Margo Maguire (17 page)

He took hold of her free hand and brought it to his lips. “I’ve wanted nothing more these last few weeks than to touch you, Lilly.”

He pulled her close, fitting her soft curves against
his hard, muscular planes. He caressed her back, sliding his hands low, cupping her bottom. Lilly took a shuddering breath and felt his palms climb to her shoulders, then to her neck. He threaded his fingers through her hair, pulling it from its ever-precarious mooring. It was as if he were testing his newly recovered abilities while he learned every inch of her.

“Your hair is so wild, so beautiful.”

Lilly trembled and closed her eyes, savoring each caress, each stroke. She breathed in his scent as he lowered his head and kissed her, felt the sharp stubble of the day’s whiskers.

Heat stabbed through her as his mouth devoured hers slowly and deeply. He nibbled at her lips, and when she opened to him, he sucked and sipped of her until she felt dizzy with desire.

His hands moved possessively, surely. Cupping her breasts, he teased her nipples with his thumbs. His hot breath singed the sensitive flesh of her ear, while his lower body tantalized her with the promise of breathtaking pleasure.

Aching with anticipation, Lilly pushed aside the thought that he was leaving. Perhaps as early as tomorrow, he would be on his way to London…and
India.

She looked into his eyes and concentrated on the here and now, savoring the sensation of his fingers on her skin as he touched her.

Lilly took a step back. With trembling hands, she began to unfasten the buttons of her bodice. His eyes were hooded and dark as he watched her fumble with the fastenings, and he moved her hands aside to finish the task himself.

The blouse fell away, leaving her barely covered
by her thin chemise. With great care, he unhooked her corset and lowered the delicate straps of the chemise. “I’ve wanted to touch you,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her shoulders, “to kiss you…”

A moment later, he freed her from her skirt, which slid off her hips to the floor.

And she stood nearly naked before him, trembling as much from nerves as from arousal.

“Lilly.” He took her mouth in a searing kiss that consumed her.

Her hands ached to touch him, to caress the hard planes of his back, to slide over the muscles of his chest and arms, but she was unsure whether he could bear more than a soft caress.

Samuel alleviated that worry when he took her hands in his and placed them on his shoulders. Then he reached down, lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. He lay her down gently and stood gazing at her for a moment before joining her.

Rising up over her, he grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked it over his head, tearing buttons and seams in his haste to become as naked as she.

Then he came back to her and feathered soft kisses over her jaw and throat. Lilly arched into him, savoring the tantalizing rub of his crisp hair against her nipples.

“Touch me,” he rasped.

She shivered with pleasure and stroked the hard nubs that lay nested in the hair of his chest.

When he groaned, she pulled back.

“Yes,” he growled. “More, Lilly.”

More?

Soon he would have all she had to give.

N
othing had ever felt so right to Sam.

Lilly pressed her lips to his chest, pulling one nipple into her mouth as she fondled the other. He took hold of her hand and placed it on the placket of his trousers, shocking them both with his brash move.

“I need you, Lilly,” he breathed, taking possession of her lips. Her tongue slipped into his mouth and Sam nearly crawled out of his skin when he felt her working the buttons of his trousers.

His heart did not beat again until her hand was closed around him.

“Oh, my…” she whispered. “I never imagined…”

Sam let out a shuddering breath and moved his hands over hers, showing her how to please him.

“I didn’t expect it to be so…”

“Yes?”

Her eyes darkened with embarrassment in the flickering light. “I can’t believe I’m talking to you about your—”

“Don’t stop!” he rasped, as she ran one finger over the tip.

After so many months of physical isolation, raw male need spurred him to plow into her ripe, feminine body. He was driven to possess her in an elemental way.

But she was untried and innocent. And Sam didn’t want to frighten or hurt her. Struggling to move slowly, he pushed her petticoat away and slid one leg between hers. Exploring with one hand, he drew his fingers across the delicate skin behind her knee, then caressed his way to the soft sensitive flesh between her legs.

“Please,” she whispered.

She was moist and ready for him.

He slid one finger inside her while he teased the tender nub that was most receptive to his touch. She whimpered in pleasure and moved against his hand.

Sam looked into Lilly’s beautiful eyes and knew that there could be no other woman for him. She was more vibrant, more alive than anyone he’d ever known. “Take me inside you.”

“Yes!”

Melding their mouths together, Sam settled into position. Perspiration beaded his forehead and the center of his back as he moved carefully, taking possession of his sweet Lilly.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t, Samuel,” she said. “Please!”

She was very tight, but Sam pushed through, breaching the barrier of her innocence. He braced himself over her and held perfectly still.

