Rexanne Becnel (19 page)

Oh, God, surely the whole of England shook with the power of that one little movement. He pushed within her and then pulled slightly away. He slid his hard, unfamiliar maleness inside her, then tormentingly drew it out. In a fit of panic that he might pull entirely away and she would lose the vibrant warmth he filled her with, she too raised her hips, trying to keep him near.

The resultant thrust of his manhood deep into her brought a cry of shattering pleasure to her lips, and he drank it in with a crushing kiss. Once more he moved over her and she swiftly recognized the pattern. In and out he slid, torturing her with the perfect pleasure he wrought so easily. His tongue moved with equal hunger in her mouth, and Joanna felt certain she would swoon. The fiery delight from his mouth. The fierce pleasure from down there. Together those two sensations lifted her entire being to a new level of awareness. Her senses were bombarded with too much, and yet she was intensely attuned to everything. The rain blew an erratic tattoo on the roof and windows. The fire popped and the bed groaned. His skin tasted salty. His mouth tasted like nothing else she could describe. And his body moving above her and within her was a feeling—an exquisite voluptuousness—she could never have guessed possible.

He increased his rhythm and lifted his head. As she began to pant, responding to the accelerating wealth of sensations growing in her, he kept his midnight eyes locked on hers.

He was swallowing her whole, she thought as his hard body moved repeatedly over hers. His gaze consumed her. His body possessed her. She was lost to him. Lost forever to him.

Then an incredible tightness started deep inside her and her wide eyes turned dark with passion. She clutched frantically at his sweat-slicked back and, as if he knew what she felt, he moved ever faster. She arched up in panic-driven desire, then cried out as something seemed to burst within her.

He stroked on and on, drawing out her intense reaction until it was almost painful. She was flying. She was falling. He lifted her up. He crushed her down. Then he too tensed and, with a cry of his own, spilled his warmth deep inside her.

In the ensuing minutes Joanna’s awareness of her surroundings abandoned her completely. She was warm and she was replete. These two were all she knew, and she wondered if this was, perhaps, heaven: complete contentment and a sense of absolute security.

Rylan shifted, rolling to his side but keeping her close with one brawny arm about her waist. Her head rested on his shoulder near his chest, and his heart beat a reassuring rhythm in her ear.

Like the rhythm from before, she fancied, and something warm curled in her belly at the thought. That only increased her sense of contentment, and with a huge sigh she relaxed against him. Nothing else of the world existed at that moment. Not the past nor the future.

It was enough for her that this unexpected present simply was. With another exhausted sigh she smiled and fell asleep.

J
OANNA DREAMED OF ANGELS
and saints. Though she well knew the teachings of her church, there were, nonetheless, certain impressions from her childhood that she’d never quite lost. Angels were always female, though there might be men among the saints. Those men were old and bearded, however, while the angels were always young and fair.

But a new angel came to her this night. He was dark—and a man. His eyes were deep and fiery and his smile was so beautiful as to nearly blind her. He burned her with his touch, and yet she longed for that fire. He reached out a hand to her and she did not hesitate to take it. Then he lifted her up, making her giddy with the sensation of flying. Up in soft wafts of sunshine. Higher until the clouds kissed her cheeks and neck with the lightest of caresses.

He was taking her to heaven, this mysterious dark angel. He did not speak but he beckoned her with his eyes and that beautiful smile. Oh, yes, he would bring her to heaven had she but the courage to follow him.

Joanna pressed her cheek into the curve of his hand. She sighed and relaxed as he drew her nearer. She was warm and filled with a contentment she’d never before experienced. Once more she sighed, then smiled as she felt an answering sigh from her angel. His breath tickled her ear. His chest pressed warmly against her back. His arm rested comfortably across her side, and his hand gently curved around her own.

Joanna twined her fingers with his as she flitted back and forth between her dream and reality. She was filled in both with a delicious languor that was unlike anything else she knew.

