The Runaway Countess (30 page)

“Mazie.” The word was a growl. He knocked her hand away, claimed her mouth with a fierceness that stole her breath. Whatever patience he’d held was broken now. She opened her mouth and swept her tongue against his.

Fire.

Then his hand was there, in the juncture of her thighs where she pulsed and pulsed with want. His fingers brushed her sensitive flesh and his mouth lowered to her nipple. Crazy, he would make her crazy. He stroked with his fingertip, with his tongue, and a shock of sensation arched through her spine. He slipped a finger inside her and nipped her other nipple between his teeth. Gasping, grabbing, she wanted to make him as wild as she.

They wrestled in a tangle of limbs, stroking, licking, biting, neither giving in. He pressed her toward the earth. She did not want it, and she pressed back. She wanted to touch him, to maintain some semblance of power. If she lay there he would take everything from her.

She bit his shoulder, rolled to her side and slid her hand over his buttocks. He wrapped his hands in her hair, pulled, devoured the white of her throat and breasts. She palmed his erection, squeezed.

Panting. Was that her? Him?

She was on her back again. Her arms were over her head, bound by his large hard. His knees nudged her legs open. Beautiful. He was beautiful, sharp angles and sculpted muscle in the moonlight.

She was ready. She let her thighs fall open.

Shivers raced across her belly. Shaking set loose in her core.

His eyes on hers, he released her hands. Driven by some instinct, she guided his cock to her entrance and held him there.

Fierce power hardened his jaw. Rippled in his arms. Still, the wide head rested at her entrance.

He pressed into her and she gasped. There was so much filling her. She braced herself for the pain she knew would come. And it did come. He thrust into her once, twice, the third time burying himself deep within. She cringed and a deep, unpleasant burning seared her.

He looked down at her, panting, surprise everywhere on his face. She tried to smile up at him, to reassure him, but her heart was too vulnerable. Her smile wobbled.

He leaned down and kissed her gently. “I did not realize.” He rested on his elbows and nuzzled her ear. His cock twitched inside her and her inner muscles tensed in response. The pain nearly gone, she turned her head and caught his mouth for a kiss.

He held her hips steady and kissed her, soft, tender.

Such a heart this man had.

She wanted to confess everything. Reveal herself, her truth, and trust him with it. Have him hold her and tell her it would be all right.

Dangerous. That was utterly dangerous. She forced the thoughts away and shifted her hips again.

He made a strange sound in his throat. Then he moved, sliding in and out of her, and she gasped into the night.

He moved again, and she arched into him. She would not just lie there, passive. She would take her pleasure.

His tongue found hers and danced in a primal rhythm, an imitation of things to come. He lifted his hips back a touch, then reentered her. Heaven.

She pressed up against him, wanting more. He laughed, a warm, rich sound that delighted her. He looked down, the smile lingering around his eyes, and kissed the tip of her nose, then wrapped his arms around her and rolled her over, his cock thrusting deep within her at the motion.

She found herself on her knees, straddling his hips, the pale light of the moon falling over his chest and face. Her heart squeezed and expanded at once.

He pulled her down and licked her nipples, caught them in his teeth. Then he lay back and let her move as she wanted.

Mazie placed her hands on his chest and shifted as her body instructed, following the path of her own pleasure. She rose up on her knees so his erection slid out to the entrance of her sex, then she sat back on him, swallowing him.

Breath hissed between his clenched teeth.

Again, she lifted up with an erotic slide of flesh against flesh, and dropped down with a deep plunge. He squeezed his eyes closed, then opened them. He touched her core, that nub of exquisite pleasure. She cried out, throaty, uncontrollable.

“You like that?”

She nodded, incapable of speech. Sensation overtook her and she threw her head back, her wet hair streaming down her back.

“Ride me, Mazie. Now.”

And she did, bucking and grinding, taking him inside her. Long, hot, hard. His thumb on her nub. She matched her breaths to the strokes of his cock. Let the rhythm pull her along. Filling. Emptying. Lifting. Sinking. The circling and circling of his thumb. Exquisite torture.

Her head dropped to her chest, her eyes closed and she focused on the pulsing tremors within. Savored them, to remember on some quiet night, this giving of her maidenhead.

“Look at me,” he growled.

She met Trent’s dark gaze, held it as he grasped her hips and bucked into her. Powerful thrusts. She grasped on to his arms. Deeper. Deeper. Their gazes locked, and her inner muscles squeezed his thickness. Pleasure wound impossibly higher, impossibly tighter. He drove on, more. Pleasure poured up her spine, out her mouth, and she peaked. Shaking and crying, mindless, she dug her fingernails in his arms that she would not disappear.

He bucked twice then, with a strangled sound, lifted her off him. His warm seed spilled across her belly and his.

He pulled her down on top of him, held her in his arms.

How strange it was, to be so intimate with another body. If they met again in their old age, her flesh would recognize his.

She ran her hand over his skin, marveling at the feel of his hair. She wanted to remember this moment forever. The rise and fall of his chest, the sound of the frogs and far-off owl. The smell of musk. She wanted to remember this contentment and this peace.

He lay motionless, perhaps asleep. She trailed her fingers across his jaw and he caught her hand and kissed it. She looked up to find his eyes open, looking at her.

“I would have been gentler, had I known.” He caressed her back and she believed him. He was a good man, a kind man.

She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. What could she say?
That is because I misled you, let you make your own unfavorable assumptions.

She lowered her eyes instead. And like that, the spell of the evening was broken.

Blast her stupid brain and its endless thinking. She tucked her head in the crook of his shoulder, but the silence between them was no longer comfortable. A hollowness overtook her, starting in the pit of her belly and spreading out. It emptied her of everything serene.

