The Courtship (13 page)

They grew quiet. The rain pounding on the roof over their heads sounded like hails of bullets. As for the roof-less part of the single room, the rain came down in a thick gray sheet.

He looked at her mouth. “Come here, I want you right this minute.”

“I've been thinking about this,” Helen said, not moving an inch. “I don't think it's a good idea. We are partners in this exciting venture. In my experience, the minute a man is tired of a woman or vice versa, the last thing they want to do is spend more time together.”

He raised a dark brow. It made him look utterly insolent and arrogant. He brought his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. “Just tell me about all this experience of yours.”

“Men aren't always reasonable or logical.”

“Neither are women.”

“My point exactly. Let's not muddy things up with physical sorts of things.”

“What is your experience, Helen? I know you are the prominent mistress of discipline in Court Hammering. I know that the men who work for you tremble in delicious fear of your discipline threats. I know I can see you pulling off my left boot, your bottom thrust toward me. And the smile on your face as you're looking over your shoulder at me is decidedly wicked, filled with knowledge of pleasure and how to dole it out.”

She stared straight ahead at the pouring gray sheet of rain not six feet away. The rain splashed to within two feet of where they sat. It was chilly. She was wet clear through, and all she wanted was to have him bite her neck again, perhaps even take a nip or two of her flank. She turned to say something, but the words never made it out of her mouth. He was on her, pressing her onto her back. Thank God there were no leaks in the ceiling over them.

She was not the least bit cold, not now, not with his hands on her upper arms, caressing her shoulders, her neck while his mouth was heavy on hers, drawing her into him and his urgency, into his wild need for her, and she made a decision she knew had already been made in her own mind the first time she saw him. She gave him her mouth, gave all of herself to him, pushing and bringing him tightly against her, her hands frantic on his back, coming between them to the buttons of his riding breeches.

The heat of him amazed her, drew her even deeper, so quickly now, arching up when his hands were on her breasts, and then on the buttons of her riding jacket.

“Helen, now,” he said into her mouth, his breath hot and wild. “I can't believe this.” He was panting as he reared up over her, stared down at her for just a fraction of a moment before he jerked up her riding skirt and her petticoats. When she was naked to the waist, he sat on his heels and stared down at her. Slowly, with her watching him, he stretched out his hand, let it hover a long moment over her belly, then ever so slowly let his palm lie flat against her soft flesh.

He was looking at his hand resting on her belly and she knew he was looking at his fingers as they slowly moved downward, so slowly, savoring every bit of her until at last, he was cupping her.

She arched upward and grabbed his shoulders to bring him down on her.

“No, Helen, not yet. Good Lord, not yet. Once I kiss your mouth again I won't be any good to you at all. I'll spill my seed and then you will believe me the greatest clod in England.”

“Spenser.”

She whispered his name on a soft sigh as he slid a finger inside her. He nearly lost himself right then, right there. His breathing quickened, his heart was pounding out of his chest and he knew it was all over for him. She was so very hot and soft and she wanted him. Her face was flushed, her lips parted, and she was staring up at him like he was the only man in the entire world and the only man she wanted.

“Helen,” he said again, jerked down his breeches, lifted her hips, and came into her, deep and hard.

She screamed at the pain of it, then screamed again at the pleasure of it. He was on top of her now, his mouth on hers again, and his tongue was touching her lower lip, then easing into her mouth, and she accepted him and kissed him until she thought she would die with the power of the feelings that were so deep inside her. He was moving now inside her, so deep, so much pressure, filling her, and it was delicious and she wanted him there forever.

But it wasn't to be. He knew he was almost gone. He hadn't given her a woman's pleasure. He tried, he truly did, to draw out of her, to put his mouth and his fingers on her, but for the first time in as long as he could remember, he simply lost every shred of control. He threw back his head and yelled to the pounding rain.

He was flat on top of her, his face in her wet hair beside her head. He had been stomped into oblivion by the greatest pleasure he had ever experienced in his adult life. He had been stripped of all control. He had soared to the heavens by himself—in short, he had been a bore.

“I'm sorry,” he said, coming up on his elbows. “I'm very sorry, Helen. You are so bloody beautiful.” He couldn't help himself and leaned down to kiss her again and found that he was again hard inside her.

“I am thirty-three years old,” he said between kisses. “I want you again immediately. You're a witch. You're incredible.” And he pulled out of her, throbbing and hard but not as hard as his heart was pounding. He was panting as he kissed her, his fingers finding her to begin a rhythm he did so very well, but the simple touch of her flesh beneath his fingers, the softness, the heat of her, but no, it was something more than that, and it flooded through him and he wanted desperately to see her pleasure. He kissed her and loved her until he felt the tension near to overflowing in her, and he lifted his head to look at her face when she arched against his fingers, her eyes frantic and vague, and she screamed as her own pleasure flooded through her, his fingers the focus of everything that was swamping her. She screamed again, this time into his mouth.

He kissed her more deeply, not at first aware that she was struggling to get away from him. When it finally got through to him, he blinked in confusion, his mouth open, but she screamed again. “Oh, my God!”

She wrapped her arms tightly around his back and pressed him hard against her. She rolled with him on the rotted floor. He heard the crashing of beams and ceiling not six inches behind him, exactly where they had been lying. It was a horrendously loud noise, so close it chilled him to the bone.

