” he asked, his voice quiet, and surprisingly steady. “Here in broad—”

”—broad moonlight, yes.” Her eyes were certain. “Take off every stitch, Merrick, slowly, just as you used to do. I want to feel your hands on me again. And I want to know…I want to know if I have changed in your eyes.”

He drew one finger lightly down her cheek. “You have not changed, Maddie,” he rasped. “You never will.”

Her gaze broke from his. “I am older,” she said. “I have borne a child. And gained a few pounds. But I am hoping that the moonlight will cast it all in a romantic light.”

“You have ripened from a girl into a woman,” he said, his hand going to the fastening of her cloak.

He was going to do it, he realized. He was going to do just as she asked. He was going to undress her in the moonlight. It was madness. And would he regret it? Perhaps. But given even half an opportunity, he was going to kiss and suckle her every inch, and make love to her with his hands and his mouth and his cock until she cried out with pleasure. If half the castle came running at the racket, so be it.

When the cloak was unfastened, he spread it to the sides. With one finger, he drew down the sleeve of her gown, kissing down her neck and around the turn of her shoulder as each precious inch was unveiled. Beneath him, she shivered with delight, and skimmed her hands beneath his shirt, and up the damp, rough flesh of his back. If she felt the scars, she gave no signal.

“Take this off,” she begged, urging the shirt higher.

He lifted up, and obliged her, drawing it over his head and off his arms, barely breaking his gaze. She gave a soft gasp, and slid her palms up either side of his chest. “You are…glorious,” she whispered. “And you—well, you are
not
the young man I married.”

“No?”

“Most definitely not.” She sat up, and with her hands on his shoulders, bent her head to nuzzle his neck, and lower. “No,” she said between kissed. “He was a beautiful Highland laddie. But you—ah, you are a magnificent man.”

He crooked his neck to look down at her. “Seen a great many of them, have you?”

“Hundreds,” she said, still kissing his chest, his shoulders, even down his arms. “Have you any idea how many naked statues there are in Rome? Or Naples? Or Paris?”

“Aye, probably…hundreds.”

“And none to hold a candle to you,” she said, her tongue coming out to tease lightly at his nipple.

“Could they not?”

She laughed, and shook her head. “My father once warned me that your shocking propensity for manual labor would roughen your hands and coarsen your skin,” she whispered. “But he forgot to mention…the benefits.”

Her hands were caressing the muscles which layered his ribs. He looked well enough; he was a big, physically strong man in the prime of life. But he had never thought of his body as beautiful. And she mightn’t either, should she get a glimpse of his back in good light.

“Maddie,” he whispered, his voice a little urgent. “Maddie, love. Some of me is no’ so beautiful.”

She stopped what she was doing. “You are dropping your t’s.”

“What?”

“Your t’s,” she said again. “I can always tell when you are upset. You start to sound like a Scotsman.”

He grinned. “Aye, well, that’s wha’ I am.”

She looked at him with eyes which were soft with desire, yet alight with good humor. He had always loved that; he loved that she could feel and show half a dozen emotions at once. “What part of you is not beautiful?” she asked, dropping her gaze to his nether region. “And I surely know which part it’s
not
.”

“Aye, that part’s the same,” he admitted. “But my back—well, it looks a good deal worse than my face.”

“Turn around.”

God, he was a damned fool. But he had started it, and so he did as she insisted, sitting up, and half–turning away from her. There was a long, dead silence which seemed to stretch into infinity. Then Maddie set her lips to the turn of his neck. “Ah, Merrick,” she whispered from behind him. “I am…sorry beyond words.”

He gave a grunt of sarcastic laughter, but she said no more. Instead, she sat up and snuggled her breasts against his back. “Still beautiful,” she murmured, setting her lips to the turn of his neck, then to his shoulder, and down the turn of his scarred back. Little butterfly kisses touched him everywhere as her arms came around him, and her hands slid up the curving muscles of his chest.

She rose onto her knees behind him, kissing and nuzzling until her clever fingers found his nipples and her mouth found his earlobe. She nibbled gently at first, then drew it into the warmth of her mouth, slowly suckling him in a seductive, shocking erotic imitation of…well, of something one did not use one’s ears for.

