Taken by Storm (28 page)

Take it slow. Make it beautiful for her.

His finger found her entrance, sank within it and pushed upwards, her hot sheath engulfing the digit with delicious wet heat all the way to its base.

She went momentarily stiff in his arms and made a little cry, and for the briefest moment he feared he’d hurt her—but no, she was pressing herself against him, gasping and urging him on with tiny, guttural whimpers.

He licked and nuzzled her breast, inflamed her with mouth and tongue and finger, wanting her, needing her, feeling the heat rising up and out of her until her skin was dewy and hot, until she was moaning and gasping beneath him, until she finally caught his head in her hands and gasped breathlessly beneath him.

“Oh, Colin, I . . . am so full of feeling, I don’t know where to put it all. It grows . . . unbearable. I love you, Colin . . . please, please don’t stop . . . I love you . . .”

He had found her wet, inner wall with his finger, stroking it ceaselessly until he had her sobbing with the start of climax; he withdrew just before sending her over the edge, then concentrated on the hidden nub of her femininity. Bathed in wetness, it swelled and hardened as he kneaded it between thumb and forefinger. She cried out, digging her nails into the back of his head and neck as he took one of her breasts deeply into his mouth, all the while pressing and rubbing that secret part of her, inflaming her to a state of pleading, sobbing need and want until she was begging for something she didn’t understand. He felt her beginning to spasm, and withdrew his hand to let her hang suspended on the shelf of ecstasy, wanting only to make the pleasure so fierce that she would never forget it for as long as she lived.

Gasping, whimpering, she groped frenziedly for his hand.

“Wait, love . . . it will be better, if you take it slowly.”

He sat up and began to unbutton his breeches, but Ariadne, delirious with need, thrust his hand away and did the task for him. A moment later he was free, swelling hard and stiff against her hand. She paused, uncertain, her pulse pounding in her ears, and looked up into his face.

“It’s alright, dearest. It is part of me. Nothing more.”

He leaned close and kissed her, and Ariadne felt him growing larger in her hand. She drew back and stared down at him, her eyes widening as she took in the size of his erection. For once in her life she went mute, and her gaze lifted, past the tapered waist and widening ribs, past the broad chest and up into the doctor’s eyes.

His gentle eyes, regarding her with love and adoration.

“I’m still here,” he said softly, in understanding, and touched his finger to the bottom of her chin. “Still the same person, Ariadne. It’s alright to be afraid of . . . well, the unknown.”

“But it’s . . .
huge
!”

“Yes, it rather gets that way, when it’s aroused.”

“How on earth do you keep it safely hidden in your breeches? Do you have to tie it down?”

He had the good grace to actually blush. “I don’t spend my every waking moment walking around in this state, Ariadne. Indeed, you have done this to me.”

“So
now
what do I do with it?”

“Anything you like,” he said, softly. Invitingly. Perhaps even a bit shyly.

She clamped her legs against the still-throbbing ache at their junction. Horrified, yet a little eagerly, she gazed up at him. Again, those kind and gentle eyes were regarding her, with patience, love, and understanding.

He is
Colin
,
she reminded herself.
Colin! And he will never hurt me.

She went bright red. “I’m sorry, Colin. I’ve seen s-s-stallions before, but never a man.”

He began to look embarrassed, and for a brief, terrifying moment she thought he was going to button his breeches back up and leave her there, hot, desperate, and burning like a candle running out of wick in the deepest part of the night. She saw the hesitation in his eyes, the quick look of regret crossing his face.

Then he gave a guilty little grin and said softly, “I fear that in comparison to a horse . . . I am sadly lacking.”

He looked up at her and pursed his mouth, and he looked so dreadfully serious and comical all at the same time that she could not help but laugh.

He laughed too, banishing the awkwardness, and when she looked back down at him, that manly appendage was no longer frightening and strange, because it was a part of
him
.

“Touch me, Ariadne.”

“You want me to
touch
it?” she squealed, horrified.

“Yes. It does not bite.”

