The Hellion Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 2)

She didn't want to fall apart again, but there didn't seem to be much choice. In but an instant of time, she forgot about choice anyway. When he told her to wrap her legs around his flanks, she did so willingly and quickly, hugging him hard, lifting her hips to bring him deeper, and he groaned and she felt a burgeoning of those same feelings, those frantic barbaric feelings that stripped off everything except that wrenching pleasure that was so great it was nearly pain, but it wasn't, it was within her and within him and some­how it made them as one. His hand was between their bodies, stroking her, caressing her, and then his mouth was against hers, his tongue deep inside her mouth just as his sex was inside her body. And she was howling and bucking in her frenzy, and he encouraged her, telling her what to do, telling her what she made him feel. Then, just as he plunged so deep he touched her womb, she convulsed with pleasure and screamed.

Ryder was with her, holding her tightly against him, kissing her nose, her cheek, her eyebrows, her ears. He told her again and again that he loved her.

"Am I too heavy?"

He wasn't, not really, but her wrists were cramping, not because of how tightly he'd fastened the pillowcases, but because she'd jerked and twisted so violently, wanting more of him, more of herself.

"Can you untie my hands?"

He raised himself with effort, ducked his head down again and kissed her, grinning as he did so. "I can't get enough of you, Sophie."

"I don't mind kissing you," she said as he untied her wrists.

He pulled out of her and came down onto his side. He rubbed her wrists, frowning at the redness. "I didn't mean to tie them so tightly, I'm sorry."

"It wasn't that," she said, not looking at him. "It was the other."

"What other?"

She looked at him straight in his blue eyes. "How you made me feel. I was an animal."

"Ah, another condemnation perhaps? Based on your wonderful objective experience? I hate to tell you this, Sophia, but we are both animals, carnal as hell, and so wonderful that I pray you'll go wild and ferocious on me every night." He paused, frowning. "Perhaps every morning as well. Ah, and there's the hour just after luncheon, you know, when you're just a bit tired and—"

She laughed.

Ryder was so surprised that he simply stared down at her. He kissed her again and six more times.

She kissed him back, but her body felt so languid she doubted she could have roused herself even if Mrs. Chivers had shouted fire. She felt beyond her­self; she didn't understand. She didn't know what to think. And she had laughed.

She said, "Do you really love me?"

"Yes."

"You didn't just say it because you were inside me and your lust. . . well, you know what I mean."

"Yes, I know what you mean. Now, I'm not inside you. You've exhausted me twice. I'm limp and nearly expired. My wits have gone begging. I have no sen­sation below my heart. And I love you."

"You never said that before."

"I didn't realize I loved you before. Things have changed and I don't mind telling you that I'm quite pleased about it. No, Sophie, don't feel that you have to fill in the silence."

"You're the master here."

He said easily, accepting her words, understand­ing them, "Yes, I am. You want to know something? It feels good, damned good. I never felt I was needed at Northcliffe Hall and of course I wasn't. It was and is Douglas's home and his responsibility as the Earl of Northcliffe. But Chadwyck House, it's mine, Sophie, it's ours, and our children will grow up here, and this will be their home and, why, I might even wear a smock and become a farmer on Wednesdays and Fridays. What do you think?"

"I think you would look beautiful in a smock and hobnail boots."

"Ah," he said, and kissed her mouth. "Dear God, but I love kissing you."

Tell him, she thought, tell him, but she was afraid to, afraid he would search out both Lord David and Charles Grammond and threaten them or kill them, she didn't know which. But she knew there would be an awful scandal and she couldn't do it to him, to the Sherbrooke family, to Jeremy, to herself.

She kissed him back, urgently, wanting only to bury her misery, to forget it for just another instant, just one m

ore moment, and she succeeded. He caressed her, and when he came into her again, she cried out in her climax, and Ryder thought he would die from the pleasure of it. When they slept, Ryder dreamed of his children and knew, even in his dream, that he would have to tell her about them very soon now and pray that she would understand.

Ryder didn't tell Sophie anything; he had no chance to. She was still sound asleep when he left the house the following morning, from exhaustion, from his exhausting her.

The following afternoon, when he was in the north field with three of his tenant farmers, a carriage pulled up in front of Chadwyck House. The Earl of Northcliffe, Alex, Jeremy, and Sinjun spilled out.