Page 49 of Along Came a Rogue

But she felt the quilts lift and the mattress give beneath the weight of his tall body sliding into bed behind hers.

“Emily,” Grey murmured. He lay close enough that his body warmed her back but not yet daring to touch her. “What I said earlier…I regret it. I never meant to hurt you.”

A hot tear escaped her closed eyes and sank down onto the pillow. Anguish tore inside her too fiercely for her to turn toward him, or even say anything at all.

“I keep expecting you to be like those other ladies I know, women who care only about appearances and their own selfish desires.” His warm breath tickled at her neck. “But you’re nothing like them. I am so sorry, brat.”

She inhaled a tremulous gasp, her lungs burning. He was apologizing, and she suspected he rarely apologized for anything. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes or face him. The pain of betrayal inside her chest was still too fierce, still cutting as sharp as shards of glass.

“Grey,” she whispered painfully, so softly the words barely sounded at all, “that woman…”

“She’s a war widow with a young son at home.”

“She offered herself to you,” she forced out, trying to keep from crying loudly enough that he might hear even as the tears continued to wet the pillow beneath her. “I saw her…and you.”

“She did offer.” He placed his palm against her back, and she shivered beneath his touch. “I did not accept.”

Her sobs caught in her throat. “But you gave her money.”

“For her son.” His hand caressed her back in slow, tender circles. “Nothing more.”

For her son. She was too overcome with heartbreak and its sudden reversal to speak and instead buried her face in the pillow.

But the pain still pulsed dully though her body. She suspected that the heartache she felt tonight would be nothing compared to what she’d feel tomorrow when they finally reached London and had to part, her to her family and him to Spain. She should push him away now; she should ask him to leave, save what little piece of her heart she still possessed, and cry out her pain in private. It was the right thing for both of them, she knew it.

But she couldn’t bring herself to send him away.

His slow, steady caresses soothed away her jealousy and the last of her hot tears. “You are so sweet and kind, so lovely…” His voice ached. “I can’t give you what you deserve, Emily, I know that.”

The warmth of his caressing hand seeped through the thin cotton of the night rail and deep into her back, radiating through her until her breasts grew heavy and her thighs ached. Beneath his gentle caresses, her breathing turned labored with quick arousal. God help her—even with her heart breaking, she desired him.

“Yet I still want you.” His hand brushed lovingly along the curve of her hip, and whatever fleeting thoughts she had of refusing him melted away. “And I don’t want to be without you tonight.” He admitted tentatively, his voice rasping as if it cost him a great deal to divulge his feelings, “I need you, brat.”

Her heart ached. Grey needed her, but he had no idea how much she needed him. How much she needed him enveloping her and giving her his strength, his body making her whole.

“Nathaniel,” she whispered in both forgiveness and soft permission, unable to say anything more.

With a deep sigh of relief, he tenderly kissed the back of her neck. His hands slipped lower to caress her legs, then brushed slowly up her body and pushed her night rail along as he went, bunching it at her shoulders. He traced soft circles against the backs of her thighs, and when his hand dipped into the hollow where her legs met, to stroke against her folds from behind, a low moan of desire replaced her sobs.

“Sweet Emily,” he whispered. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

His hands traveled on, moving slowly up over her bottom as he took his time to stroke his rough palms over her round curves, to cup her fullness and squeeze gently with each circling sweep of his fingers. The now-familiar ache began to throb low and hot inside her, pulsing in time with each squeeze of his hands on her buttocks, with each shared heartbeat.

He shifted her back against him until her bottom nestled perfectly into the cradle of his hips. She shivered from the heated arousal that instantly coursed through her, and her breathing became soft, little pants. She wanted him, and she wanted most of all to show him with her body how much she loved him.

Softly sighing out her need, she arched her back against his chest, then reached up to wrap her arm around his neck.

“You feel so good in my arms,” he murmured as his hand fluttered across her bared breasts in so light, so tender a caress that she shuddered from the intensity of it. “Unbelievably warm and soft. As if you were made to be here.”

Unable to remain still beneath his bewitching words, she pressed her bottom invitingly into his hips and wantonly wiggled against his erection. He groaned, and his hand left her breasts to stray down her front, over the small bump at her lower belly to sift his fingertips through the curls nestled between her legs.

Everything about him tonight was so tantalizingly tender, so enticingly gentle as his hands worshipped her that she felt herself begin to unravel. She whispered his name as her body hummed electric with need to be touched and filled, to be brought to completion. Tonight, she belonged to him and he to her, and she knew as his mouth rained moist kisses down the side of her neck to her shoulder that this wasn’t about physical release—tonight, they were making love.

“Please,” she breathed, barely able to form the words beneath the intensity of the sensations that swirled through her and captured her as their willing prisoner. “Please, Grey, make love to me…” Her voice choked with emotion. “Love me.”

Whispering her name, he gently lifted her top leg to hook it over both of his and drew her over him at an angle until she was almost lying on top of him, with only her bottom hip still resting against the mattress for support. Draped decadently across him, her naked body lay wantonly displayed to his seeking hands. She ached to please him and parted her thighs wider in invitation. Tonight, she was all his to touch and caress however he desired. Without a trace of shame.

He placed his erection between her legs from behind. Her hips angled upward as his long shaft pressed flat against her folds and caressed against her as he slowly rubbed it back and forth across her. With each stroke forward, his hot tip sent a jolt of electricity through her, and with each retreat, the creamy drops of her wetness smeared against his length and made him slippery, letting him slide smoothly against her intimate flesh in a wonderfully erotic tickle.