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‘You will give me your word that you will both stay here tonight. In the morning we will discuss what is to be done. Yes? What is it? Don’t you knock on your guests’ doors?’ He turned on the unfortunate landlord who stood on the threshold, nightcap askew, a truncheon in one hand.
‘There is no door! You broke it open!’
‘I broke the lock and a chair. And I will pay for the damage,’ Lucian said coolly. ‘I want two decent bedchambers for myself and my valet.’
Sara stepped back into deeper shadow as Lucian advanced on the landlord, making him step back on to the landing. ‘Give me your word you will not run away again,’ she said to the young couple, low-voiced and urgent. ‘I promise you he will allow you to marry.’
‘My word on it,’ Gregory said, his voice shaking. Marguerite burst into tears and Sara, her head spinning with tiredness, looked round the door, saw the landlord in full retreat and joined Lucian. ‘They will stay there,’ she told him, closing the damaged door behind her as best she could.
‘That is the good news,’ Lucian said. ‘The bad news is that a severe storm two days ago took most of the tiles off the back of the roof. There are only two habitable bedchambers and that—’ he jerked a thumb to the room she had just left ‘—is one of them. I’ll sleep in the bar.’
As he spoke the landlord came up the stairs, dumped their luggage at the top with a glare and stomped back down again.
‘No, you will not.’ Sara scooped up her valise. ‘We will both sleep in the remaining bedchamber.’
‘Sara, we agreed about this.’
‘We agreed that you would not want your lover befriending your little sister. Well, your little sister is in there in bed with a man she is not married to and you need a good night’s sleep because you have a lot of thinking to do in the morning.’ She blinked at him, almost too weary to focus. ‘Please, Lucian. I will only lose sleep worrying about you otherwise.’
Lucian picked up the pistol and sword cases. ‘Anything to keep you from worrying.’ His smile was wry as he added, ‘I really do not think I am a threat to any woman’s virtue tonight.’ He led the way down the passage and pushed open a door. ‘This is the one, I think. Yes, it does appear to have a ceiling.’
Sara stumbled into the room. She was beyond tiredness, she realised hazily, and hardly aware of what he was saying. She tugged her turban loose with one hand and began to unbutton her coat with the other. On the far side of the bed Lucian was dragging off his clothes in just as random a manner. When she fell into bed dressed only in her shirt she was barely conscious of the covers being pulled over her shoulders or of Lucian’s breath warm on her ear as he murmured goodnight.
Chapter Eleven
Fingers drifted across his chest, encountered a nipple, sifted through hair, then drifted on, downwards. Lucian woke slowly, coming up through layers of sleep to the awareness of that erotic touch, to the realisation that this was not a dream, that this was not his bed, that his shoulders ached dully and that something was lurking that he did not want to deal with. But just now, at this moment, there was nothing but pleasure. Sara.
He opened his eyes, savouring the sensations, unwilling, yet, to hurry anything. The weak light filtering through thin cotton curtains at the window showed it was early, not much past five. He turned his head on the pillow, his cheek touching the rough silk tumble of Sara’s unbound hair and realised that she was still no more than half-awake.
The fan of her lashes fascinated him, thick and long and much darker than her hair. Her lips were slightly parted, her breathing light and fast, her cheeks faintly flushed. She was aroused, he realised, even though she was still virtually asleep.
Her wandering hand slipped down, making the skin tighten beneath its warmth, then the tip of one finger found his navel, dipped inside, and Lucian doubled up with a snort of laughter.
‘Mmm—?’ Sara blinked awake.
‘I am ticklish there.’ Lucian came up on one elbow so he could kiss her. ‘But do not let me stop you exploring,’ he murmured against her lips.
Sara kissed him back, slowly, languorously, as her hand bumped against the blatant evidence of his arousal and she enclosed him in a perfect grip, firm, unhurried, wickedly skil
led.
‘Sara, we had agreed not to do this,’ he said, coming fully awake with a jolt, reaching for self-control with an effort that hurt.
‘Why on earth did we do that?’ she asked, sounding as distracted as he felt.
‘Shocking Marguerite, as I recall. That seems a little redundant now.’
Sara nodded. ‘Absolutely.’ She gasped as he let his fingers roam.
He had forgotten, somehow, that she had been married, that she would know exactly what she was about—and that she knew what she needed also, he realised, as she arched up to meet his own seeking fingers.
Mouths joined in an endless kiss, they moved together, became one undulating, shifting, yearning body, stoking fires even as they soothed them, teasing and tormenting, then gentling, caressing. Sara was like liquid silk in his hands, against his body, demanding, yielding, giving, challenging him to demand more, give more.
When he finally rose up over her, caging her between his elbows, fitting himself into the cradle of her curves, she became still, gazing up into his eyes from the fathomless moonstone-grey of her own. ‘Lucian. Yes. Yes.’
It must have been some time for her, he made himself remember that, made himself go slowly and she let him lead, quivering in his arms with little moans of encouragement as she opened like a flower to take him, then held him within her, tight, hot, still. And she stayed motionless in his arms, as her inner muscles rippled and stroked with a subtle, devastating pulse that had him shaking with the effort to hold back his climax.
‘Wicked, clever woman,’ he whispered and finally let himself move, take over the rhythm, drive them both tighter and higher into a spiral of pleasure that became a sharply focused endless moment of sensation made up of the sound of their bodies working together, their mingled, sobbing breath, the scent of their arousal, until he knew he could not hold on much longer. ‘Come, come for me now…’