He withdrew from her embrace and turned. “Maddie,” he said. His shaking hands went to the buttons of her dress, methodically slipping them free. When it sagged loose, he pushed the fabric away with quick, desperate motions.
Slow,
he warned himself.
This time, go slow.

He could see her breasts, her small erect nipples, through the fine lawn of her shift. His mouth sought them out, suckling until the fabric clung damply. He lifted his head, and the sight was enough to undo him. On his knees now, he undressed her a little less slowly, and a good deal less gracefully, than he might have wished. And when she was naked, he urged her back into the pile of clothing.

“Lord, Maddie,” he said. “You are a vision of heaven.”

In the moonlight, she closed her eyes almost shyly. He looked down to see that his trousers were drawn tight over his groin, his erection straining hard against the fine fabric. Maddie’s intent was clear. He toed off his shoes and began to hitch loose his buttons.

When he looked up again, Maddie was watching him, and there was an unmistakable heat kindling in her eyes. She sat up abruptly, her hands going to the close of his trousers. Wordlessly, she unfastened the last button, then eased one hand down his belly, down to touch him. It was a small gesture, tame compared to the greediness of the women he was used to. But inexplicably, his breath seized.

With one slender hand, she tormented him, whilst the other pushed away at the wool and linen until the strength of his erection jutted free. His trousers bagging to his knees now, he bowed back, and let her touch him, reveling in the slightest brush of her fingers. The brushes became more intense. Soon she was stroking the heated length of his cock, and the other hand had slipped even lower.

On a groan, he seized her wrist. “Maddie love, you need to stop,” he said between gritted teeth.

She said nothing, but her hand stilled. Then he felt her lips on his collarbone, and realized she was fully on her knees, cleverly balancing with the raft’s faint motions. He shuddered when she took his nipple between her small, white teeth. And then she moved lower, kissing the dusting of hair on his belly, bent deeper, and kissed his taut, hot flesh. His whole body trembled with delight.

She had touched him this way but once, long ago, and he had been both ashamed and grateful. Some ten days out of London, they had passed the night in a charming little wayside inn near Penrith, and had dinner brought up to their rooms. With it had come perhaps a little more wine than was wise. Afterward she had begged him to tutor her in the ways of less conventional lovemaking. Perhaps selfishly, he had obliged her. He had allowed her to do things that—well, that no lady should ever be expected to do.

But Madeleine had been an eager student, almost as eager as she was now. Her tongue came out and stroked lightly down his length. “Merrick?” she murmured, her lips pressed to the tender flesh at the joining of his thigh. “Do you remember…this? May I do it?”

He caught her wrist again. “I remember,” he said.

She looked up at him, all wide, moonlit eyes and soft innocence. He couldn’t say yes. But God help him, he couldn’t say no. Madeleine smiled and bent her head. Her lips came over his crimson head, making his knees shake. With one hand at the base of his cock, she bent so far forward he could see her dainty little toes peeking out from beneath her bare buttocks, then she swallowed his flesh, inch by searing inch as they floated upon the loch. Bending lower and lower. Pushing him nearer and nearer to madness.

One of his hands went back to clutch at the low gunwale. She moved over him, tasting and sucking. Running the delightful tip of her tongue down his length, and sending a shudder through his body. When he gave an inhuman groan, Madeleine’s hand slipped between his legs to cradle his ballocks as she intensified the motions of her mouth. Her other hand worked his shaft mercilessly, stroking down the slick wetness, over and over.

Merrick tipped back his head, and gasped through his teeth. “Maddie, oh!”

Fleetingly, she hesitated. “Should I sto—”

“No,”
he uttered. “Not…not
yet.
” His hands seized her shoulders as if to steady her, his arms corded by his efforts at restraint.

She pushed him gently away and returned to her erotic ministrations, every stroke a pleasure he had never known. There was pure beauty in her efforts and an element of sincere feminine pleasure. Raw, primitive lust throbbed in his veins and in his head. He opened his eyes, watching with awe as her lush, full mouth sliding over the head of his cock, devouring him with pleasure.

Her hand tightened, and she repeated the efforts. Merrick thrust his fingers into her hair, but whether to still her motions or urge her onward, he could not say. He had to fight the urge to thrust himself deeper. Somehow, he gritted his teeth and spoke.