To Have and to Hold (13 page)

Over the past
couple of days, she was aware of a growing expectancy that was driving her
mad.
  
Only this morning he had paid her
a customary visit only for the tension between them to be palpable.
 
Conversation that was usually flowing had
become stilted and awkward.
 
As if both
had things they wanted to say yet were loathed to broach the subjects they so
desperately needed to raise.
 
She hated
the distance that seemed to be growing.
  
She frowned as she glanced out at the heavy snowfall beyond the window.

“What’s wrong my
dear?”
 
Dominic queried from the doorway
eyeing the disgruntled scowl upon her face.
 
He fought the urge to smile as she turned her frown in his
direction.
 
Clearly, she was distinctly
put out at something.
 
Whatever had
outraged her so had given her a tinge of colour to her cheeks that was the
first he had seen since her arrival in his house.
 
Her eyes spat shards of angry blue fire as
she glared moodily at him.
 
She reminded
him of a disgruntled kitten.
 
He knew
that should he venture too far he was very likely to get scratched.
 

Still he was
curious to discover how far he could go before his spitting kitten scratched
him.
 
Swallowing his smile, he leaned a
nonchalant shoulder against the door jam and raised a sardonic brow.

Isobel pointedly
ignored his question, instead glared at his cheerfulness. “You seem decidedly
chirpy today.”
 
She snapped eyeing his
windswept ruggedness as he slowly sauntered across the room.
 
God he was handsome, Isobel eyed his tall
frame casually wander towards her.

“I have a lot to
be chirpy about.”
 
Dominic replied
smoothly as he sat in his customary chair beside the bed.
 
“What are you so disgruntled about?”
 

“I am so very
fed up of being in this bed!”
 
She
snapped giving in to a burst of temper and thumping the sheets covering
her.
 
“It is time I got up.”
 
Her scowl deepened as he slowly shook his
head.
 

“You are not
ready yet.
 
You may have a relapse or
something.”
 
Dominic murmured propping
his booted feet atop of the covers she was trying to pull back, firmly securing
her underneath.
 

Isobel sighed,
eyeing his booted feet with disdain.
 
Briefly, she considered thwacking his ankles until he removed them but
eyeing his long length sprawled so comfortably in the chair, she just couldn’t
find the heart to do so.
 
Still, that
couldn’t detract on her dissatisfaction with life at present.

“I am more
likely to have a relapse if I lay in this bed much longer.”
 
She knew she sounded waspish but felt driven
by something that refused to allow her to settle.

“I can
understand my dear.”
 

“Can you?”
 
Her tone was dismissive.
 
“I doubt it.”
 
She sniffed.

“Yes.
 
When I was injured in Spain, I was tended to
by the locals.
 
At first, I couldn’t move
much.
 
The inactivity of lying there day
after day was impossible.”
 

Isobel sat
enthralled, suddenly too afraid to move and stop his confidences.
 
It was the first time he had opened up to her
about his injuries, which she knew he had sustained.
 

“How severe were
your injuries?”
 
Isobel’s tone softened
as she considered his lying in a foreign country, with an alien language, badly
injured with no easy way of returning home.
 
]

Dominic stared
at her solemnly for several minutes clearly battling something within.
 
Isobel began to wonder if he would just
ignore her question until he suddenly stood up and moved toward the door,
closing it soundly with his booted heel.
 
As he approached the bed, he began to ease off his jacket.
 

Stunned, Isobel
watched closely, her temperature rising as he slowly unravelled his cravat
before placing it carefully with his jacket at the end of the bed.
 
Slowly, he undid the ties of his white shirt,
pulling the edges out of his riding breeches before swiftly pulling it over his
head.
 

Despite the
blush that marred her cheeks, her hungry eyes roamed the broad expanse of flesh
that greeted her.
 
His shoulders were
indeed wide and firmly muscled.
 
His
broad chest was matted with a coarse dark hair that tapered downwards over the
rippling muscles of his abdomen to-.
 

“Oh Lord,”
Isobel murmured silently to herself as she shifted uncomfortably on the
bed.
 
She itched to reach out and touch
him.
 
Her eyes slowly traced the large
length of puckered flesh that ran from below his rib cage around and across his
abdomen below his navel.
 

Pulling the
covers from her legs she eased upwards to sit on the side of the bed, her eyes
locked on the puckered flesh of his stomach.
 
Her eyes flickered upwards to find him watching her closely.
 

“Does it
hurt?”
 
She whispered softly her gaze
dropping back down.
  
Gently, her fingers
touched the flesh higher upon his ribs, pausing briefly as he sucked in a
startled breath.

