"You don't want to play a little first?" he asked, his voice shaky with desire.
Her eyes clouded with passion. "No."
She descended all the way around him, taking his whole rigid length inside until he felt the splendid suction of her interior. Her eyes fell closed as she began to pulse slowly up and down.
He held her hips in his hands, supporting her movements as she pleasured herself upon him. All he wanted to do at that moment was watch her in the lamplight and enjoy her expressions and reactions, but soon he became absorbed in his own blissful exertions, and he shut his eyes as they both worked faster, making love to each other with the full force of their desires and emotions.
He turned his head to the side, overcome with ecstasy, and drove into her with fierce intensity until she gasped and convulsed with rapture. When her shudders finally diminished and her sighs grew soft and faint, he sat up and turned her over onto her back, entering her sweet liquid haven again to bring the intimate union to completion.
Feeling lost beyond the reaches of his own mind, he drove into her as deeply as he could, kissing her and holding her and loving her until he became inflamed to such an unbearable point, he could hold back no longer. He gave in at last to the pounding ripples of orgasmic bliss and shuddered to a rich, powerful climax that shattered his senses.
Weak and spent, his brain almost numb from the violent onslaught of ecstasy, he sank his weight down upon Rebecca's soft, warm body on the bed, and lay there silent for some time, breathing softly and easily in the night, wondering how it was possible this woman could knock down all his defenses and make him forget everything that plagued him. He felt no heavy sense of obligation tonight. There were no reminders that he must do his duty and solve everyone's problems.
Rolling to the side, he lay next to her with his arm stretched across her hip. "I would like to stay a while," he said. "Here in your bed. I would like to sleep with you."
"Nothing would please me more," she replied.
And for the first time in his life he began to believe that genuine happiness just might be possible for the future Duke of Pembroke after all.
And perhaps curses could be broken.
Outside in the driving rain, somewhere between the Cotswolds and the village of Pembroke, Lord Creighton held tight to the side of the coach as it bumped and swayed ominously at a fast clip down a hill. His driver had freshened the horses a short time before, after searching the village inns at Corsham, and Creighton had instructed the man to push the team to its limit. There was not a moment to lose if he was going to find Rebecca and bring her home. Rushton was waiting, and he was not a patient man. He had said he would wait no longer than one week, and if Creighton did not deliver her by then, his own life and hers would be destroyed. He would have to endure the consequences of Rushton's threats-which were not idle ones-and Rebecca's future would never be the same.
The horses' hooves thundered noisily down the road, and Creighton rubbed at the pain in his temples. At least he had higher hopes for the next stop. He knew his daughter, he knew of her fanciful daydreams, and he had a feeling he would have better luck there. Yes, better luck in the village of Pembroke.
Chapter 13
"I'll wager you never imagined," Blake said to Devon, who was donning his wedding attire shortly after breakfast, "that when you stepped off that steamship from America, you would be married within a week."
Devon looked at his reflection in the mirror while his valet adjusted his sleeves, and felt as if he were looking at someone other than himself-a confident groom, heir to a dukedom, a calm man who had all the pieces of his life under control and was about to marry his future duchess and ensure the continuation of his ancestral line.
Inside, however, he was not so calm. He was far from it, for he was wrestling with the terrible fear that he had fallen completely and hopelessly in love with his bride and had already lost all sense of reality.
There had been moments over the past few days when he'd actually felt happy, and he could not fight the fear that his feet were going to slip and slide out from under him, and he would soon, without warning, begin the agonizing tumble down the hill.
Nevertheless, he spoke to his brother matter-of-factly, not wanting to reveal what he was feeling. "I always knew I would marry eventually."
"And you are doing so now because you found a wonderful woman," Blake put in, seeming as if he were reminding Devon of the bright spot in all of this. His future wife. Rebecca.
He faced his very perceptive brother. "Thank you, Blake. And I should inform you that as soon as we are declared husband and wife, I intend to speak to Father about changing his will back to the way it was. As far as he is concerned, I will have done my duty to this family and he will soon have his heir. There is no need for him to pressure you or Vincent or Garrett. All three of you should be free to choose the women you want, when the time is right."
Blake eyed him carefully. "And you are absolutely certain that this is what you want? To be married today? For your sake, I hope it is."
Devon recalled the unexpected tranquility of sleeping with Rebecca all night in her bed, not to mention the blinding intensity of his sexual urges, completely fulfilled. "I have never wanted a woman as much as I want her." It was the truth.
Blake's shoulders relaxed slightly as he nodded. "She is perfect, Devon. Not the slightest blemish on her character. Everyone thinks so. You chose well."
"Strangely enough, despite all the insanity around this house lately, I believe I did. And I will forever be baffled by what seems to be a miracle at work here." He turned to the mirror again and adjusted his tie.
"What miracle?"
"The fact that no other man has claimed her before now, and that I was the one lucky enough to come upon her and her father in the woods that night years ago." He smiled cautiously at Blake. "I am hesitant to believe it, but perhaps there is not always a mud slick in one's future. Perhaps just occasionally, the path is clear."
For four long years, Rebecca had never dared to truly believe that she would one day stand inside the Pembroke Palace chapel with a bouquet of white roses in her hands, with Devon Sinclair beside her as her groom.
She had dreamed of it, of course, and in her dreams, she always imagined it would be the happiest moment of her life-that she would look into his eyes and marvel at the peace and contentment she would feel inside her heart.
Peace, however, was nowhere near her present emotional state as she stood listening to the vicar's sermon, for since the moment she'd opened her eyes that morning, the only thing she knew was fear. It all seemed impossible to believe, and she was certain the bubble was going to burst at any second-that her father was going to come crashing through the doors, waving his cane and demanding to know what the devil was happening here. Or worse, that Mr. Rushton might rise from one of the pews at the back of the chapel and object to this marriage because he was her rightful groom.
Which he was not. He had never proposed to her directly, and even if he had, she would have refused him. It had been her father's promise, not hers, if that counted for anything.
She honestly did not know if it did. All she knew was that she was twenty-one years old today, and she would marry the man she wanted.
The vicar looked directly into her eyes. "I require and charge you both," he said in a deep voice, "as ye will answer, at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it."