She was shaking as she lay back down in the grass and helped him to remove his breeches, stockings and shoes. His manhood was fully bared to her view, along with long, beautifully muscled legs sprinkled with golden-brown hair. One of those legs was marked by a gruesome tangle of raised, angry scar tissue, and Ariadne bit her lip as she imagined what agony the injury must have caused him. She reached out and put her hand over the puckered, scarred flesh, feeling the lumpiness of bone beneath that had never quite healed the way it should have. The doctor regarded her steadily. She swallowed hard, caressed the injured area as though she could smooth away the long-ago pain. He smiled. Then, Ariadne’s curiosity over the male organ got the better of her, and hesitantly, she reached out and touched . . .

It.

It jumped beneath her finger, and she gave a little cry.

“I hurt you!”

He laughed, and leaned over to kiss her. “No, no, you could never hurt me.”

“But—”

“I know. Touch it again, Ariadne. It is only a part of me, and nothing more.”

She reached out and gingerly laid her fingers against the blunted apex of the appendage. It was warm and surprisingly soft, as velvety as the hide of a newborn colt, the skin of Shareb’s muzzle, the most elegant of silk.

He smiled, watching her.

Gently, she stroked the length of the strange, hard, organ, feeling it growing firmer beneath her touch, larger, stiffer, warmer, until it outgrew her hand and thrust harshly against her palm with every tortured stroke of her fingers. She looked down at its owner; he now lay with his eyes half-closed, as though in the deepest of pain. Anguish, even. She looked back down at his arousal, and felt a warm drop of liquid on the inside of her thumb. She smeared it over the blunted head.

“Oh, my, what fun—Colin, look what it can do!”

Gasping, he caught her hand, began to guide her away.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No. But you will soon put me over the edge with such handling.”

“Edge of what?”

He slowly shook his head and eased himself onto his back, one arm gathering her close and pulling her down atop him until their mouths met once more. She felt his warm breath on her cheek, his tongue exploring her mouth, and unable to leave it alone, put her hand around that hard, hot part of him.

“I’m warning you, Ariadne . . .”

She kept stroking him, feeling a dawning sense of triumph and femininity as he groaned softly beneath her. Finally, his eyes opened and he gazed up at her with a faint smile and eyes glazed with passion. “Sweetheart, I . . . want to make love to you.”

He looked intently into her eyes, waiting for her answer.

She took a deep breath, her flesh, her skin, her very blood, on fire.

“Yes, Colin . . . I would like that. Love me. Love me with all of your heart.”

Gently pushing her hand aside, he moved over and atop her, one arm sliding beneath her head to pillow it, his hand caressing her breasts, her belly, and then, the silky junction of curls at her thighs. She went to butter as his fingers moved toward her hot recesses, spreading the inner lips apart and stroking her until she felt her own moisture flooding in fresh, hot waves against his fingers.

His eyes had gone deep and soft, his brow creased with concentration, his breathing thick and heavy. Under his intimate caress, she once again felt something huge and wonderful starting to build deep in the pit of her belly, beginning to burn, to ache, to make her squirm and sigh and gasp . . .

“Oh, Colin, something’s
happening
—”

And then he withdrew his hand, grasped that manly part of himself, and guided it to her cleft. Quivering, she felt it touching her flesh, parting it, felt her very insides stretching as he slowly slipped inside her.

It was not enough. She ached for his weight, ached for his body, ached for his touch and the feel of him against her. She ached to have him inside her, as far as he could go, ached for . . .

“Ariadne, I dare not go any further,” he said hoarsely. His eyes were clear as glass, intense, penetrating and brilliant; she thought he must be able to see right down into her soul. He cupped her face in his hands, kissed her brow, and breathing harshly, said, “It’s going to hurt—”

“I trust you, Colin.”

“Do you want this, Ariadne?”

“God help me, I do . . .”

“Then hold onto me—tightly—and know that I love you, and that the pain will only last but a moment.”

“Yes. . . .” She thrust upward, seeking him, her breath hot against his skin.

He lowered himself down onto his forearms to take his weight and kissed her fervently, his lips and breath hot against her temple, her cheek, her brow, her lips. Between her thighs she felt him filling her, stretching her to the point she thought she might break, and her breathing quickened as that searing, sweet ache grew stronger and stronger. He began to move within her, pulling back and then thrusting slowly back in. She felt her body expanding to accept him, felt him sliding into her, inch by glorious inch, until at last he came up against the fragile membrane that proclaimed her innocence.

