“Beautiful.”
He took his time with her, torturing them both by tasting, sampling, teasing. He explored every inch of her form and delighted in its curves and dips, the subtle flare of her hips, the flat expanse of her stomach.
She moaned and twisted beneath him, and when she gave a soft cry and raked her nails down his back as he brushed at the heat between her legs, he gave in to the desire to take.
To distract her, and please himself, he kissed her hard and deep as he stripped off his breeches and tossed them aside.
“Put your legs around me, imp.”
She complied blindly, and this time it was he who gasped as he slipped into her wet entrance that first inch. He stayed there, caught between bliss and agony. His arms shook as he fought back the painful urge to just finish the job in one glorious push.
He could be gentle. He would be gentle.
He kissed her softly as he eased inside, seducing her body into accepting his. He waited for her to cry out, to tell him to stop.
But she only wrapped herself more tightly around him and kissed him back.
Until he came to the barrier that marked her as an innocent. He almost offered to stop. Almost. He was only a man, for pity’s sake.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered instead. And with a strong surge of his hips, pushed through to bury himself completely inside.
She unwrapped herself in a thrice. “Oh, ouch!”
He dropped his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry, imp. Give it a minute. Just a minute.”
A minute turned into two, and then three as he courted her again with long kisses and soft caresses. He whispered in her ear, sweet nonsense that made her smile and sigh, wicked nonsense that made her blush and squirm.
When her body relaxed under his again, he shifted his hips cautiously, gauging her reaction as he began to move inside her.
Her reaction was everything he could have hoped for and more. She moved with him, her arms banding around his shoulders as her legs once again banded around his waist.
In the soft light of two flickering candles, they rose together. She striving for something she couldn’t name. He striving to keep himself from grabbing that something before she had the chance.
He listened to her breath quicken, her soft cries grow faster and higher in pitch, and he willed her to reach out and take.
When she did, when she shuddered and bucked in his arms, he let himself go.
A full moon on a cloudless night can create a play of light and shadow that renders even the dreariest view an interesting landscape of black and grey. From his position in the woods at the edge of the side lawn—which was inarguably a very dreary view under most conditions—McAlistair sat and frowned at the scene before him. Pretty it might be, but convenient it was not. Better it be black as pitch so he could move across the ground without being seen.
Ah well, he had hidden in the bright sun of midday before this. Gone unseen and unheard in well-lit ballrooms and crowded bazaars.
He stood, stretched, picked his path, and moved forward to glide among the shadows. He crossed the lawn in long silent strides. His gaze tracked a brief flickering of light on the second floor before returning to the stable.
A man was waiting for him inside. Well, perhaps waiting was a poor choice of words, as it implied a kind of welcome. This man was crouched behind a stall door and taking aim with a gun.
Wasn’t the first time, McAlistair reminded himself. He said nothing, only waited as the crouching man looked him over, then grunted and straightened, tall and sure, before lowering the pistol.
“Come then, have you?”
McAlistair nodded in response.
“Wondered if he might be after sending you. Seems he’s after sending near to everyone.”
He thought of the note left for him at his camp. “Orders,” was all he said. Orders to watch and protect.
“True enough. Though it might have been wise to have sent me some sort of warning. It’s lucky you are I didn’t blow a hole through you.”
He shrugged.
The other man rolled his shoulders. “It’s coming to an end, I suppose. About bleeding time.” He jerked his head at a stall at the end of the aisle. “Not much more to do now than wait. I’ve some pilfered brandy hidden, if you’re wanting it.”
McAlistair considered it. “Wouldn’t mind.”
Twenty-two
Mirabelle lay in a daze beneath Whit. So that was what her uncle and his friends spoke of so often and so crudely. She’d known, from their uncensored comments, what happened between a man and a woman behind closed doors, and she’d known, from the way they’d spoken of it, that a man found great pleasure in the act. But she hadn’t known, hadn’t even suspected…
Unable to find the words, she sighed happily.
Whit stirred and levered himself up onto his elbows. “I’m crushing you.”