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“Don’t crow. I’ve tainted you and now you, too, are damned.”
She lifted her dark hair with both hands and let it fall sensuously about her shoulders. “I consider the world well lost.”
“I wonder,” he said seriously. “I wonder if you will always feel so?”
Antonia shivered as if a shadowy finger had reached out to touch her. She shook off the dark feeling. She refused to even think about tomorrow while they still had today … and tonight.
They went for rides in the pony cart, they visited the surrounding market towns, and one day he took her to the horse fair in Tallow and bought her a lovely white mare with a silken mane and tail.
“I’ll take her back to Edenwood for you,” he said absently.
“Edenwood.” She whispered the name lovingly, wistfully. Obviously he expected her to come to Edenwood often enough to ride, but he hadn’t invited her to live there. He hadn’t asked her to marry him. She pushed the thought away. She would not spoil their time here together by wishing for things. In Venice she had found romance, but in Ireland she had found love. She was mad in love with him.
He watched her quizzically. “Edenwood! So that’s it. I wondered why a beautiful young titled lady would give her favors to an ugly brute like me, but Edenwood is the attraction.”
She protested loudly. “That is untrue! It’s not only Edenwood, it’s all your chests of gold, your East India-men,andBlackwater Castle that attract me.”
“Little bitch,” he swore. But he was glad she cared passionately for Edenwood, for it was his lifetime dream come true. He knew exactly how it felt to be possessive over property. He hadn’t been able to sell Leopard’s Leap because of all the toil and sweat that had gone into the plantation. Once a thing became a part of a person, he couldn’t lose it without paying a tremendous price. He could survive, but he couldn’t happily thrive, and life was for thriving, not just surviving.
Savage knew that Antonia was becoming a part of him. She was unique. He knew he had never been in love before, never even wanted to be in love. He cursed. Why the hell did it have to be so complicated? Why did she have to be Eve’s daughter? He shrugged. The heart wanted what the heart wanted. There was naught he could do about it!
Every time he thought of Bernard Lamb his gut knotted. She had been in mortal danger for months and he’d scoffed with contempt each time she’d tried to tell him. He blanched as he recalled showing her how to deal with an enemy. He had grabbed her coat lapels, pressed a swordstick to her gullet, and growled, “I’ll slit you from neck to nuts!” And plucky wench that she was, she had defended herself amazingly well, especially in the haunts she had frequented. He felt a chill run up the back of his neck and vowed she’d never have the need to protect herself again. Bernard the Bastard would be his first priority when he returned to London, and return he must.
They were up on the battlements of Blackwater watching the sunset. The sky turned from violet to vermilion, then became flame riven with red and gold.
Adam drew Antonia against his side, and her head fell back against his shoulder. “Blackwater is displaying its beauty to us because it’s our last night here.”
“We’re leaving tomorrow?” she asked wistfully.
“I’m leaving tomorrow. I have urgent business I’ve neglected for a week. I want you to stay on a couple of days.” He turned her to face him and his finger traced the mauve shadows beneath her eyes. “Get some rest. Mr. Burke will bring you back safely. I’ll take your milk-white steed to Edenwood.”
“Mr. Burke knows we are lovers; we haven’t fooled him for a moment.”
“The whole bloody castle knows, we’ve been so besotted.” Though Mr. Burke had never said a word, Savage knew he disapproved of his scandalous deflowering of Antonia. Burke also expected him to do the honorable thing. And so he would. But unfortunately the honorable thing was not marrying the daughter before he had honorably broken off with the mother.
Even in sleep Adam sensed they were no longer joined in body or spirit. He opened his eyes to darkness. He did not need to grope in the bed to know she was gone. As his eyes became accustomed to the predawn shadows he saw her by the window.
His lithe body slipped from the bed soundlessly, then his arms captured her and he turned her face up to his with a puzzled frown. There was enough light for him to see the silver tears that lay upon her cheeks. He brushed them away with his lips. “Tony, don’t shed one tear over me, sweetheart, I’m not worth it.”
She swallowed hard. He would be gone in an hour, perhaps two, and he had said no word of love. She could have borne the fact that he had not proposed marriage. A man like Savage could not be bludgeoned, shackled, and forced to play the role of dutiful husband. But love. She needed his love to go on breathing. When she loved him so deeply, so shamelessly, so inordinately, how could henotlove?
He pressed her to the length of him and his hot sex felt like a candle flame being held to her belly and thighs. She pulled away, burned.
“Yield to me,” he demanded.
She searched his face. She did not see love written there, she saw hunger. “I have yielded … everything.”
He swooped his arm beneath her knees and lifted her against his heart. “Let me show you that you have not.”
The kissing was fierce, passionate, savage. They did not release each other’s mouths until they were swollen and throbbing and her lips were too tender to bear the brush of his lips in one more kiss.
That’s when his mouth moved to her throat to ravish and worship its curve. This was only a prelude to how his mouth first plundered, then ravished, her breasts. His hot breath stirred her nipples, which had ruched at his first lick. His husky whispers showed her just how sensitive he had rendered them. “Tell me youwantthis. Tell me youlovethis!”
“I do want it, I do love it,” she cried.
He moved down her belly. His mouth, his tongue, and his teeth made her throb with a hundred pulse points she hadn’t known she had. “Tell me youwantthis, tell me youlovethis,” he demanded again.
She cried out in a fever of need as her thighs fell apart and she arched up to him shamelessly. “You know what Iwant,you know what Ilove.”
