Again words failed him. In the gloom, her breasts were extraordinarily beautiful. White, fuller than he remembered. Hard, pink nipples like ripe raspberries.
Sighing in homage, he cupped her right breast and bent to draw that pert nipple between his lips. These lush breasts had suckled his child. The idea blazed through him like wildfire.
She started, and a gasp of pleasure escaped her. Her taste filled his head. Sweet woman. A hint of salt.
He tongued her nipple against his teeth, then gently bit down, glorying in how she shivered. She closed tighter around him. He scraped his teeth across the beaded peak, and this time, the ripples inside her tipped over into full climax.
She bit back a cry, and stretched into him, shuddering. He reveled in her pleasure, even as his balls tightened to the point of pain.
He gave her left nipple the same attention, as he rolled the other between thumb and forefinger. She whimpered, and he sucked harder until she lost herself again. She’d always had supremely sensitive nipples, but this ability to reach her peak whe
n he kissed her breasts was new.
“Oh, Robert...” she sighed, voice husky with sensual satisfaction.
He couldn’t hold back much longer. He squeezed her breasts, loving how they filled his hands. Then he reached down and caught her hips in a ruthless grip. The gentle friction of her body against his became a pleasure too tantalizing.
“Hold on,” he grunted, tensing his loins.
She jerked in his arms, then remarkably he felt her claim another peak. As her broken cry echoed around the carriage, he moved inside her until the world turned to fire. The surge started in his feet and flooded upward, through his aching balls. He filled her with every drop of his essence, while she trembled through the last of her rapture.
He snapped the bonds of earth and soared into some new world. Even after he was drained, his hips kept jerking. He couldn’t bear this bliss to end.
Finally he collapsed against the seat and hauled her into his arms. He was still inside her, and they were both shaking. In the aftermath to those transcendent minutes, he felt her wriggle up to kiss him under the jaw.
“Welcome home, my darling,” Morwenna whispered.
Chapter Twelve
* * *
Late the next afternoon, the carriage rolled into Woodley Park, Silas’s beautiful estate in the Leicestershire countryside.
Morwenna glanced across at Robert. He’d been quiet for hours. Not that he was ever talkative these days. But since morning, her attempts at conversation had fallen completely flat.
After yesterday’s extraordinary encounter in the carriage—recollecting that feverish coupling made her flush with pleasure—and using her body last night, he’d seemed more at ease. But as they got closer to Woodley Park, he returned to the taciturn stranger who had arrived off the whaler.
She supposed he brooded about everything he’d missed. How could she blame him? If she could, she’d bundle all those special moments up and give them to him. Kerenza’s birth. Her first step. Her first word. Her first ride. Every birthday. A thousand sweet memories of their child discovering the world.
The tragedy was that those memories were lost to him forever.
Father and daughter, so alike, were strangers to each other.
That made Morwenna angry. Futile anger at targets beyond her reach. The navy. The pirates. Those idiots who locked Robert up as a spy, instead of sending him back to the wife who loved him.
Life. Fate. God’s will.
As the carriage came to a stop in front of the columned portico, she glanced at Robert again. He looked stern and determined, as if he took on a deadly enemy instead of approached the daughter he’d never met. All day, his air had been grim. She’d known better than to suggest a repeat of yesterday’s wildly sensual escapade.
Morwenna bit back a plea for him to adopt a friendlier manner. Looking like he did now, he’d terrify poor Kerenza.
A footman stepped forward to open the door. Robert stepped down and raised a hand to help Morwenna. When she curled her hand around his elbow, she bit back a dismayed exclamation. His arm was rigid with tension. He was as close to shattering as he’d been that first night.
Without speaking, Robert escorted her up the stone stairs to the massive double doors.
“Mrs. Nash...” Ballard, the butler, began. Then for the first time since she’d started coming here, Morwenna saw the real man overwhelm the perfect servant. He staggered back and went as white as new milk. “Mr. Robert...”
“Ballard, are you still here?” Robert moved forward to shake the man’s hand. “I thought you must have long since retired.”