The Legacy (22 page)

She would
not
leave.

His lips lingered on her supple cheek. Though his body burned, he forced himself to maintain control. He pressed his hips slowly into hers, letting her feel his arousal. She emitted a squeak of surprise, but didn’t pull away. He considered that no small victory.

“See what you do to me? Let me show you, Sabina. I can teach you more about pleasure than that boy could ever have known.”

She growled at him. “Are you going to do it or not?”

She sounded desperate, whether it was from the desire to be free of his touch, or to be kissed soundly, he couldn’t be certain. There was one way to find out.

“Do you mean this?” he asked, slowly nibbling a path along the slim column of her neck. “Or mayhap this,” he murmured, carefully kissing the tender cradle of her throat. “Or mayhap, even this,” he suggested, circling the edges of her mouth with the tip of his tongue.

Her fingers curled into his doublet. “Do it!” she cried, and at that moment, he captured her mouth with his.

He had kissed her before, so the power of it should have come as no surprise to him. Yet, this was different. Far more potent, far more exciting than their rough, groping kisses had been, this kiss was more seductive, deliberate, and he felt her falling under his sway. While he stroked the inside of her mouth with a steady rhythm, she mimicked the cadence with her entire body. When he stopped for a moment to nibble carefully on her lower lip, she whimpered and clutched at him.

He exerted a gentle suckling pressure inside her mouth, and her murmurs of delight while he brought their tongues together repeatedly served to heighten the already intense pleasure he felt building up inside of him. He did not delve deeply, but rather sipped at her, played with her all the while taking his pleasure with her. In mere moments, he had her weak and shaking with need.

Her legs gave way beneath her, and he caught her easily. He held her against him, one hand molded to her bottom, and adjusted his stance to wedge one knee between her thighs. He pressed up. She arched helplessly in response when he intensified the pressure, causing her to cry out.

“See? Your body knows,” he whispered. “Let me do this for you. Let me …”

He shifted, pulled her across his thigh, and she moaned and arched again, throwing her head back. He bit her trembling jaw, then licked and nibbled it in apology.

“I could eat you up, spread you across my tongue like a sweet … a honey pudding, that’s what you are,” he murmured. “Would you like that, my sweet? Would you like my mouth on you … everywhere?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, and a sob escaped her.

“Yes, I believe you would …” he whispered. “Give yourself to me and you won’t regret it. I promise. One word and I’m yours. All of me.”

Her fingers wound themselves in his hair; she strained closer, silently begging for more. He slowly pulled away. She reached for him, but he held back, denying her, denying them both. His heated gaze penetrated her sensual fog.

“Not until you say yes, Sabina. Then you can have it all.”

Chapter
16

S
abina struggled against the hypnotic seduction threatening to consume her. Wolf’s voice was raw with need, thrilling her, his mouth a scant hairsbreadth from hers.

He was confusing her. She had to think. What was he asking her to say yes to? To staying married, or to succumbing to him for just this moment? Suddenly, he pressed against her again and she no longer cared. She moaned helplessly, awash in sensual need.

She could feel his hard thigh
down there,
in that soft feminine place no man had claimed in nine years, could feel the dampness gathering between her legs. She had never felt this spiraling need before. It was maddening, and frightening, and oh, so persuasive.

Nothing had prepared her for the way he made her feel. She knew with an instinct born of new lust Wolf could give her what he promised, what he had been promising her with a look here, and a touch there, since the day they first met.

He drove her mad. Her heart pumped, her blood thrummed. She must say yes to him, she had no choice.

“Yes …” she breathed, and had a momentary flash of unease when she saw the naked triumph in his gaze. Then he captured her mouth with his, dispelling all doubts from her mind.

He’d set her on fire. No other explanation existed for the conflagration that swept through her body when he plunged his tongue into her mouth, dueling with hers in open warfare. His mouth still on hers, he bent his knees slightly and bunched up her skirts in his hand, sliding it in a hot caress up the path of her leg until he cupped her center with his big palm. He kissed her deeply while he ground the heel of his palm in agonizingly slow circles against her.

