“Dash.”
His eyes flew open. She stared up at him, eyes glazed and cheeks flushed. Lips slightly parted.
“That’s it,” he told her. “Don’t stop, darling.” He fought the urge to thrust faster. “Don’t you stop until you—?”
She cried out and convulsed around him, her inner muscles squeezing his cock like a silk-gloved fist.
And thank God for it, too. He couldn’t hold back any longer. Ice and squalls be damned. He leaned forward, tilting her hips to a deeper angle. He knew she’d be hurting tomorrow, but he couldn’t resist.
She wrapped her legs around his hips and held onto his neck, and Dash lost all control. He thrust hard and fast, and faster still, until he reached that blissful, dizzying plateau of inevitability.
“Yes,” she urged, locking her legs tight around him.
Yes.
And yes and yes and yes again.
He slumped atop her, utterly spent in every way. His limbs were trembling with effort and damp with sweat.
She held him tight, pressing kisses to his shoulder and neck.
Why had he ever chafed against her hopes for them? In this moment, he never wanted to let go.
Nora, Nora.
“Well, what’s the verdict?” she said, once they’d both caught their breath. “Am I acquitted of libel?”
He rolled aside and exhaled. “Unequivocally.”
“Really?” She propped her chin on his chest and looked up at him. Sparks of amber flashed in her eyes. “You admit that you missed out on something in me?”
He reached out and tangled a hand in her fiery, tousled hair. “I can declare, without a doubt: Best lovemaking ever.”
She grinned with satisfaction. “Magnificence accomplished.”
“Of course,” he said, staring at a lock of her hair as he wound it around his finger, “it was also my first lovemaking ever.”
“What?”
“Do you know, I think the storm has stopped. I don’t hear the wind any longer.”
“George Travers.” She playfully pounded him on the chest. “What are you telling me?
“That what we just shared was, indeed, magnificent. And no matter what happened, it was going to be my best time ever. How could it not be?”
“I don’t believe it.”
He shrugged.
“You’re a lord. A young one, in your prime of life. Wealthy, educated, advantaged in every way. Not to mention, devastatingly handsome. Why on earth . . . ?”
Dash started to feel a bit self-conscious. “It’s not as though I didn’t have chances, you know. And I’m a hardly a saint. I did a fair amount of groping and ogling of girls at school, went to the typical bawdy shows with the Oxford set.”
“You drank champagne from scarlet women’s bosoms.”
“Yes, that too.” And there’d been some minor indiscretions he wouldn’t detail. “But when it came to the act itself, I never met a woman I wanted so badly that consummation seemed worth the risk.”
“The risk? I thought women bore all the risk. Men who have conquests are heroes. We’re the ones who are considered ruined.”
“I’m not going to argue it’s equal risk, but men take chances, too. Fathering a bastard child. Angering a jealous lover. Contracting some hideous strain of the pox.”
“The pox?” She made a face.
He tweaked her ear. “I’m an only child and an orphan. I don’t have indulgent parents to rescue me from scrapes, nor a brother to fill my place. I had to take care.”
“Oh, Dash. As alone as you’ve been, I can only imagine.” She stroked his chest, thoughtful. “Do you want to know what I think?”
“Always.”
It was the truth, too. Much as she had a way of maddening him, he would always wish to know what was on her mind.
“I think you feared more than just the pox. Like being vulnerable with the wrong person. Exposing your heart to someone you couldn’t trust.”
Damn. There she went, maddening him. How did she know him better than he knew himself? It wasn’t fair.
“Perhaps that was part of it, too.” He gathered her in his arms and buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair, breathing deep. “It’s good to be here with you.”
She hugged him close. “What are old friends for?”
“Are we friends again, then?”
“Were we friends before?”
“I think so. Friends who spent a great deal of time dreaming about kissing and fondling one another. Which sounds to me like the best sort of friends, come to think of it.”
She laughed.
“Now tell the truth.” He propped a finger under her chin, tilting her gray-blue eyes to his. “How many were there, and what were their names?”
“How many what? Whose names?”
“Our children. The ones you had all planned out.”
“You rogue.”
