Three Weeks With Lady X(35)

Or rather, she would be as soon as she did this, because ladies did not make love to men to whom they weren't married.

Ever.

She watched as he pushed open the shutters to let in the fading  sunlight. He turned to look at her, and she was surprised by the  ferocity in his eyes. "I will ask once more if someone took your virtue  by force, India." His voice had gone low and ominous again. He was ready  to fight-no, to squash-every man who had offered her insult.

"No," she said, giving him that new smile that existed only for him.

He said something she didn't hear, and then she was in his arms and they  were kissing again, so frantically that she couldn't breathe. His shirt  was already out of his breeches, and she slid her hands around his  waist. He pulled back and threw the shirt over his head.

He was magnificent, bunched muscle narrowing to a waist without an inch  of extra flesh on it. Not at all like her body. She frowned and reached  out, tracing a white slash across his abdomen with her finger.

"My body's covered with scars," he said, glancing down.

"I'm sorry," India said softly, bending to put a kiss where her finger  had been. Then she straightened, turned, and climbed the narrow stairs  to the bedchamber that she'd furnished for a gatekeeper, should Thorn  ever hire one. The room held little more than a bed big enough for a man  and his wife.

She had pushed open one shutter when a pair of hands slid around her  waist and Thorn's body came hard and warm against her back. "May I  unbutton your gown?" His lips were on her neck, and she leaned back  against him and reveled in a feeling of being outside herself.

She didn't feel like Lady Xenobia, daughter of a marquess. At this  moment, she was just India, just herself, making love to someone who had  no expectations of her other than her own pleasure.

"Yes," she said, her voice so husky that she cleared her throat and tried again. "Yes, you may."

The shell-pink gown fell to her feet, followed by her corset. India  turned about slowly, aware that her chemise was transparent. Compared to  many fashionable women, she was generously shaped. When one grows up  hungry . . . well, she liked to eat, and she made no apologies for that.  And even though she sometimes thought she had too many curves, she  didn't care enough to go hungry again.                       
       
           



       

"Damnation," Thorn growled.

India felt a smile form on her face without her volition. Her shape  might not suit current fashion, but Thorn obviously appreciated it. She  reached down, just as he had done with his shirt, pulled her chemise  over her head, and tossed it aside.





Chapter Nineteen

Thorn took one look at India, who stood before him wearing no more than a  pair of silk stockings tied just below her plump thighs, and knew that  the control on which he had prided himself since he bedded his first  woman was about to break. He wouldn't be able to make love to India by  hovering over her on rigid arms, analyzing the way her head turned, or  the sounds that came from her mouth.

He was going to lose control and feast on her body. She had gorgeous  breasts, a slightly rounded belly, lush hips, and legs that didn't stop.

The curse that came from his mouth was heartfelt. It wasn't just her  body. It was the way she was looking at him, slightly amused, confident,  with desire in her eyes. Her long hair was tousled and fell around her  shoulders and over one breast. She looked like a dream, like Venus  herself come to earth.

"Why do you smell so good?" he asked.

"My perfume is scented with moonflower. Aren't you going to remove your  breeches?" Her voice rolled over his skin like heated honey.

Her lips were dark cherries, swollen from his kisses. He wanted to push  her onto her knees and beg her to take him in her mouth. Thank God she  wasn't a virgin. No virgin ever looked at a man as she looked at him  now, as if she could lap him up.

He had to pull himself together. "I suspect you don't need me to tell you how beautiful you are?"

Her lips curved, and the only thoughts in his mind were outrageous. He reached down and pulled off his boots.

"A woman can never hear that too often."

"You are damned incredible," he said bluntly, wrenching down his breeches and drawers in one movement, keeping his eyes on her.

She seemed entirely at ease. The thought that she must have stood like  this before more than one man flitted through his mind, but he brushed  it away.

Her eyes drifted down his naked body and caught at his groin. Her tongue  touched her bottom lip, and he nearly groaned aloud at the sight of  that pink tip, his cock sending a wild pulse of lust through him.

"Do you really want to try everything Feather did with his various inamoratas?" he asked, forcing his mouth to form words.

Her eyes came back to his face slowly, heavy-lidded but not sleepy. She let a smile answer him.

"Let's start here." He took a step forward and they were skin to skin, a  second later tumbling on the bed. He bent one knee so he didn't crush  her with his weight, and then he was touching her everywhere, his mouth  following his hands.

Her breasts: making her cry out.

Her belly: making her pant.

Lower still: making her moan.

A second later he was kissing her in her sweetest private place. He  nudged her legs aside, took one more look at her eyes, hazy with desire,  bent his head, and tasted her, making her scream.

Ordinarily, he would have been analyzing what every touch did to her.  But this time it was as if he was doing it for himself. Her taste was  like a drug setting his body on fire. His fingers curled into her hips  so hard that he'd leave bruises, he gave her one last caress, and she  exploded. Again.

Generally, Thorn entered a woman with due attention to her state of readiness and her state of mind. He was respectful.

But now he was driven by a need and hunger that knew nothing of respect.  He pulled on a sheath, his hands rough and urgent. Rearing up, he  pushed India's legs farther apart, bent her knees, and thrust into her  in one long stroke. She was hot and tight, and wet. His mind went blank  for a moment, his entire being focused between his legs.

He came to himself for a fleeting moment of sanity and looked down.  India seemed . . . stupefied. But not with pain, thank God. Some women  found him uncomfortable.

"You must be as large as Feather," she said, her voice husky with unmistakable pleasure.

He drew back, watching her face, thrust again . . . she arched her head  back and actually shrieked. And before he had done more than thrust home  one more time, he felt her tightening around him, her body shaking,  little pants coming from her mouth.

He looked down and caught sight of the two of them. Connected. All her  dainty, duchesslike pinkness and the tool of a rough bastard like  himself. It was hardly possible, but he thickened even more.

"Damn it, India," he whispered, leaning down to kiss her carefully, with  reverence. Her mouth opened under his, hot and wet and urgent, and he  completely lost his mind. He didn't brace himself on his elbows, the  better to assess his bed partner. He didn't listen for the catch in her  breath or watch for a tremble that might reveal she was close to finding  pleasure yet again.                       
       
           



       

He did none of that. The horse had broken its lead line and was away.  His mind spun to white, his senses narrowed to the soft perfection of  her, the lush beauty of her breast in his hand, the way her body clasped  his.

He began going faster and harder than he remembered ever going. She was  clutching him, her legs curved around him, her arms around his neck. His  hands were on her hips, holding her still as he thrust into her,  grunting because the pleasure of it was so acute that it was like pain  burning up the back of his thighs, deep in his balls.

But he held on, managed to hold on by some thread of control until . . .  she threw back her hair and a cloud of white-blond silk flew about her  shoulders. He heard her cry as if it were a command. His hips jerked  with a force he'd never felt before, emptying him into her, thrust after  thrust.

Until he had no more to give.





Chapter Twenty

The following morning

India rarely hesitated when it came to dressing. Her wardrobe was  organized, mentally if not physically, into categories that corresponded  to their purpose, whether that was to cow a bumptious butler or soothe a  nervous lady.

But she hadn't any gowns that would simultaneously usher in a betrothal  (the dark violet muslin with buttons?) and flirt with a potential  husband (the rose-colored muslin with a low bodice?). Frankly, all her  bodices felt precariously low. In the last two years, waistlines had  crept ever upward and necklines downward-and India was well endowed.  Very well endowed. Lately fashion had become annoying, and something  she'd prefer to put out of her mind.