Page 49

Chapter Thirty-Two

H er arms snaked up and around his neck, and her lips clung to his.

He wanted more, needed more, desperately so, as if his life depended on it.

“You feel so good,” he whispered against her lips. “I need to touch you. Need your skin against mine,” he murmured as he fisted her nightdress into one hand and dragged it up over her hips. Fisted again and brought it to her waist.

When her fingers slid from his hair, and her arms came between them, he wondered briefly if she meant to push him away. Instead she arched up, grasped the fabric of her sheer gown, and pulled it over her head.

Now he wished he’d left the lamp burning.

“You’ll make sure we won’t get pregnant?” she whispered, raining kisses across his throat, the underside of his jaw. Her fingers kneaded the muscles of his chest, every so often stabbing him with the edges of her nails.

“Zeke?” she prodded.

He had to search his mind to recall her question. “If that’s what you want, sweetheart.”

Waves of heady desire rolled over him as she shimmied and shifted beneath him, her silken flesh gliding beneath his hardness till she had them hip-to-hip.

“Oh, God, Kitty, don’t move like that,” he ground out between clenched teeth.

She stopped moving—her body. Her fingers tickled the hair at his nape. He felt her touch all the way to the tip of his cock, which was presently cocooned between the twin pillows of her thighs and pointing straight at their apex.

“You don’t like the way I’m doing it?” She sounded truly uncertain.

Before he could reply, she inched her legs apart and the head of his cock dove for heaven.

His breath hissed from his lungs. In the nick of time he rolled off her uttering a rapid-fire, “Oh-ho, God, Kitty.” He jammed a hand into his hair and gulped air. “You feel too good. You make me lose control.”

“Then I suppose you’ll really despise this.” He heard the sly lilt to her voice a moment before she rose onto her knees, twisting to plant her hands on either side of his face.

For a moment, he simply stared up at her, his gaze tracing the elegant arch of her neck. He reached up, twining his fingers in her ebony waves, falling in tangled curls all around him. He tugged, intending to pull her in for a kiss.

She lifted one knee, and straddled him.

Zeke hinged up at the waist, taking her face in his hands to kiss her like she held the key to his very existence. Sweat lined his brow, and trickled down the center of his back, as his body shivered with need.

Never breaking their kiss, Kitty wriggled her hips, sliding upward 'til her heat nudged the base of his erection. When it seemed she wasn’t going to stop there, Zeke reached a hand between them, easing his fingers down the center of her belly to her curls.

Gently he parted her, working his fingers into her damp heat.

With their lips locked, she gasped in pleasure, stealing the breath from his lungs.

She lifted her hips a fraction, granting him greater access, and whimpering with need. Soon she was shuddering against his hand, against his hips, the hot entrance to her core teasing his rigid erection with enough regularity he nearly lost it again.

All at once she reached between them, her cool fingers closing around his thrumming flesh, and he lost the ability to breathe. She nestled him into her heat and pressed her hips downward, impaling herself inch by precious inch.

She was so tight. So wet. So hot. Pulling him in. He lay back, unable to do anything other than drown in the cresting waves of pleasure.

She rode him, slowly, resisting his every effort to take control. He’d never been more desperate for a woman, or more captured.

He gasped in a breath when his head started to spin—lack of oxygen? He couldn’t speak. Could only marvel at the intensity of wanting like he’d never known.

His turn. He grasped her hips in his hands, flipping her beneath him in one move. He had to show her. She was his and only his.

Using more restraint than he knew he had, he drove into her, again and again. Slow, deep thrusts, while she clung to him, wrapping arms and legs around him as if she couldn’t get close enough.

“Zeke, Zeke, oh, please.” She urged him faster, deeper.

Need twisted him inside out. But he held the reins tight, and drove her relentlessly toward her ultimate release.

Beneath him she arched and shuddered, crying out in nonsensical gibberish while she raked her nails into the sweat soaked skin of his back, until, crying his name, she came apart.

He drew out her pleasure, giving her all he had, pushing the limits of his own control 'til he had no choice but to rip himself out of her, erupting his own hot seed in the cold night air.

Afterward, he collapsed beside her and hauled her close, both of them breathing hard, their arms and legs entangled. Everything about them entangled. Jesus, didn’t she see?

“I love you, Zeke,” she whispered.