She squirmed in good-natured outrage, and he tickled her into submission, rolling her onto her back.
“I have you pinned,” he said, gripping her wrists and holding them over her head. “Just admit it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Five.”
“Five?”
“Three boys and two girls.”
“And . . . ?” he prompted. “What were their names?”
“I only named the girls. Desdemona and Esme.”
He collapsed atop her and laughed so hard, the bed shook.
“I know, I know.” She kneed him in the ribs. “I was stupid then. But I’m not a girl anymore.”
No, she wasn’t.
She was a woman. An accomplished, brave, beautiful woman. An acclaimed authoress. A creative lover.
Best of all, his friend.
And she was laid out before him like a landscape of pristine, snowy hills on a winters’ night, lit by a dying ember of sun.
Still holding her hands overhead, he dipped to kiss her brow. Then her nose. Then her lips.
And then down, down. Breasts, belly, navel . . .
She gasped and bucked. “Dash.”
He released her arms and settled between her thighs, a man with a purpose. He was not going to get carried away with his own needs this time.
This time, she came first.
“Nora,” he whispered, kissing his way back up her body once she’d shuddered and sighed his name.
“Hmm?”
“That word you said, when we locked ourselves outside . . .” He slid a hand beneath her, cupping her arse. “You know, the one a well-bred lady should not know, and most definitely should never speak aloud?”
“Yes.” She looked up at him, her eyes drowsy with pleasure. “What of it?”
He flexed his arm and flipped onto his back, bringing her with him. She gave a little shriek of delight.
He tucked her sleek legs on either side of his hips, then propped both hands beneath his head. “I want to hear you say it again.”
CHAPTER TEN
Nora woke to the worst sort of knot in her neck, a throbbing twinge her hip, and a dull soreness between her thighs. Her stomach twisted with hunger, tying knots around memories of fried eggs and ham. The fire had gone out, and she was stuck in a bare, humble hut in some unnamed bit of countryside, miles from help or civilization.
But life had never been so wonderful.
She lifted her head from Dash’s shoulder. He looked so different in sleep, and not at all like the determined lover who’d transported to bliss her last night.
His chest rose and fell with each easy breath. With the furrows ironed from his forehead, his dark eyebrows couldn’t even manage to look severe. He looked peaceful. Content.
At home.
Tenderness welled in her heart. She touched a lock of his dark hair. She didn’t know what happened from here, but she had no regrets.
Rising from bed, she pushed on the shutter—just an inch—and glanced out the window. A swatch of blue sky greeted her. It was bright this morning, and clear.
After pulling her shift over her head, she did up her corset in the front, swiveling the laces to the back before cinching them tight. After rolling her dried stockings up her legs and securing them with garters, she stepped into the still-damp wool of her traveling frock, worked her arms through the sleeves, and closed the buttons up to her neck.
Behind her, Dash stirred on the bed.
“Whatever are you doing?” he asked drowsily.
“Making ready.” She sat on the stool and laced up her boots. “I expect the driver will be here soon. With luck, I can still make my engagement.”
He rubbed his eyes. “You can’t still be planning to go to Spindle Cove.”
“Of course I am.” She twisted her hair into a knot. “Why would you think otherwise?”
“It’s impossible. You’re not going today. The bridge is out, remember?”
“Oh, drat. Yes, the bridge.” Nora sighed. “Well, if it hasn’t been repaired, I suppose I’ll have no choice but to go back to Canterbury. Can you loan me the money for a private coach? There’s always the long way around to Spindle Cove. Perhaps I can just make it.”
He struggled up on his elbow. “Nora, don’t be absurd. You don’t need to go. There’s been a storm. They’ll understand.”
“But what about all those young ladies, waiting to hear me speak?”
He rubbed his eyes. “Waiting to hear you disparage me, you mean.”
“Waiting to hear that they’re worth something. Waiting to hear that their dreams and lives have value, regardless of a man’s opinion. It’s not about you.” She bent to kiss his forehead. “Perhaps I can’t make it, but I want to be ready in case. I’ll walk out to the road and fetch a few necessities from my trunk.”