“No,” His voice
sounded strangled yet another reassuring glimpse of his face revealed a tension
that had not been there before.
 

Her touch
feather light continued downwards following the trail of the rugged and
puckered flesh as it crossed him.
 
He
made no move to pull away. Silence settled around them as she explored.
 

“God Isobel, you
unman me.” Dominic choked as her lips feathered across his flesh.
 
His treacherous body immediately responded to
her nearness.
 
With the kisses she was
bestowing upon him, he was so hard and ready, he thought he would burst.
 
If only she didn’t look down at the thick
bulge of his breeches, he mused silently wondering if he had the strength to
move away.

“You must have
been in so much pain.”
 
Isobel’s voice
held only a touch of sorrow for he would have considered it condescension
should she be overly sympathetic to his endurance.
 
Her lips reached the end of his scar directly
in line with his belly button.
 
Unable to
withstand any more of her curiosity Dominic slid his hands into the thickening
mass of her hair and tugged her face upwards until she was looking at him.
 
Her lips were pink and glistening; tempting
him to taste and savour what was on offer.
 

A bigger man
would have manfully withdrawn and re-donned his shirt.
 
Dominic knew she already had command of his
heart.
 
He ruefully acknowledged that his
body appeared to be hers too if his immediate response to her nearness was any
indication. His manhood ached with the need to relieve the pressure that was
building beneath his breeches.

“Kiss me.”
 
She murmured pushing herself onto her knees
upon the bed.
 
Before he had left several
months ago, she would have been aghast at such wanton behaviour.
 
Now, having endured life with everything
familiar and dear to her cruelly snatched away, she had learnt to savour every
opportunity.
 
She wanted that opportunity
now.
 
She wanted him.
 

With a boldness
that surprised even her, she slowly slid her palms upwards across his chest, delighted
at the hiss of his breath between clenched teeth at her progress.
 
Emboldened by the fact he didn’t move away,
Isobel slowly explored the dips and hollows of his chest, smoothing, seeking,
committing each ripple of muscle and broad expanse of tanned flesh to memory as
she traced the broad width of his shoulders.
 
The need to reach upwards brought her face closer to his until she could
feel his hot breath upon her cheek.
 

She moaned aloud
as his hand tightened in her hair tipping her head backwards to reveal her
neck.
 
His questing lips sought and found
the long column of her white throat,
laving
the
hollow at the bottom with his hot tongue.
  
Her breasts tingled with anticipation as she brushed against his
masculine heat.
 

“Isobel, we have
to stop my darling.”
 
Dominic murmured,
placing tiny kisses upon her jaw.
 
Inwardly, everything screamed at him to tumble her backwards and take
what she was offering.
 
The gentleman
within him; the warrior; the protector didn’t want to put any demands on her already
recovering body.

“More please
Dominic, I need you.”
 
Isobel murmured
unable to restrain the surge of recklessness that swept through her.
 
For months, she had thought he was out of her
reach, belonging to another.
 
Since he
had left for his secret mission her body had ached and yearned to feel the
possession of his again.
 
She had cried
and grieved for everything she had lost.
 
Now she had it back she was determined to savour every second of their
time together.
 

“Isobel, you
tempt me so.”
 
Dominic murmured tipping
his head backwards to gaze blankly at the ceiling as she began to trail kisses
upon the sensitised skin of his chest.
 
His chest hair crinkled beneath her questing lips.
 
Every nerve within was quivering until he
thought he would go quietly mad.
 
Suddenly, he snapped, his burgeoning erection throbbing beneath the
placket of his breeches to near pain was more than he could bear.
  

He drew her head
upwards, slamming his lips down upon hers.
 
His mouth hot and demanding as his tongue probed deeper into the moist
recesses of her mouth.
 
Hands shaking, he
slowly drew the long nightgown over her hips only breaking the kiss long enough
to pull it over her head and toss it carelessly onto the floor.

Isobel moaned
softly as the sensitive tips of her breasts brushed the coarse hair of his
chest.
 
Moist heat pooled between her
thighs causing her to shift restlessly against the growing emptiness within her
belly.
 
She needed him to ease the
ache.
 
Only he would do.
 
Gasping at the delicious sensations he was
creating, she arched her back in mute appeal as his lips moved lower.
 
Everything within her shook as his lips
caught and teased the sensitive nipple,
laving
carefully until she thought she would go quietly mad. The tugging sensation low
in her tummy tightened as the moisture between her legs built.
 
Unable to withstand his tender onslaught, she
moved backwards, keeping hold of his head to draw him with her and was relieved
to feel the cool sheets at her back.