Seducing the Ruthless Rogue (46 page)

“It’s difficult to make love with our clothes still on.
 
Aye, I know, we’ve done it before, but it is better this way, don’t you think?”

“You’re wrong, Mack.
 
We’ve had sex before.
 
We have engaged in intercourse, we have copulated, and we have consummated our marriage.
 
But we have never,
never
, made love before.”

“Perhaps that is something we should remedy right now.”

Cassie lay still as Mack leaned in and softly kissed away her tears.
 
She closed her eyes, and felt the soft caress of his lips on each lid.
 
She kept them closed as she savored how he kissed each cheek, her nose, her chin before finally reaching her lips.
 
He played with her lips, dropping dewy kisses on them.

“Open for me, Cassie darlin’.”

She did and he began a slow, but thorough discovery of the moist cavern of her mouth.
 
He coaxed her to join with him in the exploration.
 
When Mack broke the kiss, Cassie found herself breathless, panting for air.
 
He began to nibble at her ears, first one, then the other before he followed her neck down to her chest.
 
She felt him tug gently on the string that held the neck of the nightdress together.
 
It gaped open, exposing her breasts to his view.
 
When he moved towards her, she put up a hand to halt his progress.
 
“Wait,” she commanded.
 
Cassie lifted her hips and worked the gown up her body until it momentarily impeded her vision.
 
Then the gown floated through the air and landed silently on the floor.

“You’re so beautiful, but I like you better in my shirts,” Mack said, his voice raspy.
 
“And to think I came so close to—”

“Shhh,” she covered his lips with her hand, stopping his words.
 
“No past, no future.
 
I can’t.
 
There is only this moment.”

“Aye,” he agreed before plundering her mouth once more.
   

Cassie whimpered when he pulled away, she couldn’t help herself, but then his lips were back, only they were paying homage to her breasts.
 
She felt as if Mack were worshipping her body with his.
 
His touch was tender and thorough.
 
Cassie felt as if every nerve ending in her body were on fire.
 
When he captured the tip of her breast in his mouth and suckled firmly, her back arched off the bed, giving more of herself to him.

After paying both breasts equal attention, Mack moved down her body and moved back and forth across her tummy.
 
He placed kisses along her ribs down to where her tummy felt femininely soft compared to his.
 
Then she felt the sheet slide down her legs, revealing herself wholly to her husband’s eyes.
 
Cassie allowed her legs to fall open, making room for Mack’s big body between her thighs.
 

“Mack, please.”
 
She felt him drop a string of kisses from one hipbone to the other.
 
Then he kissed her lower, and her hands shot to his hair, pulling him up.
 
“No, you can’t.”

“I can, but only if you’ll let me.
 
I don’t want to do anything you aren’t ready for.”
 
He took one of her hands and brushed a kiss across her knuckles.
 
“Trust me, Cassie?”

“Yes,” she answered and laid back, not sure what to expect next.
 
She felt Mack take a foot in his hand and massage it.
 
When he was done with her foot, he moved up to her calf and thigh, dropping kisses here and there.
 
Then he showed the other leg equal attention.

“Roll over,” he said.

She felt languorous and did so without argument.
 
Soon his hands were on her back, working at the knots that had formed in her muscles years ago and had only worsened.
 
Every once in a while he would brush her breasts, making sure that spark of desire never faded.
 
Eventually she felt herself rolled back over, her eyes half-closed when they flew open at his touch.
 
He was there, as he had promised, and Cassie’s pulse began to race, her blood pounded in her ears.
 
She thought she might be standing on a summit ready to soar, but she did not want to do so without Mack.

“Stop!”

“What?” Mack asked, looking confused.

“Not without you.
 
I don’t want to fly without you.”

“You mean cli—”

“No scientific terms tonight, Mack.
 
Please.”

“Yes, Mrs. McKenzie.
 
Close your eyes.”

She did and found all her other senses were heightened.
 
She could smell their musk in the air, which was erotic.
 
And she could feel him, everywhere.
 
Cassie felt surrounded by him.
 
Then he was there, slowly and steadily, taking her breath away with every subtle movement.
 
After fully entering her, he stayed there a moment, and she felt him nibble at her lips.

“All right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered.
 
Then he began to move, slowly, sensuously.
 
“Hurry,” she commanded.

“No, this is so much better, ken?”

“This is excruciating.”

“Aye,” he said, and even with her eyes closed, she could hear the smile in his voice.

She felt his fingers link with hers.
 
Cassie squeezed them tightly as she felt something building within her.
 
Something that only Mack created in her.
 
He continued moving slowly, remaining steady, which only added to the feelings building within her.
 
Cassie contracted her inner muscles around his length and smiled bewitchingly when she heard him groan.
 
She did it again and felt pleased when he quickened his pace.
 
She opened her eyes to see the concentration and desire etched on his face.

His hands slipped free of hers and one slipped low to where they were joined.
 
She felt him manipulate that area that could send her soaring so quickly.
 
Then he began suckling her sensitized breasts, alternating between them, all the while pounding into her until they both flew over the precipice, staring into one another’s eyes and seeing everything neither could bring themselves to say.