Then the silence of the thick rain enclosed them once again.

They were lying facing each other, still pressed very close. “The ceiling,” he said. “My God, the ceiling crashed in.”

Her eyes were closed. He leaned forward to kiss her. Her mouth didn't move beneath his. “Helen?”

He pulled back just a bit.

She was unconscious. And damn him for a beast, he was still hard, deep inside her.

L
ORD BEECHAM CAME UP beside her and carefully rolled her onto her back. He saw the blood now, seeping through her wet hair just behind her left ear.

Something had struck her. He looked up. The sleeting rain was so close, the rubble flattening beneath its force. He pulled down her clothes, fastened his breeches, and sat back on his heels.

He shrugged out of his riding jacket and covered her with it. There was nothing else he could think to do. He was afraid to move her. But just lying there like that she would surely get chilled, and that could be dangerous. He eased her as far away from the rain as he could. His back was pressed to the wall. He stretched out beside her and pulled her tightly against him. “I'm sorry, Helen. You saved my lustful hide and you're the one who got hurt. It will be all right now. We will just stay here until you come back again.” He kissed her ear and pulled his jacket more firmly over her.

They had been on their way to Dereham to find a text on ancient Persian. Now they were lying pressed against each other, soaking wet and Helen was unconscious, with a collapsed roof not two feet away.

It was at that moment that he realized it was getting toward late afternoon. It would get colder as the hours passed. What if it did not stop raining? He closed his eyes, his cheek pressed against hers.

He knew he could carry her, but not all that far, surely not far enough to make any difference. He doubted he could even get her back to the country road. And if it continued to rain like this?

No, they had to remain right here. No choice. He slipped his hand between them and pressed his palm against her breast. To his relief, her heart was beating slowly and steadily. He could do nothing but wait.

He thought about his reaction to her, and was still amazed. It had been too much, far too much. He had simply never felt anything like it, the urge to have her so powerful, so very urgent, that nothing else had existed for him in those moments, just Helen and being inside her, holding her tight and tighter still until they were joined so deeply neither of them could feel anything apart from the other.

What had happened—he distrusted it profoundly, now that his body had calmed from its incredible need. An aberration, he thought, just being here in the rain, in this ruin of a cottage, seeing her beautiful blond hair straggling around her face, and he had lost all sense. He supposed that she had as well. He had enjoyed many women over the years. He had always been the one to set the pace of things, but this time he had lost himself in the dust. And he had spilled his seed inside her, something he never did. He wanted no woman pregnant by him. But with Helen, he had simply leapt off a cliff, screaming with the joy of it, and hadn't cared what parts of him had landed where.

She had quite simply stunned him.

A woman rarely got pregnant with just one mistake. Actually, he would have spilled his seed deep inside her a second time if the roof hadn't fallen in on them.

At least she'd had pleasure in those moments before it had happened.

He kissed her temple.

He felt her move. Relief surged through him. She had been unconscious for only about four or five minutes. “Helen,” he said against her cheek. “Helen.”

He felt her moan deep in her throat.

“Helen, open your eyes. Come back now, Helen.”

She opened her eyes.

He lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek. “Welcome back.”

He said nothing more, waiting for her to gather herself. Her eyes were vague, just as they had been when she'd been on the edge of her orgasm. He pulled back a bit more so he could see her more clearly. To let her focus on his face.

“What happened?”

A skinny little thread of a voice, he thought, and smiled at her. “It's all right. You saved us from being smashed beneath the collapsed roof. However, something hit you behind your left ear. There's just a bit of blood. Tell me, how many fingers am I waggling in front of your face?”

“Too many.”

“Close your eyes, just think about nothing at all. I'm here and we're safe. But don't go to sleep. Whatever struck you knocked you a bit silly. Tell me when you want to count fingers again.”

“I've never done that before.”

He leaned down and kissed her pale mouth. “Never been hit on the head by a falling roof? Or saved the man who just lost his head over you?”

“That, too. I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm quite ready to race you back to the country lane. What are we going to do, Spenser?”

“Nothing at the moment. Don't worry about a thing, Helen. I'll do all the worrying. Now, how far are we from a village or a farmer's house?”

She was shivering. He wrapped her more tightly against him. “I know you're wet. Unfortunately I am just as wet, so I can't help you.” He thought a moment. “Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to get all those clothes off you and strip myself as well. Then we're going to get so close we'll be hot as oven bricks in no time at all.”

Helen moaned, but said nothing. He stripped her, something he had done to many women many times in his adult life, but it wasn't fun this time. Her clothes were wet and sticking to her, she was shivering, her teeth chattered, and her eyes were closed against the pain any movement brought her. “I'm sorry, Helen, nearly there now. Did I tell you how very beautiful you are? No, perhaps now isn't time to talk about bodily sorts of things. Now, these clothes are wet. You'll have my body against you in just a moment. Hold on just a bit longer.”

Finally they were both naked and he managed to pull Helen's petticoat directly over them. The petticoat was just damp, so it wasn't quite so bad. Then he layered all their other clothes over the petticoat.

It wasn't bad at all.

“You're hotter than the old brick oven my father had installed in his hunting box near Leeds.”

His eyes were crossed. He was hard against her belly, he just couldn't help it. He kissed her temple. “Don't pay any attention to me, Helen. I can't control that part of me. Just ignore it. Are you feeling warmer?”