A smile curved her lips and she moved restlessly against him, wanting even more of these wondrous feelings. She knew there was more; he had showed her once before. …

Her mind cleared when he moved their entwined hands down the front of her. His fingers and her own moved slowly along her naked length, stroking lightly but very deliberately in an erotic exploration.

A short gasp brought Joanna fully awake, but the simultaneous lurch in her belly drove all thoughts from her mind. Their knuckles brushed once and then again over her left breast. They moved then into the valley between her breasts and up and across the right one to lightly tease her already rigid nipple.

Joanna was breathless as he orchestrated the joined movement of their hands. She felt the sensuous caress along her skin, yet also felt herself with her own hands.

She did not feel at all like him, the wicked thought came to her. She was soft where he was hard. She was smooth where his skin was covered with those intriguingly curly hairs.

Down along her ribs he continued his quest, and she found the indentation of her navel and the gentle rise of her hip bones. Then along the taut skin of her belly they went, to where the first crisp curls of her private place began.

Joanna was trembling in his embrace. She felt the heavy thudding of his heart against her back; she recognized the thrusting heat of his arousal.

A part of her knew what they were about. She sensed reality and remembered everything that had brought her to this moment. But mostly she ignored that reality, for she did not want to deal with the repercussions. She wanted her dream and she wanted her dark angel.

And she wanted this never to stop.

Over the cushioned Venus mound he pushed their hands. She stroked her curls with a strange new awareness. Her skin was damp, she realized as their hands moved between her thighs. She was damp all over, sensitive wherever they touched, and filled with an anticipation that was so acute it approached pain.

Then one of his knuckles parted her downy curls and moved to the apex where all her desire seemed to be centered. She sucked in her breath and tightened her legs. It was too much to bear. Too right. Too perfect. But the angel of her dreams—the sweet devil of her reality—seemed to know that she nonetheless wanted more. He straightened his hand and hers and guided her fingers back to that same place. She felt the soft folds part and found the sensitive peak that both cried out for and shrank away from their touch.

“Oh, please.” She moaned as he led her with soft pressure to slide across that aroused nub. “Oh, I cannot. … You cannot. …”

He did not counter her protests with words, for it was unnecessary. He had only to continue his seductive caress to send all thought of denial from her mind. Her fingers and his own moved with a languid rhythm upon her, seeming to touch her most secret and innermost self. Joanna pressed back against him. Her legs moved restlessly, rubbing against his as a fire seemed to erupt within her.

She was hardly aware when his fingers took over the task entirely. One of her hands clutched at his smooth flank while her other found his arm and hand that curved under her head. Her fingers tightened on his as her other hand rubbed frantically against his hip, unconsciously mirroring his fiery stroking of her.

Both heaven and hell, she thought as her body quivered in indescribable pleasure. Her dark angel brought her to both heaven and hell.

Then she ceased to think at all. Her nails pressed in passionate agitation into his thigh and she arched hard against his hand. And as if he knew precisely how she felt, his touch moved even faster until she was crying out with mindless passion.

It was happening again—that reckless madness, that final abandon. So consumed was she in the overpowering sensations he roused in her, she was not aware of his own arousal. But before she could find that summit of pleasure he’d shown her before, he suddenly pulled away and, with an almost violent jerk, rolled her beneath him.

His arousal pressed against her belly. As she arched up to him mindlessly pleading her desires, he let his weight come fully upon her.

“Damn you, Joanna,” he panted hoarsely in her ear. “And damn me for a fool.”

She opened her eyes at his self-directed words and his almost bitter tone. But what she saw sucked the very breath from her. His fierce gaze devoured her. His eyes burned with a fire so intense she thought to perish in their depths. Then, with a low growl, he raised up over her and, before she could respond, he came into her.

Joanna knew nothing of time nor place as he took possession of her. Day or night. The cruck cottage, Isle Sacré—even England itself. All of these disappeared and only he remained real. The feathering ends of his hair falling against her face were real. The damp rub of his thighs against her own was real. The exquisite stroke of his manhood deep within her. … These alone were her reality, and she rose to him gladly.