If he had the energy to speak, he’d tell her she owned him, body and soul. Eyes closed, his lips curved in a smile of total and complete contentment. With Kitty in his arms, he let himself sink blissfully into the sleep of the dead—and met the old baron once more.

Regal in his gray uniform, he stood, arms crossed, eyeing him askance.

“I did everything I could to protect her,” Zeke argued. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

The baron shook his head and dread filled him.

Looking around he saw he was no longer at the inn. He was in a shipyard. Cargo ships and sailing vessels jammed the slips. He glanced into the water at the quay and saw his own reflection. He’d grown old and haggard. A man utterly and completely alone.

He straightened. Spun in a circle looking for the baron. He was gone.

“Tell me what to do,” Zeke shouted.

No answer came.

An emptiness he’d never known had his knees buckling, bringing him face to face with his reflection again. Tell me what to do , he repeated silently.

Like a whisper through his soul, he heard an answer.

“Open your eyes.”

He was suddenly and completely awake, Kitty’s supple, warm body in his arms contrasting sharply with the cold dread churning in his gut. Reflexively his arms tightened—and Kitty murmured sweet, unintelligible nonsense in response.

He released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Just a dream. Just an annoying, meaningless dream.

His manhood, it seemed, had awoken before him and now urged him to wake her, to prove to himself how not alone he was. But the church bells tolling in the distance told him to move.

He uncoiled his body from hers. The emptiness from his dream returned with a vengeance. Get your head straight, man . Think about what needs doing.

First, he’d see to his horse. Next he’d have a word with the innkeeper, assuring the man kept his mouth shut about Zeke’s late night arrival. Then he had the long ride to the post where he’d stipulated Caden send his important telegram.

He still had to work out whether to return here or head on to Maidstone. He'd have to rely on instinct there, since he didn’t know what Hastings was up to. If only he didn't have to leave.

He turned his head to gaze at Kitty, still sound asleep. He didn’t want to go.

He traced his fingertips down the length of her hair, then slipped his hand beneath the covers to roam the curve of her hip, skim the softness of her belly. Her skin was like the smoothest silk, and warm like sunshine. He inched closer, helpless to resist cocooning her body with his once more.

She felt exactly right. It almost hurt.

She’d changed him. Somehow sneaked under his skin and taken up residence. If he lost her now, it would be like losing a part of himself. The truth slammed him like a punch to the gut. She’d made him need her.

Visions of his father swam before his eyes.

Broken. Weak. All because of a woman. Zeke had sworn he’d never make such an idiot of himself.

Except now that he had, he had an inkling of how his father might have felt.

For the first time since his father’s decline into depravity, Zeke felt a modicum of charity for the man.

Oh, he wasn’t excusing the selfish, destructive tendencies of the man which had festered beneath the surface long before he lost Zeke’s mother, and which eventually killed him. He simply understood for the first time in his life what it was to value someone as much as—no, more than himself.

He clenched his jaw, tamping down the unexpected well-spring of emotion that had the backs of his eyes stinging, for Christ’s sake.

Get a hold of yourself, man. Focus.

He dragged himself to his feet. Minutes later, the sun barely reaching the horizon, he stooped beside the bed. “Kitty, I’m leaving.”

She opened heavy-lidded eyes. “Oh, hello.”

His gut flipped like someone had spun him around several times, blindfolded. He smoothed her hair from her face with trembling fingers. “I’ll see you later tonight. Wherever you are, I’ll find you.”

“I know,” she said, her green cat’s eyes glowing—with love, for him. How had he earned such a rare and precious gift?

His throat tightened. “Try not to get into any trouble while I’m gone, hmm?”

***

Kitty awoke and sat bolt upright, a monumental epiphany clamoring to the forefront of her mind. Zeke cared for her.

He hadn’t spoken the words. Yet, she saw it in his smoky blue eyes when he looked at her.

She heard it in the way he spoke to her with that maddening combination of exasperation and teasing.

When they were together, everything in him focused entirely on her—what she said, what she did, her life experiences. All of it mattered to him.

She touched her fingertips to her lips, and closed her eyes.

It was also there in his kisses, be they tender or devouring. In the reverent way he touched her, and the passionate, mind-emptying way he made love to her.

Last night, she had been desperate for him, completely unable to get close enough to him. She’d have crawled inside him, if she could. But then, Zeke seemed every bit as consumed with her.