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Antonia floated back to him. He brushed his lips across the tendrils of hair at her temples before he allowed her to uncurl her body from his. Her face was alive with her newfound knowledge, her eyes sparkling like emeralds at having performed the long-forbidden act. Together they saw the blood smeared across her thigh. He reached out a strong hand to wipe the blood away before it upset her, but she quickly grabbed his fingers and brought them to her breast to smear the blood upon her naked flesh as if he had left his brand on her. A brand she was proud of.
Her gaze trailed down his body, and by the time it fell upon his phallus he was semihard again. She reached out a finger to the blood-covered head, then daubed his chest above the heart. “I dub thee noble Savage.”
He grabbed her then and they rolled about the bed laughing and nipping and biting each other in a rough play of love. She had almost as much energy as he. Almost. Before the night was spent they had exhausted each other, falling into the deep sleep that inevitably claims the totally sated.
Antonia awakened at dawn but kept her eyes closed in apprehension. My God, what had she done? Everything, she told herself as a blush covered her from her cheekbones to the tips of her breasts. When he looked at her with his ice-blue eyes she would die if she saw one flicker of contempt.
Adam’s acknowledgment began with a caress. She opened her eyes and found him above her. His kiss remembered last night’s passion and spoke of tonight’s possibilities. She realized she needed this recognition that she not only lingered in his consciousness, but filled it! Thus began the epilogue that made the cycle of lovemaking complete.
When he had loved her he didn’t allow her to drift off to Paradise, but lifted her from the bed and carried her to her own tower room. “I want you in your own bed when Mrs. Kenny brings your bathwater. I don’t wish to scandalize the servants. I don’t think she’s quite sure yet if you are male or female.”
Her hands raked through his long black hair, pulling it fiercely. “You are, though,” she said with the confidence of a woman who was beginning to realize her power.
His mouth captured hers and she went weak, as he left her in no doubt who was the master.
Adam was surprised when Antonia joined him for breakfast. She was wearing a morning gown embroidered with forget-me-nots. Her wild black curls had been tamed with a simple blue ribbon. Though the table separated them, they made love with their eyes. It was difficult to believe the innocent beauty across from him was familiar with cardsharping and the inside of a brothel. Tony was game for any madcap suggestion, and he realized this was a big part of her attraction.
Suddenly he was smiling at her, and her heart turned over in her breast. It was rare that Adam Savage’s face lost its dark, forbidding look. It was infectious and Antonia, too, began to smile. Next thing they were laughing together, recalling every outrageous thing she’d done while masquerading as her twin.
They explored the castle together, then, handfast, they sought out the secret staircase in the towered gatehouse that led to the garden. The flowers were releasing their seed-power, turning the air they breathed to perfumed mist. They wandered through the orchards, where the fruit trees were just budding into blossom and the bumblebees were coated with pollen.
Tony leaned against his shoulder and his arm stole about her. “Let’s pledge to return in autumn so we can pluck the fruit.”
He hugged her to him. He had already plucked the fruit. At midday they eagerly accepted Mr. Burke’s suggestion of a picnic lunch and took it up on the cliff where they could enjoy the view. They saw more rainbows in one day than they would have seen in a year in London.
In the early afternoon they made their way down to the river, where a wooden punt was anchored beneath the trees. Adam picked up a fishing rod. “Let’s try our hand at catching salmon.”
“To hell with fishing!” she said, sitting on a rock to remove her shoes and stockings. “I don’t have to do those damned male things anymore!”
“I’ll fish, you can simply look beautiful.” He stretched out, his back against the bole of a tree, his eyes narrowed against the dazzle of the sun on the water’s surface. It was a warm, lazy afternoon. The drone of the insects added to the drowsy atmosphere.
Antonia pulled up her skirts so she could dabble her toes in the water, then she hiked them further as she let the water cover her ankles.
“If you expose any more of your tempting long legs, you’ll find yourself on your back in the grass,” Adam teased.
“Are you fishing or leering?”
“Both,” he said, grinning.
“You told me to look beautiful,” she said, removing her feet from the water, but still holding her skirts high.
“Come here.”
It was a command she had no wish to disobey. His hand caressed her slim calf, then moved up her thigh. “You hussy, you aren’t wearing any drawers.”
“I knew it wouldn’t take you long to discover my secret,” she teased.
He pulled her down into his lap, the fishing forgotten, as his hand slipped up her skirt to explore her silken curves and hot moist crevices. She was close enough to see the heavy pulsebeat in his throat and she put her lips against it as his fingers toyed and teased among the curls.
He stripped quickly, but the arousing that followed was long and slow and deliberately drawn out, tantalizing her almost beyond endurance. For almost an hour he held himself back from driving into her; his desire for her was too strong to let him take her before she was fully ready for his explosion of passion.
She lay in the long grass in a wanton sprawl as waves of pleasure built and receded over and over. What he was doing to her made him so hot and hungry, he was ready to devour her before his entrance. Again their lovemaking was almost violent in its intensity. A leopard in the grass with his mate. Yet afterward he was so tender with her, it made her throat ache with unshed tears. He was endlessly capable of gentleness both before and after, but not during, and Antonia didn’t want him any other way.
Chapter 36
They spent every moment of each day together. They went for endless walks and rambles through the deep valleys and high hills. Adam had boundless, inexhaustible energy, so when Antonia’s flagged he carried her on his shoulders, teasing, “I don’t do this for you, I do it for myself. When you pull up your skirt and dangle those legs over my shoulders, I think I’ve died and gone to Heaven.”
“You Devil, you’ll never even get close to Heaven.”
