She took the hand of his injured arm and wrapped both of hers around it, holding it firmly. “You should know that O threatened to kill you if your father told them anything at all about their plans. Marcus, he could have received leniency if he’d confessed all. I think he didn’t in order to protect you.”
Dropping his head back, he stared at the ceiling. “It doesn’t negate that he wanted to kill the Queen.”
“No, but perhaps you can find some comfort in knowing he wasn’t completely rotten.”
Perhaps in time. “So many people were hurt, Esme, suffered. Lives were changed.” He turnedhis attention back to her. “The odd thing is, I no longer resent what happened to me because I came to know you.”
Drawing her near, he claimed her mouth, pouring all he felt for her into the kiss, hoping she would interpret what he feared saying aloud because he wasn’t certain she’d accept the words. The words that had rushed through his mind in the stairwell. He loved her, this woman who claimed marriage was not for her. Could he convince her that it was, that her future should contain something other than a pretend marriage?
Or had the intensity of his life since he’d walked through her door caused him not to see things clearly? Too many times, just like tonight, they’d come close to death and narrowly escaped its grip. But the nearness of it heightened emotions, made one aware of the fragility of life, and caused a need to cling to that life with fervent intensity.
Perhaps that’s what he’d experienced earlier tonight: the rush of knowing all could be lost and a need to hang on to the familiar. Just as now he wanted to feel alive, wanted this woman to feel alive. He needed to shake off the lingering cold fingers of death.
And so he took the kiss deeper.
Esme knew she should leave him to rest, that he needed to lie quietly and put no strain on his shoulder, but with his luscious mouth moving soprovocatively and enticingly over hers, she could no more return to her bedchamber than she could fly to the moon.
His quest had come to an end. Her assignment was finished. Nothing remained to hold them together, to keep them in close proximity. He could carry on with his life now, do whatever he desired, be whatever he wanted. She wished the very best for him: a woman who loved him, a family, success, happiness. All he deserved.
So now, tonight, was her last chance to be with him. She wasn’t certain he’d quite grasped that reality, but she had. She knew that when a mission was done, she couldn’t linger. She needed to move on as quickly as possible, and it was better with no goodbyes, no regrets, no what-ifs.
And so she eased back, slid off the bed, and, with her gaze latched on to his, slowly began removing her gown and all that was beneath it, taking absurd satisfaction in the darkening of his eyes and the quickness with which his chest began to rise and fall.
“I think I will never grow tired of seeing you bared,” he rasped when the last of her clothing was pooled at her feet.
Reaching up, she began removing the pins from her hair. “We’ll have to take care with your shoulder.”
“To hell with my shoulder.”
She laughed, soft and low. “You may have need of it someday.”
When her hair finally tumbled around her, she returned to him and saw to the removal of his trousers. She stroked his muscled thighs, his flat stomach, his broad chest. “I’ll never grow tired of seeing you bared.”
But in the future, she would see him only in her imagination. At that moment, she wanted to make love to him for all the times she wouldn’t. She couldn’t envision that any other man would ever mean to her what he did.
She became lost in the sensations as he touched and cajoled pleasure into blooming forth. He rolled her onto her back and came up on his good arm, using the other to stroke, knead, and squeeze. He gave so much of himself. Even now injured, he gifted her with all his attention, all his focus when she wouldn’t have complained if he’d simply lain back and taken.
Reaching down, she wrapped her hand around his cock and did her own stroking, delighted by his low, torturous groan. His heat and hardness, the rumble in his throat and chest heightened her own pleasure. Giving, receiving. They were so well matched. She loved him for it, for the way he allowed her to be in control and set the tempo. And then ensured that he followed her lead, that she was never left wanting.
Lowering his head, he circled his tongue around her nipple. When she moaned, “More,” he closed his mouth over the pearled peak. Heat consumed her as he suckled and soothed.
Cradling his jaw, she brought his mouth back to hers, pouring all that she was into the kiss, afraid it might be the last, concerned she might not realize the last kiss was the last kiss until it was too late.
Gently, she nudged him onto his back and trailed her mouth along his throat, down his chest, and across to his nipple where she returned the favor of licking it over and over before closing her mouth around it and giving it a little nibble.
With a low growl, he plowed a hand into her hair and tilted her head back until he captured her gaze. “I’m near to bursting, Esme. Ride me, sweetheart, ride me hard and fast.”
Lifting herself, she straddled his hips and positioned him at her entrance. This, she was fairly certain, would be the last time and she wanted to remember every second of it. Slowly, so slowly, inch by glorious inch, she lowered herself until he filled her to the hilt.
For a heartbeat, two, she remained still, relishing their joining, recalling how she’d once believed they didn’t fit, but now it seemed perfection. Then she began to move, meeting his thrusts with an increasing urgency as the pleasure built. She watched all he was experiencing cross over his features like the pages in a book, a story told if one took the time to relish all that was revealed.
“Don’t close your eyes,” she ordered.
The fire in his eyes set her ablaze, igniting her nerve endings, her skin, her very bones, untilstars burst through her. His cries mingled with hers, their names intertwining like some ancient Celtic knot.
Mindful of his wound, she eased down until she was nestled along his uninjured side, his arm holding her against him.
“It’s damned good to be alive,” he said between harsh breaths.