He must have felt her stiffen, for he shifted beneath her. “Shall we wash?” Gone was the huskiness from his voice, the tender passion.

Mazie rolled off him and sat to his side, her arms looped around her knees. She brushed the damp hair from her face and looked at the moonlight on the water. She would not feel this hole in her belly. She would not feel the ache. She would enjoy the beauty of the night. She would watch the sparkling of light on the lake.

Trent streaked past her and shattered the still water, shattered the beautiful image.

She made herself stand, made herself walk into the water and wash away the evidence of their shared passion.

The lapping of water and the song of the frogs filled the night, but she heard empty silence. Trent did not talk, did not approach her. And she did not like it, this confused vulnerability, like she had peeled off her skin, like he had taken more than she had meant to give.

She swam to the shore, relieved to wrap her dressing gown around her, to hide and cloak herself. He followed, pulled on his breeches and gathered his clothing. With few words, he walked her back to the house. Here and again he touched her elbow to guide her, but his hand did not linger. Miles of unapproachable terrain separated them.

Wondering what thoughts occupied his attention, Mazie glanced at him. He gazed ahead and his profile gave little away. She thought she saw the same tension and sadness she felt, but that could have been a trick of the shadows. He had been so frighteningly intimate just moments ago, fiercely penetrating her most hidden self. And now, now he was a stranger again. Her gaoler. Her enemy.

Do not think on it, she told herself. All will be different in the light of the morning.

But as she climbed into bed, Mazie desperately wished Roane would return. That this charade would end.

She did not know if she could lie anymore. Not to Trent. Not to herself.

Chapter Seventeen

“The little foolery that wise men have makes a great show.” Shakespeare

The gathering storm broke the next morning with a long, thunderous rumble. Fistfuls of rain pelted against the windows in Trent’s study, casting muffled shadows across his face. Across the angle of his forehead and his unreadable grey eyes. Across the hard line of his mouth and jaw.

Mazie wished he would say something, do something, to reveal his purpose for calling her to his study. More questions, she had to assume. He would take what power she gave him last night and use it to his advantage.

She jerked her chin higher, hoping her haughty mood matched his
. Comme on fait son lit, on se couche.
She had made her bed, now she must lie in it. She had chosen to give herself to him, and now she must tolerate this awful intimacy between them.

It had become obvious in the long, sleepless hours of the night what a drastic mistake she had made. How she had given away something of herself that she could never get back. She could attribute it to ignorance and her lack of experience with intimate matters. Or to the night, the magic of the festival, the heat that drew her down to the lake. Whatever it was, she mustn’t let it happen again. She must move on, try to regain her footing in this dangerous game.

His gaze slipped down her body to his desk and sent an unwanted thrill of excitement over her skin. He took his time placing his quill on a tray and arranging his perfectly stacked papers. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped a streak of ink from his finger, then motioned for her to sit.

She declined the offer. She dared not even give the pretense of relaxation around this man. Her lover. Her enemy.

What would he ask first? About her virginity? Her true relationship with the Midnight Rider?

Trent walked to the front of his desk and leaned against it, crossing his legs before him, the motion stretching the tight fabric of his breeches across his thighs. She recalled sliding her hands across that lovely anatomy, her surprise at the softness of his skin and the bulge of his muscle.

He cleared his throat. “How do you feel this morning?”

Heat raced across her chest and up her face. Was he actually expecting a reply? He certainly looked like he was waiting for one, his head cocked to the side just so.

“I am well, thank you.”

He cleared his throat again, obviously as uncomfortable as she was. “I have to say…” He glanced down at his hands, then back at her. “That is, I must say…”

“I don’t regret it.” She would not give him that too, the sense that he could manipulate her, seduce her beyond her own reason.

After a moment, the edges of his lips quirked into a smile. The effect was stunningall the hard angles and detached perfection was softened. His eyes shone with somethingmerriment? Relief? “Well, that is good.”

Oh God, what was he saying? What had she said? This role of the sophisticate was new to her.

He cleared his throat again. “I pray you will forgive me, Lady Margaret.”

Her head snapped back, her surprise like a bright light inside her. He was apologizing to her? But such things weren’t done. Men like him never apologized. They simply did not think they could be guilty of anything. The world owed them.

“There is nothing to forgive.” It was the truth. She had been as involved last night as he was. “You didn’t lure me onto the dark path of sin, Lord Radford. I had the presence of mind to make my own decisions.”

He bowed his head, then steepled his fingers and glanced up at her again. Did he have to look at her like that? All heat and intensity, like he was remembering her wildness from the night before? His eyes, wittingly or not, called her bluff. What of the mindless thrash of your body, they asked? The unbridled sob of your release?

She could not face it. She ran her hand across the polished back of a nearby chair. Cherry, she guessed by its hue. She had never seen it before. In fact, as she glanced around his study she realized much of the furniture had changed. The weapons and dead animals had been removed from the walls, the curtains changed into a lighter fabric. There was a slight tinge in the air, the smell of fresh paint, or fresh lacquer or some such thing. Cat’s elegant hand was everywhere.

“I have been thinking…” Trent stalled. His unusual hesitation drew her attention back to him. He watched her with a deep furrow of concentration between his brows. Or, perhaps it was worry. “It has occurred to me…” He hesitated again. She was truly curious now, and a bit concerned. “Well—” he nodded then pressed on, “—it seems we must be wed.”

Laughter tore from her throat. Certainly he was joking.

His brow furrowed deeper. “I am a man of honor and principle. You are a woman whom I compromised. I must do my duty and marry you.”