A solitary tear slid out of the corner of her eye, and Sam immediately started to withdraw.

“Don’t go!”

“But you’re—”

“I’m all right…” She slid her hand down the taut ridge of his back, pulling him closer.

The most primitive of needs kept Sam in place. He shuddered and moved inadvertently, and when Lilly wrapped her legs around him, taking him deep inside, he lost all control.

The months of isolation, the agonies he’d suffered, all culminated in the release of the pent-up passion he felt for Lilly. He plunged, burying his face in the curve of her shoulder. He nuzzled her neck and felt her quicken around him.

Braced above her, Sam angled his body to increase her pleasure, and when he felt her contract around him, he surrendered to his own release.

The shuddering climax racked his body, wrenching a tortured sound from his lips as a liquid rush of exhilaration overtook him.

It was several long minutes before he rolled to his side, pulling her with him, and they lay together in the flickering light, facing each other, naked. Sam ran one finger up Lilly’s side, from her hip to her breast. He teased the dusky nipple, then leaned in to kiss it softly. There were no dark memories to haunt him now. The anguish of his imprisonment receded when Lilly was in his arms.

All he felt was contentment.

Lilly lay with her head pillowed on Samuel’s chest as she toyed with the dense hair that grew there. She heard every beat of his heart, felt every breath he took.

And she could never have imagined how this moment would feel.

She closed her eyes and pressed a kiss to his chest,
snuggling even closer. She knew what all this meant. As soon as he had felt comfortable touching her, he’d become free. To leave. To travel to India and any other place he wanted to go.

“Lilly?” he asked, his deep voice rumbling through her. “Are you…”

“Umm.” She didn’t trust her voice to remain steady. She was going to lose him, and it would be soon.

They lay together in silence for a few moments, with Samuel’s hand tracing petal-soft circles on her hip, and Lilly savoring the short time she would have in his arms. It seemed that he was accustoming himself to her touch, to touching her.

She felt certain that her phantom touches had eased the way for him to be comfortable with human contact again, but she could never tell him that. Maude’s admonitions to keep her talent secret held especially true now. If Samuel ever learned that she had used
magic
to cure him of the malady that kept him from the work he loved, Lilly didn’t think he— Well, she had no idea what he would think.

Her unusual abilities would contradict everything Samuel believed about the universe, about his science. To him, the world functioned in a particular manner, and he esteemed those very orderly patterns. Lilly and her talents would be anathema.

Samuel shifted, pushing himself up on one elbow to look at her. “I don’t know what it is about you, Lilly Tearwater… Somehow you made me come to life once more. After what happened in Sudan, I never thought…couldn’t believe I’d ever touch a woman again. Never shake hands with a man without feeling like retching my guts out.”

“Samuel…”

“The things I saw when I was in that pit of a prison, the things that were done to me…”

“Don’t think of it now, Samuel.”

“That’s just it. You make it so that I
don’t
think of it. At least not all the time, and not as if I’m still there. With you, it’s a remote memory, almost unreal.”

“If I’ve helped you—”

He bent down and caught her lips with his. “You can’t possibly imagine.”

He slid back and pulled her on top of him, so that she straddled his waist. She started to lean over but he kept her upright. “You’re so very lovely.”

Lilly knew it was untrue. Her hair was a tangled mess, and she doubted her body was anything special, or she’d have received the same attentions Charlotte always had.

Sam filled his hands with her breasts, and she shivered, letting her head fall back. Her hair grazed her hips, and trailed across Samuel’s thighs.

He made an inarticulate sound, and Lilly felt her blood thicken in her veins. She felt feminine and powerful. Leaning over him, she braced herself on her hands and let his mouth wander where it would, sucking a nipple, then nibbling her collarbone. Her breath caught in her throat when his tongue flicked her neck, then her ear.

Lilly’s muscles tensed and she tilted her head to kiss him, savoring the exquisite taste and texture of him. He took over the kiss, plundering her mouth as if he could never get enough. He shifted suddenly, reversing their positions so that he lay poised over her.

“The world seems right when I’m with you,” he said, his expression intense, aroused.

Lilly ran her hands up his chest, stopping to fondle his tightly beaded nipples.

“Yes,” he rasped.

She drew her fingers through the dense hair, then up to his shoulders. When he entered her this time, she dug her nails into his back, unmindful of the scars that marred his skin. Her heart pounded wildly as he surged within her, every movement drawing her closer to the amazing peak she’d experienced before.

“Your legs, Lilly—pull them around me. Tighter!”

The moment she did, she burst into flame.

“Did Maude ever take you anywhere other than London?” Sam asked.