She cried out. “Wolf,
oh …”
She unraveled, collapsing against him when a burst of pleasure dragged her under.

His breathing sounded ragged; he touched her as if he could not help himself. His other hand roamed her body while he backed her up against the door. He pulled down her bodice and thrust it off her shoulders, tasting her exposed curves and caressing her breasts while she arched into his hand, stirred by his dark seduction.

She curved her arms around his neck, stood on her tiptoes to reach him; he caught her to him in response, lifted her. He groaned into the curve of her neck at the intimate contact, conquering her by the sound. Powerless under the sensual onslaught, she found herself no more able to resist him than she would be able to stop the sun from rising in the morn. She rubbed against him, seeking relief for the sensations again tightly coiling in her mound.

“You want me inside you,” he muttered. “Don’t try to deny it.”

As if she could.

He turned and carried her until he bumped into the ledge of the window seat. A weak cry escaped her while the room spun around. His cheek stubble rasped against her skin; his crisp sandalwood and citrus scent enveloped her.

Depositing her on the window seat, he groped with the heavy drapery above, pulling it shut. Sabina sat up to receive him, but he must have misunderstood because he pressed a hand to her breastbone while he positioned his big body between her legs.

“Now,”
he said, his gaze implacable when he stared down at her, his chest heaving, his stance rigid. There would be no turning back.

“Yes. Now,” she whispered, and slid her hands up his chest. She wanted him. She was past caring about the reasons why she should not.

Wolf flung himself down on top of her. He’d lost all sense of restraint, driven only by his need to possess her. Ignoring his heavier weight, forgetting his intention of going slowly, he rocked his hips, fitting his hardness to her softness through their clothing. He thrust urgently against her, desperate for the feel of her.

She gasped.

His eyes never left hers, watching her pleasure as it bloomed.

He wanted to drape her over him, drive into her, fit her to him like a glove. He could feel the pull of her need dragging him below the surface with her, and he held on to his sanity by a thin thread as he tried to wrestle her clothing off.

The thick wool and linen drove him mad. A savage oath ripped from him. It had to go, but the workings of the ties eluded him right now; he was so aroused, he couldn’t make his mind function well enough to figure them out.

He had intended to tantalize her, to slowly reveal her desire, to take her with great care and infinite gentleness. Instead, he prayed he wouldn’t be too rough in his haste, but he couldn’t wait another moment, not even long enough to properly disrobe her. He needed to bury himself inside her,
now,
before he lost all control. In frustration, he tossed her skirts up to her waist and fought his way through his own clothing to free himself.

He would apologize later.

He stroked her, urged her thighs open in order to gain entrance to the hidden paradise within while she tossed her head from side to side in her arousal, her hair flowing in tangled streams around them.

He slid his hands over her soft mound, probing and opening her, relief flooding through him at the slick, hot feel of her. He was dying for her, but he wanted her ready.

She squirmed against him and gripped his hair with her fisted hands, arching her hips in an urgent plea.

“Wolf… please.
Hurry,”
she begged, staring into his eyes, the whisper a prayer of need.

Sweet insanity beckoned.

“Yes, my sweet,” he rasped, positioning himself, “just let me—”

A frantic knocking on the withdrawing room door interrupted his words.

“Master Wolfgang!” Franz’s raised voice came from the other side of the door. The urgency in it assaulted Wolf’s heightened senses. “We must speak with you at once!”

Wolf looked at the door in stunned disbelief.

“Not. Now!”
he roared, fully prepared to murder Franz, even after years of faithful service, should he try to open the door.

Sabina jumped at the sound of his voice.

“Dear God,” she said, and he heard her mortification. She pushed him away, sat up, and fumbled with her clothing, trying to right it. Not so easily dissuaded, Wolf pulled her back down beneath him. He claimed her mouth with a hot passion diminished not one iota by the knocking on the door which had now increased to a pounding.

She broke away.

“Cease!” she hissed at him, struggling to sit up.

“Go away!” he simultaneously bellowed at the door. He cared not if the Pope himself was outside the door asking entrance, Wolf would have this woman.
Now.