Chapter 25

Cassie awoke the next morning to sun streaming through the windows.
 
The place beside her on the bed was cold and empty, as if no one had been there.
 
The slight soreness she felt screamed otherwise.
 
Where was he?
 
Why had he not stayed with her?

“He has wars to run, you ninny,” she chastised herself aloud.
 
Regardless of the reason, she still felt…alone.
 
A knock sounded on the door.
 
“Just a moment,” she called and slipped from the bed to pull on her borrowed nightgown and robe.
 
“Who is it?” she asked.

“Mikala.”

“I’m sorry to make you wait,” Cassie said after rushing over and throwing open the door.

“Think nothing of it.
 
Mack said you were exhausted and to let you sleep as long as possible.”

“I just woke.”

“It looks like you need my miracle treatment for puffy eyes.”

Cassie rushed over to the mirror and studied herself.
 
Her eyes were indeed puffy as was her face.
 
It looked like she had spent most of the night crying, which she had. “It was all real, wasn’t it?” she asked as she moved to a chair, and fell into it.

“Yes, it was.”

“Papa’s dead.
 
Mack’s house is gone.
 
I’m a walking curse.”

“You’re not.

“I am.
 
I have to get out of here before something horrible befalls your family.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Cassie, listen to me,” Mikala waited until she was certain she had her full attention.
 
“At the beginning of my marriage, I ran from Gabe.
 
I thought I was doing everyone a favor, including him, but in the end, it had tragic consequences.
 
Running is never the answer.”

Cassie sat quietly and took in what the other woman had to say.
 
“Perhaps you’re right.”

“I know I am.
 
Now, Mack has entrusted me to get clothes for you.
 
I would let you borrow mine, but you are much more well-endowed than I am in the bosom, even when I’m pregnant.
 
So, I have sent word around to the seamstress that made your gown for our party and asked her to make you an entire wardrobe.”

“But that’s not necessary.”

“It is unless you plan on walking about nude.”

“No,” Cassie muttered.
 
“But I should be wearing black in memory of my father.”

“Mack said otherwise, and that’s that.”

“Mack does not know what’s best for me.
 
I say I will wear black, and I will.”

“All right.
 
I will send word over.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.
 
Do you feel up to eating?”

“Yes,” Cassie replied, feeling bad for taking her anger towards Mack out on Mikala.
 
Mikala sat with her for a while, but then had matters to attend to.
 
Cassie sat alone in the bedchamber she had shared last night with Mack.
 
She knew she had been unable to hold back her feelings for him.
 
The love she had felt showed through in her touch and the looks she had given him, even though she had not spoken the words.
 
She thought she had seen something flicker in his eyes as well, but then he had quickly shuttered them.
 
“Is that why he told me to shut my eyes?
 
Did he not want to see what I felt for him?”
 
The thought devastated her.
 
He had held her afterwards, but his arms and body had felt stiff and unyielding, until she had finally pretended in sleep to roll away from him.
 
She had stared dry-eyed at the wall, unable to call forth any more tears.
 

Cassie could not blame him for hating her.
 
Because of her, he had almost been run down by a carriage.
 
Papa was dead.
 
Papa had been one of their secret weapons in these two wars England found itself engaged in.
 
Then the lightning had struck the house and destroyed it.
 
Some might say the last was just bad luck, but Cassie knew better.
 
The lightning had killed her mother all those years ago, and now it wanted to destroy Cassie, had almost succeeded if not for Mack risking his life, searching for her.
 
And now his life could very well be in danger, as could Chang’s.
 

“Mikala’s wrong.
 
Leaving is the only answer.”

***

“It’s time I stop relying on public conveyances, or renting horses from inns to get me around Town.
 
I also have a wife that will need to use it on occasion,” Mack had told Gabe that morning.
 
So, they found themselves at Tattersall’s looking at horses.
 
“Do you think Cassie would like that horse?” Mack nodded at a bay.

“Does she ride?”

“I have no idea.”

“Mack, what do you know about your wife?”

“She enjoys writing.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“What?”

“You had better find out what she likes and doesn’t like.
 
Talk to her.”

“We talk.”

“Not about anything that matters, evidently.”

“We talk about the wars and politics.”

“Hell, Mack, you and Liverpool talk about the wars and politics.
 
Do you want to share a bed with him as well?”

“Just say what you mean.”

“If you don’t talk to her, you’re going to lose her.”

“We’re married.
 
She isn’t going anywhere.”

“Have you already forgotten the merry chase Kala led me on, and the consequences that followed?
 
Don’t let that happen to you.
 
Learn from my mistakes, don’t repeat them.”

Mack thought back to last night.
 
Her tears had tumbled the wall he had erected around his heart.
 
The way she had professed herself to be alone had ripped out his soul.
 
Then he had found himself using physical touches to ease her emotional hurts.
 
He had told her to close her eyes, because he could not bear to see the love shining from them.
 
In the end, it hadn’t mattered, because that is exactly what he saw when she opened them upon reaching her climax.
 
And it scared him as nothing ever had before, not even staring down the barrel of a gun.