Page 87 of The Pirate and the Pagan
His powerful hands grasped her about the waist and he drew her toward him, then crushed her softness against his hard length. Her head fell back and her mouth parted to receive his kiss. Passion rose like a flame between them. “Oh, my darling, stay with me tonight?” he begged. “Let’s never, ever have secrets between us again … promise me.”
Reality intruded itself upon her consciousness and she realized how wickedly promiscuous she had been with Rory. More than anything in the world, she wanted her husband’s love, and she knew how he had reacted when she confessed all to him before. She had learned her lesson. Never again would she confess anything to him. “I should go now, Ruark, Auntie Lil will be worried for me.”
In response, his mouth came down upon hers to ravish it. They were like two people starving with the need for each other. Her gown was drawn over her head and she heard its whisper as it was banished to the floor. He picked her up, held her against his heart, and carried her to his bed. She was stunned that his touch had set all her senses quivering with expectant eagerness.
Once he held her naked body, his mouth was relentless in its demands. Breathlessly between kisses she begged, “Ru, please undress, you have no idea how much pleasure I get from touching you.” The moment he unbuttoned his shirt her hands slid inside to trace the hard sinewy muscles which covered his rib cage. Then his hands were at the waistband of his breeches to slide them down and her eager mouth followed his hands, raining tiny kisses on his flat belly. He was groaning hoarsely from her play, and the moment he managed to rid himself of the tight breeches his shaft rose up to brush her cheek. Then she let herself go and unleashed all the pent-up longings she had in a sensual excess that carried them both to the brink of madness.
All her kisses were now reserved for the marblelike phallus with the velvet head which had unfailingly brought her rapture. Then her lips parted and slid over him to let him explore her soft mouth. The tip of her tongue encircled him beneath the ridge, then licked at the tiny opening at its very tip.
Ruark didn’t want his seed to start, though he knew she was too aroused to mind, so he quickly lifted her high to stand on the bed before him. Then his mouth received the sweet pleasure as her arms went about him and she pressed his head into her body to feast wherever he desired.
Finally neither could wait a second longer for their bodies to fuse. His hands were on her silken thighs, spreading them wide so that he could impale her savagely. She screamed with the sensitive pleasure his fullness created inside of her. Both of them prolonged the loving, endlessly building and receding until neither could bear it a moment longer. She writhed beneath him and begged, “Ru, now! Now! Now!”
They came together as they always did, but he refused to release her and withdraw and she thanked God for it. The amazing thing about her and Ruark making love with each other was that it was always better than the time before. Each successive mating reached a higher degree of passion with a more explosive and prolonged climax.
During the next few hours Ruark whispered such words of love, she felt her very bones would melt. The entire universe narrowed down to their bed. The world disappeared and nothing else mattered to them but their newfound intimacy. Ruark’s mouth became unbearably tender as he kissed her cheekbones, eyelids, throat, and lips. For once his mouth was so gentle she felt tears start in her eyes. Before dawn Summer experienced the total devastation of his possession and they fell asleep, curled together, limbs entwined, bound by love.
When they awoke, Ruark’s hot cheek was pressed to her breast. She stirred, luxuriating in his warmth, and immediately she was assailed by nausea. She groaned, and when he sat up to look down at her with concern, she said, “The fish I had for dinner didn’t agree with me, I’m afraid.”
His dark eyebrows drew together immediately. “Why are you lying to me?” he demanded.
“What do you mean?” she asked, desperately trying to control the nausea.
“You are having my child,” he stated.
“Whatever makes you think that?” she asked lightly.
“Because I made love to you day and night for two whole weeks when we were married.” His eyes narrowed dangerously. “You weren’t going to tell me, were you?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she insisted. She could contain it no longer. She reached under the bed and was indelicately sick in the chamber pot.
“Lil told me,” he said quietly, bringing her a towel to wipe her mouth.
“Is that what this reconciliation is all about?” she demanded angrily. “If I bear you a son, you’ll reconsider annulling our marriage?” she flared.
He gripped her shoulders and shook her angrily. “You came to London knowing you were with child. I should take my belt to your bottom. I’m sending you home to Helford Hall today. There’s plague in London, it isn’t safe for the baby.”
She shook off his hands and stood defying him, stark naked. “You are sending me home today? Sending me home? I don’t believe I heard you correctly, Lord Bloody Helford!” The nausea vanished in the face of her anger, “Well, let me make something perfectly clear to you—I won’t be sent anywhere. You can take Helford Hall and you can take your precious marriage and you can shove them where the monkey shoved his nuts. This child is mine … this life is mine … I’ll decide where we’ll live and where we won’t live. And since you insist there be no more secrets between us, let me confess what you forced me to do. When you swore I’d get none of your money and you told me to get my own, I did exactly that. I took to the road, I dressed as a highwayman. I robbed your guests of their money and jewels until I had enough to pay off the mortgage on Roseland.”
“Oh, my God,” he ground out.
“I am the Black Cat. Your bloody Sergeant Oswald arrested the wrong St. Catherine.” She sneered.
Ruark’s face was dark with fury. He began to threaten her. “I’ll take the child away from you.”
She bared her teeth like a female wolf protecting its young. “Then I’ll have to prove that it isn’t your child!”
The palm of his hand made contact with her cheek in a stinging slap. She sank to the bed and spat, “Whoreson, I’ll never forgive you for that.”
In a murderous mood he dressed and quit Whitehall.
Summer looked around the chamber until her eyes picked out exactly the right objects. She picked them up and hurled them against the wall. As the pair of priceless Ming porcelain figurines shattered into a thousand shards she felt even worse. She was thoroughly sick and then she fell to the bed and sobbed her heart out. Damn, damn, damn—they’d patched things up so beautifully last night, why did all the seams have to come unglued in the bleak light of day?
In the privacy of the night he’d told her how deeply he loved her, missed her, needed her, and then at dawn he’d lost his temper and actually struck her. Well, she was really finished with him this time. Now she was the one who wanted an annulment.
By the time she bathed and dressed and walked back to Cock-spur Street, Spider had arrived. She did not fall upon his neck and sob her relief but put up her chin and said, “I see you found the new clothes I bought for you. I hope you deloused before you put them on.”
He grinned at her cheekily and said, “Give me a few pounds for a stake, I’m about to embark on my new career. I’ve heard of a fashionable gaming house in Bell Yard.”