He searched beneath her tangled skirts and found her cleft again, stroking her enticingly. She took a shuddering breath, gripping his arms while her head fell back.

“Oh,” she moaned, but the pounding at the door started again and she jerked upright, the sensual sound changing to one of intense frustration. She tried to push his hand away without success.

“Wolf, nay!” she pleaded.

The tone of her voice got through to him, finally, and he stopped. He couldn’t take her against her will. He wished to God he was the kind of man who could, but he wasn’t.

He leaned his sweat-dampened brow against her forehead, stilling her frantic attempts to rise. Groaning in frustration, he stroked shaking fingers over her hands, and then, for the first time in his life, begged like a knave.

“Please.” He wrapped her hand around his aching hardness and stared at her in sexual torment. “Sweet Jesu,
please.”

Sabina bit her lip, indecision furrowing her brow. Finally, she lifted her other hand to his face, pulling him toward her. Wolf surged over her.

“I’m sorry, Wolf, but it
is
urgent!” came Peter’s voice from outside the door. “If you don’t come out,
they
are going to come in.”

Wolf rammed his fist against the cushions in escalating frustration, barely containing his fury. Sabina jolted in reaction.

What
in hell
was Peter doing here? Didn’t he ever
study?
But the rational part of his mind—what was left of it—knew Peter had emphasized “they,” apparently trying to give Sabina and him some warning before someone burst in upon them.

A few more moments and Sabina would have been his. The moment had slipped away, and there was nothing he could do about it. He reluctantly released her and she scrambled away. By a sheer act of will, he didn’t follow.

Adjusting his clothing, he strode to the door, checking back to make certain she was decent before he opened it. Her cheeks were flushed and her Cimmerian hair was in disarray. Her pink, swollen lips testified to his fierce kisses. The passion still clouding her eyes nearly made him go back to her before he remembered they had an audience on the other side of the door.

Finally, her skirts were down around her ankles and her bodice closed. Other than looking like a woman who had just been ravished, he supposed she looked presentable. If only his own condition was not so patently obvious.

He fumbled for the key, found it, pulled the door open a bit, taking care to stand behind it. He needn’t have worried; Franz studiously avoided looking into the room, and after one sweeping glance, Peter diplomatically kept his eyes glued to the middle of his brother’s forehead. Several armed men wearing the garb of the city guard—swords and bucklers, wide-brimmed felt hats covering their close-shaven heads—stood behind Peter.

“What?” Wolf snapped.

“We’re sorry to disturb you, but there are representatives from the city here to see you, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Peter said, his expression truly apologetic. “There was a rebellion in Mühlhausen. The city government there has been overthrown.”

Wolf was instantly refocused.

Satisfied he had his brother’s full attention now, Peter went on. “Some of the local peasants are roaming Wittenberg in anticipation of the same thing happening here. They even attacked a councilman’s home. Those men have been tracked to the woods nearby, but the deputies lost the trail.

“These men,” Peter went on, gesturing behind him, “have searched Sanctuary and the grounds, but they suspected when you wouldn’t come out, someone might be holding you against your will.” His gaze flickered toward Sabina and back again. “I assured them if anything, the opposite was more likely to be true,” he said wryly, “but you know how these official types can be.”

The captain of the guard spoke up. “Master Behaim, you are unharmed?”

Wolf slid him a daunting glance. “As you can see.”

“Yes, well… mayhap, then, you may be of assistance to us. We are deputizing the locals, but they need a leader—someone to insure they will not hurt each other in their eagerness to capture these villains,” the captain said with a sardonic twist of his mustache. “Would you take charge?”

Wolf shook his head, eager to be rid of them. “I am only here from Nürnberg temporarily. Perhaps it would be more appropriate if a local man did it.”

“You are still a citizen of this town, yes? Born and raised here? I am certain, given the circumstances, the Elector himself would be pleased to know of your participation. In fact, we were instructed to come directly to you for your assistance in the event of such an outbreak. Many are aware of your cool head in such matters.”