The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

She jumped to her feet and threw herself onto his lap. He caught her to him as the chair collapsed and they sprawled onto the floor, Helen lying on top of him.

He was laughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. “I’ve never laughed like this in my benighted life. Get off me, woman.” His arms went around her. “No, I wish to change my order. Don’t move.” He grabbed a fistful of her loose hair and pulled her face down to his. He kissed her, lightly, then he rolled over on her. It quickly became something else, something urgent and frantic, and he wanted her so much that he knew, simply knew, that he would fall lifeless in a heap beside her if he couldn’t have her now. He didn’t stop kissing her as he jerked up her nightgown. His warm hands were on her thighs, her belly, caressing her. “Oh, my God, Helen, I must have you now.” He got his breeches open and reared over her.

His fingers were on her, her scent swamping him. He managed to focus in that moment on her face. Her eyes were the blazing blue of a stormy summer day. Her lips were parted, damp from kissing him. Her breasts were heaving.

And she whispered, arching up to him, “Spenser.”

He nearly went over the edge just looking at her, just hearing her say his name like that. He gritted his teeth, lifted her hips, and came into her hard, so deep he thought he would die from the power of it. Her arms were tight around him, but he had enough sense, enough experience, to pull out of her, breathing so hard he thought his heart would burst from his chest, and caress her with his fingers. He was staring down at his fingers, at her, his look so intense, so filled with the pleasure of it, that in a minute, no more, she yelled out his name, heaving against his fingers, and he watched her face in those precious moments, her pleasure tearing through him as well through her. He came into her again, deep and hard, wondering how he had survived all these years without her, and soon, too soon, it was over, and he knew he’d given his all, there was nothing else in him, and he was content. They were pressed tightly together, panting, and he was still kissing her, unable to stop.

He was still breathing hard, his breath hot in her mouth, and she whispered even as she licked his chin, “I don’t believe this.”

He reared up over her, balanced himself on his elbows, and said, “This isn’t what I am used to, either. No, that is ridiculous. Of course I am used to this, it is just that something has happened, something—” He stopped talking, just stared down at her, and frowned. He was also still deep inside her. He looked to be in pain. “Oh, Helen,” he said, and moved, arching his back with the instant power of it. “My God, Helen.” And he began moving again, deeply, and then, suddenly, he pulled out of her, lifted her hips, and gave her his mouth.

Helen arched and twisted as if she’d been shot. He held her firmly until she gave it up, yelled his name, and collapsed even as he came into her again.

“No,” he said, panting as if he had just run all the way from Court Hammering, “I don’t believe this. A man doesn’t do this every three seconds. It is madness. I will topple into an early grave. No, I must control myself. No, Helen, don’t you dare move. Oh, no, it is too much.”

“It was at least three minutes,” she said. She didn’t move. Actually, she doubted she could move if this roof fell in on her. She was sprawled beneath him, pinned down by him, and she clasped her hands around his neck and brought his mouth back down to hers.

12

AT LEAST TEN MINUTES passed this time before he was once again moving deeply in her, more easily now, but soon enough it quickened, and he was a madman once again, his mind splintered, all his focus on her and how he couldn’t get enough of her or get deep enough inside her. He wanted to possess her, to brand her, to imprint her, it was that simple, that final. He caught her cries in his mouth, felt her nails digging into his back, and climaxed as wildly as he had the first time.

“I will die now,” he announced to the silent, small room, his hot breath in her left ear. Her hair was tangled around her face, over her shoulders, her mouth red and swollen, her nightgown bunched up about her breasts. He was still inside her, but not so much now—after all, a man had to retreat sooner or later.

It was definitely later.

“Yes,” she said, “I will, too.” The sound of her frantic heartbeat was not so loud now in her ears. As for his heartbeat, it pounded deep, steady thuds against her breast. She said, her voice both surprised and bewildered, “I never imagined there could be anything like this. I have read many different books, looked at many different drawings. Never was there anything written or drawn that contemplated what you have just done to me so many times in so few minutes.”

“You mean what you and I have just done together,” he said. “I promise you that I could not have done this without you.” He sounded as baffled as she did, but she also heard something else.

She said, “I don’t understand.”

“Understand what? That you are a passionate woman? That I am an immensely excellent lover?” The austere male arrogance was suddenly back, and she saw the blatant satisfaction stamped hard on his face, heard it in his voice.

“No,” she said slowly, rubbing her hands up and down his back, feeling his muscles, his bones, the warmth of his flesh, the wondrous smoothness of him through his fine lawn shirt. “I don’t understand why you are scared.”

He jerked out of her and was on his feet in the next instant, pulling up his breeches, buttoning them. He stared down at her, sprawled naked, her white legs apart, long and sleek, so utterly beautiful, so soft in the gentle candlelight. “Damn you, I am not scared. You are a woman. Stop drawing absurd conclusions based upon your own weak female notions. I am not scared.”

She slowly sat up and slowly pulled her nightgown over her legs. She was very wet with him. It was strange, this wetness. It had been a very long time since she had felt such a thing.

Since yesterday.

She stroked her fingers through her hair to pull out the tangles. She looked up then to see that he was staring at her fingers pulling through her hair.

She saw his own fingers clenching at his sides. “I am not scared. That is ridiculous. It is nonsense.”

She looked over at the broken chair, a lovely Louis XV, all white and gold, that had belonged to her grandmother. One leg had broken off cleanly. The other leg had splintered badly. With care, perhaps, the chair could be repaired, but that one leg would be difficult.

She looked over at the pile of pages beside her on the floor. They had both been so focused, so urgent, that they hadn’t even moved much, just gone mad together in one spot. The pages hadn’t been touched.

“I don’t like this, Helen.”

She sighed and stood up. Her legs nearly gave out on her. She grabbed the edge of the desk, waited a moment, then slowly straightened again. She said, her eyes focused just beyond his left shoulder on the narrow bookshelf in the corner that held her novels, “I am going back to my bedchamber now. I think you are doing a magnificent job on translating the scroll. It is about the lamp. I knew it just had to be. But how?”

He shrugged and tucked his shirt into his breeches. “I agree. I would have thought that since it i

s about the lamp, then the lamp would have been in the iron cask with it. Why was a letter or a message or whatever it is sealed up all by itself? What is the point? Where is that bloody lamp?”