He paused, head bent, the hair hanging over his forehead.

“I love you, Colin. Please . . . Just make me yours.”

He kissed her, held her tightly, and then, just when she thought that she would die for want of him, he drove himself into her—and made her a woman.

The pain was brief, brilliant, and blessed. She felt the warmth running between her legs and was thankful for it, and then there was only
him
, picking up and continuing the rhythm, going deeper with each long, slow thrust, until the brilliant sensation that had been building and building reached its pinnacle—

He gave one last, driving thrust at the same time Ariadne felt herself splintering apart. She cried out, arced up, clung to him and drove her nails into his back with the force of her first climax, her body convulsing out of control. Sweat sheened their bodies and she heard nothing but his groan of pleasure and the sound of her name tumbling from his lips, felt nothing but the blood shrieking through her ears and the sky flying, spinning, whirling, above her. She clung to him, sobbing with wonder and joy until the waves began to ebb, and at last fade away like the ripples in a pond. And then there was just the two of them, bodies entwined on a bed of grass with the stars fading and the dawn coming up in the eastern sky in a beautiful mantle of fire and gold.

For a long time, they lay together on the blanket, side-by-side, holding hands and watching the sun coming up.

“Oh, Colin, never have I dreamed that something could feel so good, so right . . . how I want to be in your arms, forever.”

For a long moment he said nothing. When at last he spoke, his words were flat and tortured.

“I don’t think you would, Ariadne, if you only knew what disgrace I have suffered, just what I
am
—”

She turned and looked at him steadily. “What you are, Colin, is a kind, caring, and patient man.”

“I am a commoner. Beneath you in station, unable to support you in the comfort and style to which you’re accustomed.”

“And I am an heiress. I don’t need you to support me. Besides, I would love you whether you were a hero’s son or a Chelsea veterinarian.”

“I
am
a hero’s son—and nephew, too, come to think of it. My father is Admiral Christian Lord, my uncle, his brother Sir Elliott. And I . . . I am a humiliating embarrassment to them both.”

“Why? Because you’re an animal doctor? That is a noble calling, and you’ve proven to me over and over again these past few days that you’re a hero, too.” She turned over onto her side and gazed steadily into his eyes. “War is not the only way in which heroes are made, Colin. Do you think you’re not a hero to that little boy whose dog you saved? That you’re not a hero to Thunder and Marc? And to
me
? Sometimes everyday life presents ample opportunity to shine, as well.”

“Ariadne, there are things about my past from which you would recoil if I were to confess them. Things that would make you ashamed of me. You see, I was once in the service of the king, but not the Army, as I allowed you to believe. I–I was in the Navy–”

“Is that where you hurt your leg?”

“Yes—”

“And why you left it? Because of your leg?”

Images flashed through his mind. The shipwreck. The court-martial. The newspapers—

“In part. But there is more. And if I were to tell you the whole story, you would turn away.”

“Colin, why can’t you trust me? There is nothing in your past that would erase or change the way I feel about you here in the present.” She smiled and touched his jaw, wishing she could smooth away the anguish in his eyes, the lines of sorrow and tension around his mouth. “Besides, I trusted you with the secret of what Shareb-er-rehh really is. Don’t you think it’s time you trusted
me
?

He just gave her a bleak look and looked away. She reached out to touch his arm—and in that moment hoofbeats shook the ground and Shareb-er-rehh came bursting out of the nearby stand of trees, the dawn’s light gleaming in eyes that were wild, panicky, and ringed with white.

Ariadne leapt to her feet, Colin right beside her as the stallion hurled himself toward them at a dead run.

A chill raced up Ariadne’s spine, for she didn’t need more than a second glance to know that there was something wrong with her horse.

Something dreadfully, seriously, wrong.

“Shareb!”

She ran forward and grabbed the stallion’s neck as he plowed to a stop before her. The force of the action nearly knocked the breath from her, and she felt pain explode along her injured arm. She lost her grip and stumbled backwards, saw the sky above her as a brilliant splash of pink, orange and mauve—then there was only Colin’s strong arms as he caught her, and made a wild grab for Shareb’s head.