AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A beefy, bearded man stood up from his crate. Wiped his hands down his trousers. Spat into the mud.
“Why the crowd?” Cam asked, his tone clipped and short. Even soaked and filthy, he carried an aura of command. An authority that made people snap to attention. Morgan would give him that, if nothing else.
The stable hand seemed to straighten, eye them in a new respectful light. He pulled his cap off his head. “A boxing match, sir. This afternoon. The place is packed with visitors from as far away as Bournemouth.”
“Any rooms?”
“If ye’re not too picky, there may be a place in the attics. But it’ll be dark”—he cast a doubtful look in her direction—“and musty. Not fit for the lady.”
Morgan dismounted. Tossed her reins to the man. “This lady’s slept in worse.”
Cam cringed, but followed suit, tipping the man as he led both horses away.
Anger burned through her exhaustion at Cam’s involuntary shudder. As if he were ashamed of her. Well, to hell with him. She was who she was. She’d tried pretending at being Miss Femininity and been kicked in the teeth for her trouble.
The inn was as packed as the stable hand had warned. Cam pushed his way through toward the bar, the crowds parting as much for the scarlet jacket as the tall, elegant gentleman wearing it. Waterloo had made heroes out of anyone in military braid.
Morgan shed her cloak, smoothed her hands down her damp, clinging skirts. Wished for the millionth time since leaving London for the comfort and ease of her leather breeches. She’d settled on a simple riding habit for travel. Disguising her breeches beneath the fith-fath’s mirage would have taken considerable concentration. Easier to conform, if less convenient.
The publican stood in the bar, busy filling glasses for the rushing barmaids.
“My wife and I are looking for a room,” Cam said.
The man gave a sheepish look. “This prize fight has filled me from rafters to cellar. I’ve just one left. More a box room than a proper chamber. It’s under the eaves. Awful small. And only one narrow bed.”
He wiped his hands as he showed them the way, each flight of steps narrower, each corridor dimmer as they climbed. Finally they came to the room, a tiny space beneath the roof, as spartan as the innkeeper had described.
Morgan threw her satchel on the bed. Tried not to dwell on how small it was. How there was no possible way she’d be able to lie there without being uncomfortably close to Cam.
She glanced up. Caught the look on his face telling her he was thinking the exact same thing.
She sighed. It was going to be a very long night.
Morgan went to bed early, hoping to be asleep before Cam joined her. Laughter floated up from the hubbub downstairs. Men’s voices raised in loud talk and celebration. Bets won and lost. And occasionally a snatch of song.
She flung herself from one side to the other, trying to focus on the pound of rain overhead. The rattle of gutters. The rumble of distant thunder. But her mind kept skipping back to nights not so long ago when she’d gone to her room in inns similar to this one, Cam’s hand pressed to the small of her back, his voice low and seductive in her ear.
The risk of discovery and subsequent disgrace had worked on her like an aphrodisiac, making everything about their relationship brighter, sweeter, more intense. The knowledge that under Cam’s oh so proper uniform was a body molded by training and hardened by war had created a shivering heat that started low in her belly until she ached to peel off the layers of his respectability, each discarded piece of clothing firing her with anticipation. The jacket. The shirt. Running her hands over the gilded expanse of his chest, across the washboard muscles of his abdomen, and down to trace the line of golden hair from his belly button into his breeches only made the heat spread faster.
Time stretched as together they undressed. In her case, swift and urgent. In his, slow enough to draw out the exquisite torture until she thought she might explode with wanting him.
Naked, they fell laughing to the bed, a tangle of arms and legs. He came over her, curved his hands around her breasts as he bent to suckle them. She arched her back, begging him to take more of her into his mouth. His tongue laving her nipples until they were hard as pebbles.
She combed her fingers through his hair, caressed the stubble of his cheek. Smelled the crisp sweat and soap smell that was uniquely Cam. His hands explored her as his mouth devoured. She drowned in his kisses while his touch set her on fire.
Even now, she tingled, rubbing her hands over herself in memory of a yearning that never fully left her. Her breasts throbbed with a pleasure she’d become used to and now missed. She closed her eyes, trying to recapture that wild, frenzied lust that tore into her like a dagger’s plunge. Passed through her, leaving only a shadow of joy behind.
If she concentrated, she felt again the close of her muscles around him when he’d slid into her. The slow, steady need building in her center as she rocked up to meet his every thrust. He watched her. With eyes as cool and blue as an eagle’s. And in that focused stare burned desire and passion and beauty—her beauty. Because that’s how he’d seen her. And how she saw herself when she lost herself in his gaze.
All sensation rushed to the core of her being. She was light and fire and yearning. The edge loomed close. One rock of his hips would send her spinning over. She tried holding back. Wanted the exhilarating freedom to remain always, but he thrust harder, and she tumbled through. The world tilted, and she cried out.
He drove into her again and again, drawing out the ecstasy until he found his own release and the two lay sated and spent in each other’s arms.
Alone tonight, she pressed her hands to her breasts, rolling her nipples until they hardened. She choked on the lump in her throat. Tears stung the corners of her eyes as she dropped her hands lower. Skimmed her stomach, her hips. Lower still, her folds throbbing and wet with the memory of him.
Cam’s face swam before her. The soft, rolling Scottish burr of his words vibrated through her head. “M’eudail. My darling.”
And she’d believed him.
