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Chapter Thirty-Two

Moving forward…

M arina watched from beneath lowered lashes. Caleb had removed his soiled coat and shirt and was even now sluicing water over his skin as he stood at the wash basin in his chamber. With the blood and dirt washed away, the bruise on his forehead was still nasty but not nearly so severe as she might have imagined. In truth, she was finding it very difficult to concentrate on his injury at all. She was far too distracted by the breadth of his shoulders, by the smooth, bronze skin stretched taut over firm muscles. The crisp, dark hair curling over his chest intrigued her beyond reason and she had to wonder at its texture, what it would feel like beneath her fingers.

Recalling what it had felt like to be held against the firm wall of his chest, she felt her heart racing and her blood heating in her veins. Then she glanced up and in the mirror above his washstand, their gazes locked. Embarrassed, Marina looked away quickly.

“I want to kiss you again,” he said. “And I want to touch you… but only if that is what you want. I can be as patient as you require.”

Perhaps that was the problem, she thought. His patience wasn’t what she needed, but rather his impatience. She needed some proof that he truly wanted her. “In all the time Stanford and I were betrothed, he never kissed me. I told you that. He never touched me with any sort of desire. I don’t think, Caleb, that your patience will not offer me the sort of reassurance you are imagining… I’m less frightened of physical intimacy than I am of being married to a man who doesn’t truly desire me.”

“Is that what you think? That my reluctance represents a lack of desire?”

Marina nodded. “Perhaps think is too strong a word. Worry might be a better term. It’s always in the back of my mind.”

“Then let me thoroughly disabuse you of that notion.”

There was no warning. He closed the distance between them so quickly his intent had barely registered before Marina found herself swept up in his embrace, his arms locked tightly about her and his lips moving seductively against her own. It was no different than any other kiss they had shared. The same languid heat stole through her, her mind went numb to everything but the sensations he stirred within her. And yet, despite those similarities there was one great difference. In this instance, the kiss was only the beginning.

Her hands lifted of their own volition, sliding over the smooth skin of his shoulders, and along the ridged muscles that flanked his spine. Everything about his form was so enticingly different from her own. Hard where she was soft, lean and firm where her own flesh was yielding. It stoked far more than just her curiosity.

Beneath his skilled and questing hands, her jacket dropped to the floor, followed by the boy’s shirt she wore. The kiss broke long enough for him to tug the garment over her head and toss it aside, but that was the only quarter he offered her. His lips claimed hers again even as he walked her backward toward his waiting bed. When the backs of her knees bumped the edge of it, she sank down automatically. Then he was lifting her feet, tugging her boots off and discarding them carelessly to the floor.

She should have felt foolish, sitting there in her corset and a pair of borrowed trousers. But his gaze was locked on her, the heat of it unmistakable. She felt the weight of it like an actual caress. Then he stepped closer to her, his hands reaching for the buttons at her waist. Soon, her trousers had joined the rest of her clothing in a heap on the floor.

When he joined her on the bed, Marina couldn’t stop the shudder that raced through her. It wasn’t fear but anticipation.

“If you are uncertain—”

“I’m not,” she said instantly. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more certain of anything.”

*

Caleb stared down at her. Not for the first time, he was awed by her beauty. But it was so much more than simply the symmetry of her features or that they met some sort of ideal that had been crafted by society as to what a beauty was. It was her spirit. It was the vitality in her and the courage. It was all the things about her that so many people deemed inconvenient or bothersome. Her face and form had drawn his interest, but the rest of her had captured it, making it impossible for him to look away. And yet she doubted her desirability, she doubted her worth at every turn. Stanford Williams hadn’t created those doubts, but he’d cemented them firmly for her.

Reaching for her, Caleb tugged the pins from her hair, freeing the mass of dark tresses from its tight coronet. It spilled about her shoulders and across the pillow in a riot of curls that beckoned his touch. But he didn’t have to resist temptation.

Delving his fingers into the silken strands, he dipped his head and kissed her again. But this was not like the relatively innocent kisses they’d shared previously. It was not about a slow seduction. It was a claiming—demanding, possessive, blatantly carnal. With that kiss, he demonstrated precisely how much he wanted her, and she simply gave herself up to it. Warm and pliant in his arms, she was also sweetly responsive and when he tugged the laces of her corset free, she offered no protest, but lifted herself slightly off the mattress to help him remove it.

His gaze raked over her, taking in every detail—every lush curve, every dimple and freckle on her satiny skin. “I’m not the sort of a man who can give you poems or lavish compliments… but I can tell you with complete certainty that I have never seen a woman more beautiful than you are, Marina. I have never known this kind of desire… this craving that I have for you.”

“Then show me,” she urged him.

Helpless to do anything else, Caleb kissed her again. But he was not content to simply taste her lips. Instead, he explored every inch of her as it was bared to him. With his hands, his lips, his tongue—he lavished attention on her, paying note to where she was most sensitive. And when he reached the tapes of her pantalettes, it was she who loosened them and tossed the garment aside, leaving her fully nude in his bed.

One day, he would be able to simply savor, to sit back and appreciate the sheer perfection of her at length. But this was not that day. Sliding one hand between her parted thighs, he touched her intimately, finding her flesh already slick with need. Her gasp of shock transformed into one of pleasure as he stroked the sensitive bud nestled between those delicate folds.

“Caleb!” she whispered brokenly as her body strained beneath his touch.

Claiming her mouth once more, he kissed her deeply, his tongue sweeping languidly against hers in a blatantly carnal dance that mimicked all the things he wanted to do with her. And when she came to a shuddering release, her body taut and quivering beneath him, he gloried in that moment. But not for long. Because his own need was too great.

Easing himself between her parted thighs, he opened his trousers, freeing his rigid flesh with a rush of relief. Then her hands were sliding around his waist, over his hips. Out of desperation, he caught them. “Not yet. If you touch me… I haven’t the strength to resist right now, Marina. I’d prefer this not end before it can actually begin.”

“I don’t understand.”

He smiled at her. “You will.”

Hooking one hand behind her knee, he hitched her legs a bit higher on his hips. “I wish I could promise you that this would be perfect, but I can’t.”

“It’s already been perfect,” she whispered. “More than I could have dreamed.”

“I hope you still feel that way.”

Parting the tender folds, he began easing himself inside her. It was a kind of bliss he’d never known. The pleasure of it was unbearably intense and yet it offered no relief. Instead, it only spiked his need to greater heights.

Every muscle clenched tight as he fought for restraint, for some degree of control over his own desires, and it was all for naught. Marina’s hands, pressed flat against his back, slid down to his hips urging him on. Unable to resist that silent invitation, he surged forward, her flesh yielding to his. And then they were both lost, clinging to one another as they climbed together toward release. When they tumbled over the edge, they held onto one another still.