Lilly lay close, sharing the pillow, facing him. He could see that she was sleepy, and she snuggled into his body.

Sam swallowed hard and pulled her nearer. He should never have bedded her, although he could not make himself regret it. He loved her, and somehow he was going to find a way to sort out a life together.

“No.” She stifled a yawn. “And because Charlotte was so distressed, we cut our trip short. The train ride was quite a nightmare.”

Sam wondered how he could get Lilly to leave Ravenwell with him if Charlotte would not go.

He wrapped one of her curls around his finger. She’d been magnificent, rising over him as he filled her—a mythical siren milking him of his masculine power.

“Was she born deaf?”

“I imagine so. I don’t remember when she came to the orphanage. But she’s been deaf ever since I’ve known her.”

Lilly had mentioned that the inn was mortgaged. Sam wondered how bad the debt was, and whether Lilly could sell the place without taking a loss.

He’d be willing to take on the note, but they still had to figure out a solution to Charlotte. If she wouldn’t come with them… “What about Tom?”

“Hmm?” Lilly tilted her head back and looked up at him with puzzled eyes, and no wonder. His questions must seem disjointed, though they made perfect sense to him.

“Charlotte seems quite close to Tom and his mother.”

“Oh. We three were childhood playmates. Tom takes special care of Charlotte because…well, she needs it more than me.”

Sam wondered if that was the reason Fletcher paid such close attention to Charlotte. He had an inkling that there might be more to it, but tomorrow was soon enough to ask the rest of his questions.

He gathered Lilly close and held her as she fell asleep.

Reluctantly, Lilly left Samuel asleep in his room before dawn, and went down to her apartment to bathe and dress for the day. Charlotte’s door was still closed, but it was quite early. She would likely sleep another hour before her busy day began.

It was laundry day at Ravenwell. There were meals to prepare and maids to oversee. And guests who needed direction for their day’s activities. Since
Mrs. Bainbridge would not be in, there was much to do, and it would all keep Lilly from dwelling on Samuel’s departure. She had barely restrained herself from admitting how she felt about him, aware that last night’s interlude was all she would have. Neither of them had wanted to face, or discuss, his departure.

Activity had already begun in the kitchen when Lilly arrived. The oven was hot and the first loaves of bread had just been removed. She had little appetite for food, but accepted the slice of fresh bread that Mr. Clive insisted she take and went outside. Instead of thinking about Samuel and his imminent departure, she focused on the expansion of the inn that the Asbury townsmen wanted. But even then, thoughts of Samuel edged in.

They had made quite a pair against the townsmen’s badgering, and Samuel’s point was well taken. If Ravenwell incurred the additional costs of expansion, then the town of Asbury ought to finance and manage their own coach line.

Lilly put her teacup on a table and pressed one hand to her breast, as if she could contain the ache there. She did not want Samuel to go.

Yet everything she’d done—befriending him, allowing their attraction to increase, caressing him without touching him, going to his bed—had only helped to heal him. To make it possible for him to leave.

Would she have done anything differently had she realized what would happen? Lilly didn’t think so. Not even going to his room last night. If she had nothing else of him, at least she could cherish the memories of their one night together.

She heaved a deep, melancholy breath and faced
the truth—that he would soon be on his way to India, while she remained tied to Ravenwell.

The back of Lilly’s neck suddenly prickled with awareness and she turned, certain she would see someone approaching. But no one was there. She glanced up at the guest bedroom windows, but the curtains were all drawn. No one was looking out from the kitchen, either.

Feeling exposed and vulnerable for no earthly reason, she returned to the kitchen, leaving her teacup and the unfinished bread on the table.

Her sense of loss was misplaced. The night she’d spent in Samuel’s arms had been bliss, but he’d made no promises. He’d taken no more than she’d been willing to give.

And Lilly was not going to make his exit difficult. Though it seemed cowardly, she was going to make herself scarce until he left. It was the only way she would be able to stick to her resolve.

The morning’s tasks kept her occupied, though her mind frequently strayed toward her night with Samuel. Intentionally, she kept herself busy and out of sight until after luncheon, assuming Samuel would look for her in a few familiar places and then give up.

He’d said he planned to leave sometime today, and Lilly knew she could not face saying goodbye.

When the train whistle sounded in the distance, she was no longer able to hold back her tears of loss. Blindly, she left the inn and took the path down to the woods. She needed a half hour beside Samuel’s chestnut tree to compose herself and face the rest of the day.

Once again, she experienced the disturbing sense
of being watched, but forgot it when the chestnut tree came into sight and she saw Samuel carefully focusing his camera. Lilly thought her heart would burst when he turned toward her and smiled.