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He wasn’t sure what he wanted. He couldn’t pull away. The gentle warmth of her lips drew him in, but he didn’t want to frighten her by going any further either.
This was his wife. The woman he got to spend the rest of his life with. They could wait for the right time to consummate their marriage, couldn’t they?
He tried to resist temptation, he really did. But his body responded with desperation that he had never felt before as he sipped and savoured at the honeyed warmth of her mouth. He groaned aloud when she shifted and melted against him until it was difficult to know where she ended and he began.
When he finally forced himself to lift his head, he found that he couldn’t tear himself away from the temptation completely. He rested his forehead against hers for several moments while he tried to get his mind to work well enough to think of something to say. Words failed him though. All he could do was draw her head back down onto his shoulder, and hold her in stunned silence.
Hetty was suddenly battered with a mixture of confusing emotions that left her with a frown on her face. Although she hardly knew him, it felt wonderfully familiar to lie against him. The kiss they had just shared was something she had never thought possible with another person before. It wasn’t like the kiss he had scalded her with outside the jail. This was something different; softer, gentler, yet far, far more intense. She wanted to touch her lips because they still tingled. She wanted him to do the same thing again, but then the intensity of the emotions that had already begun to unfurl deep within were worryingly strong.
The future suddenly loomed before her with more worries, doubts and insecurities than she had ever had before, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do now. She wanted to run away and hide. To pretend that nothing had happened, at the same time that she wanted to hold on to him forever.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Come on, let’s get some sleep. We need to rest while we can because we have a long day tomorrow,” he murmured softly.
In the last few moments, in spite of their situation, awareness was replaced with a comfortable silence.
Although she didn’t want to break it, she really needed some assurance that they weren’t going to spend tomorrow riding in endless circles while trying to outrun the hangman’s noose.
“What happened yesterday, by the way?” Charlie asked. He had to keep talking, if only to keep his mind off just how wonderful she felt in his arms.
It was so tempting to lean over her and take the lush curves of her lips, but he daren’t. Not again. He had already pushed things too far. If he did, circumstances would be changed irrevocably between them and it really was the wrong time and place. “I mean, how on earth did you evade Meldrew and his men, and half of Derby jail?”
“It was the most horrifying day of my life,” she declared quietly before she recounted everything she and Mabel had been forced to do to evade capture. “At the inn, we both waited for that inevitable knock on the door that would mean we had to be searched. Although we didn’t have anything incriminating on us, I just knew Meldrew, or any of his men for that matter, would recognise me by my hair.”
“I take it that they didn’t search you?”
Hetty shook her head. “I have no idea why. I don’t know if the jailers were just plain lazy or it had been searched before we got there. Neither of us wanted to ask the innkeeper to be honest with you. We didn’t want to raise anyone’s suspicions. In the end, we got as much rest as we could, did what we needed to, and waited until dawn.” She smiled up at him. “That’s when you turned up.”
She was incredibly relieved that he had, and dreaded to think about what she would have done if he hadn’t.
“It was pure look that I found you,” he sighed.
“You took an awful risk coming back for us.”
“I had to, Hetty. I couldn’t leave you to deal with that situation by yourself. It isn’t right. Not after what you did for me.”
Hetty smiled, but was glad that it was dark and he couldn’t see her disappointment on her face. She didn’t know what she had expected him to say; that he had come back for her because he couldn’t bear the thought of her being in Meldrew’s clutches, maybe? Or, that he had wanted her to be safe because he cared about what happened to her because she mattered to him?
Her heart ached with uncertainty. After all, her actions had been driven purely by the love she felt for him.
Feeling decidedly melancholic, she remained silent and tried to will sleep to come. Strangely, she was so focused on the emotions tumbling through her that she completely forgot about her empty stomach, the fact that she was frozen, and sit
ting in the middle of nowhere, beside her new husband.
“Hetty,” he whispered.
Their eyes met and held.
Bathed in the moonlight, his handsome features looked hauntingly mysterious. The sharp protrusion of his cheek bones and chiselled jaw were bathed in the silvery glow that seemed to emphasise the dark orbs of his eyes.
She sighed as she watched his head slowly lower toward hers. The gentle sweep of his lips was feather light. Once, twice, he swept backward and forward. Touching, teasing, all the time studying her for any sign of hesitation. When her lashes lowered, he groaned softly, and settled his lips over hers with determined possession that carried them both toward a tide of desire.
His arms swept around her. He pulled her so tightly against him that she could feel the heavy thud of his heartbeat beneath the fine material of his shirt. A blush stole over her cheeks as the lush mound of her breasts pushed tantalisingly against the broad expanse of his chest, but she didn’t draw away. A delicious sensation began to unfurl deep within her, urging her to move closer.
His arms instinctively tightened to hold her still, and his mouth began to devour hers.
At first, her hands rested on his biceps as she clung to him for support. Eventually, even that contact wasn’t enough. Her palms slid up the corded muscles of his arms, across his shoulders, and came to rest at the nape of his neck. Her fingers intertwined with the soft curls of his hair. She felt the shiver that swept through him, and tightened her hold as he deepened the kiss, and began to plunder.
