Ecstasy (Notorious 4)

Climax exploded through her in intense, rigid shudders again and again and again before at last he found his own release. Eventually he collapsed upon her, his gasping breath mingling with hers, their fierce hunger momentarily sated.

She lay back, replete, as silken waves came to lap at her, cooling her overheated skin and the blaze of passion between them…

Slowly Raven Kendrick roused from fantasy to awareness, recognizing her bedchamber. The chill light of early morning filtered through the damask curtains as she lay in bed, her body still throbbing with her powerful climax and the memory of her pirate. He was a wild, sweet fire in her blood…and he was merely illusion.

With a sigh of unfulfilled longing, Raven rolled over and drew a pillow to her still-tingling breasts. He was all she would ever have of true passion.

Her lover existed only in her imagination, although sometimes he seemed as real to her as any flesh and blood man. He had no identity, no past other than the one she had attributed to him. He’d come ashore in her dreams one bright Caribbean morning to plunder her body and capture her heart…

Her eyes closed on the memory of their most recent interlude. She was still hot and moist between her legs from his make-believe claiming, but in real life she had never felt the ecstasy of a man’s flesh filling her, burning deep inside her.

She could imagine, though. Indeed, she knew things no virgin should ever know. The rare, erotic book her mother had left behind at her death, A Passion of the Heart, had been given to Elizabeth Kendrick by the man she’d desperately loved and was forced to relinquish-a parting gift to keep his memory alive.

Penned by an anonymous Frenchwoman, the journal was a true, tragic tale of love and filled with exquisite details of carnal desire. It had provided solace to Raven’s mother for years, for although it mirrored her pain, the vividly told story let her relive her own lost passion.

Yet it was a scandalous tome for any young lady of virtue to possess.

Raven frowned defiantly. Perhaps she was wicked to foster such vivid illusions of her pirate, but in her fantasies she could be as unconventional and free as she chose. She could satisfy the deep restlessness inside her, indulge her forbidden hunger without the dire consequences of social ruin. Most vitally, she could give herself completely to a lover without fear of losing her heart and soul, the way her mother once had.

Involuntarily Raven clenched her fists as the familiar dread pulsed through her. She would never give her heart to a real man. She’d seen how love had destroyed her mother, made her a slave to dimming memory. For years her mother had sobbed into her pillow each night, lamenting the love she’d lost. By day she had pored over her precious journal, memorizing each poignant line.

Reaching into the bedside table drawer, Raven withdrew the jewel-encrusted book, her eyes blurring as she remembered. It had grieved her endlessly to see her mother waste her life away, wishing even on her deathbed for a man she could never have.

The loss of her mother had left Raven achingly bereft yet filled with determination. She would never make the same mistake her mother had made, falling victim to a hopeless love. No man would ever own her soul. She alone controlled the shape of her destiny. She might have resolved to marry, but love would form no part of the equation.

A rap on her bedchamber door brought Raven out of her dark reverie. Quickly returning the journal to the drawer, she bid admission, and her personal maid entered, carrying a tray.

> “Morning, miss,” Nan said in unmistakably excited tones. “I’ve brought you a fine breakfast since you’ll need proper sustenance. ’Twill be many hours before the wedding feast.”

Inexplicably Raven’s heart sank at the reminder. Her wedding day at last was here.

She sat up slowly in bed and allowed Nan to set the tray on her lap, even though she suddenly had no appetite.

The maid poured her a cup of chocolate, talking all the while. “Just think, Miss Raven! You’ll soon be a duchess. ’Tis just like a fairy tale.” Nan sighed, her expression filled with reverence before she caught herself. “Beg pardon, miss. I shouldn’t let my tongue run away like that. But I’ve never known a real duchess before.”

Raven summoned a smile she didn’t feel. “That’s quite all right, Nan. I am a bit in awe myself.”

Turning to the hearth, the maid built up the dwindling fire to ward off the November chill, then bobbed a curtsy. “Your bathwater is heating, Miss Raven. If you please, I’ll return in half an hour to help you bathe and dress.”

“Yes, thank you, Nan.”

When the servant had left the room, Raven dutifully picked up her fork but set it down again as her stomach recoiled. In a few short hours she would wed the man she had chosen, a prominent nobleman who commanded the respect of the highest echelons of the ton. She had eagerly anticipated this day for months-so why did she now feel as if she were somehow going to her execution?

Bridal nerves. Her anxiety could be attributed merely to that. Every bride had misgivings on her wedding day.

She shook her head, determined to quell the knots in her stomach. It was absurd to be entertaining doubts at this late date about the plan she’d set for her future. Her marriage to the Duke of Halford would not only be the fulfillment of her mother’s most fervent wish for her-securing her rightful position among the nobility-but it meant she would no longer be an outsider.

She would at last belong somewhere.

As a duchess, she would be accepted by the cream of society…the society her mother had been denied after being banished to the West Indies more than twenty years ago by an irate father.

Raven raised her cup of chocolate to her lips, trying to ignore her qualms. Her future husband, the Duke of Halford, might be a proud, stiff-necked aristocrat more than twice her age-one, moveover, who’d had the misfortune to bury two young wives after accidental tragedies. But as his wife, she would no longer be compelled to fight the despairing feelings of aloneness that had haunted her for much of her life.

She was fortunate to have attracted Halford, considering the disadvantages she faced. Although a British citizen, she’d been born in the West Indies and had only come to England for the first time this past spring, a year after her mother’s death. Forcibly swallowing her reluctance, she’d reconciled with her estranged family-her ailing viscount grandfather and her dragon of a great-aunt, who had sponsored her London season as a debutante.

Since then, Raven had grown to realize how very much acceptance meant to her, how deeply she cherished the feeling of belonging.

To her relief and gratitude, her first Season had been a triumph. She was sought after by countless admirers and received a half dozen estimable proposals of marriage, along with several unsuitable ones. She’d fooled even the highest sticklers with her efforts at demure deportment. But with a hidden scandal in her past, she could give the ton no reason to challenge her entree into its select ranks, no matter how much she might like to thumb her nose in their faces. Not if she wanted to become one of them.