She hardly recalled their previous joining. Instinct was her only guide as she slid her hands up his straining arms to slide across his shoulders and then tangle in his hair.

He leaned back, changing the angle of his approach and striking an even deeper chord within her.

“Rylan—” She gasped and arched her belly and breasts higher.

One of his hands cupped her cheek, then gently smoothed a long curling strand of hair back from her face. In the dim room their gazes met and clung, even as he continued the sultry rhythm between them. His eyes were dark as midnight; hers were as clear as sea-green water. Despite the complete intimacy their bodies’ shared, it was the utter possession in his eyes that seemed too personal. In an agony of confusion Joanna closed her eyes and turned her face into his hand. She kissed his palm with lips and teeth and tongue, tasting the hard calluses and smoother indentations.

“’Tis too late to be shy, my little dove,” he murmured. He lowered himself to his elbows so that they were belly to belly and breast to breast. He forced her to face him and for an instant more their eyes clung. “’Tis too late for far too many things.”

Then his lips slanted across hers with a ferocious intensity. Like the very center of a wild and violent storm he plundered her mouth even as he stroked deeper and harder within her. They surged and fell together. Like the tide crashing upon the shore, they met in a magnificent struggle. And like the tide they rose ever higher until in a crescendo of physical desire and emotional anguish they were both consumed within the very storm they made.

He fell upon her slick and spent, gasping for breath. Joanna clasped him to her, welcoming his weight, reveling in the crushing nearness of him.

It
was
too late, the words echoed faintly in her mind. Too late to undo what they had done. Too late to go back to being the innocent virgin of before.

Yet even as her hazy thoughts considered that fact, it was not her imminent return to the priory that was uppermost in her mind. Her planned loss of her innocence was forgotten, for he had long ago driven the last vestiges of logic from her head. It was not her loss of innocence but her gain of knowledge that made it too late for her. For no matter how long she lived, no matter how pious and holy a path she trod, this moment of completeness between them would never leave her.

It would never leave her.

A streak of watery sunshine crept across Joanna’s face. Her eyelids twitched in protest. She turned her face away and searched sleepily for the warmth that had cradled her through the night. When she did not find it, she curled up and pulled the coarse coverlet over her head, vaguely disappointed but unwilling to come fully awake in order to discover why.

The fire popped and hissed in the hearth, but other than that, there was no sound. No wind. No rain. Not even the rushing waves upon the shore.

So the storm was finally spent, she thought in groggy remembrance. At once her eyes opened as lucidity returned. The storm … The island … Memory rushed over her and in an instant she recalled every detail. Then a log was tossed upon the fire and she jerked in violent reaction.

“’Twas no dream,” a low voice remarked.

At the bitter quality of his tone, Joanna’s heart began to pound. It took all her courage to pull the scratchy blanket down enough for her to peer at him. His eyes were fixed on her, and for a moment there were no words. Then he turned away and thrust another log within the hearth. “’Twas no dream. Better that it had been.”

Joanna lay as still as stone upon the narrow bed, but inside her emotions were in total chaos. He was dressed, she noted as she stared at his back. His hose, braies, chainse, and tunic were all in place while she lay completely bare beneath the solitary blanket. Clearly he had no problem dressing himself, the angry thought came to her. But Joanna’s anger was by far the lesser of her emotions. She was mortified by what had passed between them in the night. She was horrified at her own wanton behavior and his wickedness. But most of all she was hurt by his terse words.

She blinked back unbidden tears as she heard them once again. Best that it had been a dream. Last night had been a wonder to her, a slice of heaven on earth. Yet he wished it never had happened.

She stifled a sob as anger rushed in to rescue her. He should indeed wish it a dream, for it seemed her plan had worked better than she could have guessed. She was no longer a virgin. Now his selfish plot was ruined.

Yet even her anger was no proof against the niggling doubt that plagued her. If it was only her desperate straits that had prompted her to lay with him so, why had she not left his bed when the deed was done? Why had she lain with him again? Why had she let him guide her hand so—