A Royal Wedding(28)

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It was—amazing.’

And he could hear her face light up in her words. He leaned over and kissed her before ridding himself of his shoes and trousers and climbing in alongside her.

She snuggled into him when he joined her, sighing against his shoulder, her hand sliding over his shirt. ‘Why did you leave your shirt on?’

‘Because the lights will come on some time.’

‘You don’t want me to see you?’

He remembered the look of revulsion on the village woman’s face. ‘You don’t want to see me.’

Her fingers made lazy circles on his chest. ‘I see your face.’

He caught her hand then, squeezed it briefly and let it go. ‘You do. But this is much worse.’

Her hand skimmed his chest, drinking in the width and hardness of him, running down the length of his arm. She wanted to know everything about him. She wanted to be able to remember it all when she was gone. So soon she would be gone.

So little time.

Unless the storm continued? But the rain was no more than a sprinkle now against the windows, and the wind had blown itself out. The clouds were clearing enough for thin moonlight to slant over the bed.

‘What time will the boat come?’

Never, he wanted to say, wanting to keep her here for ever, to hold onto her light. But she had to go. She wanted to go and present the lost pages to the world. She wanted the fame the discovery and her theories would bring.

And he had no right to beauty.

‘Early,’ he said. Her trailing fingers were stirring him, making him hard, so he caught them and showed her, unaccustomedly delighted with her small mewl of pleasure and the tentative exploration of her fingers. ‘We’d better not waste any more time.’

He took much longer this time, none of it wasted. He took longer to pleasure every part of her with his hands and his mouth and his tongue, bringing her apart until she screamed with release before he pulled her astride him and lowered her slowly down his aching length.

God, she felt good as she rode him. Moonlight slanted across her body, turning her pale skin silver, her high breasts tipped with pink. She was a goddess and he was a monster.

And she was leaving in the morning.

She cried out as he flipped her onto her back, still inside her. She was leaving. He powered into her, pouring his frustrations and anger and desolation into every lunge, and she met him blow for blow, bucking under him, urging him on, her hips angled higher to take him deeper, her teeth at his shoulder, her hands clawing into his back and tangled in his shirt as the storm inside her built again. With one final thrust he sent her screaming into the abyss. She contracted around him, sparking and sizzling with electricity, and he had choice but to follow her as he pumped his own release.

They collapsed together as the first thin grey of dawn peeked through the windows. Vaguely he was aware of the buttons that had been wrenched away. Vaguely he knew he should do something before he fell asleep. But his arms were so heavy, and she was so warm and soft in his embrace, and the air was thick with the musky scent of their lovemaking. He would do something in just a while.





CHAPTER NINE



SHE woke with a start, disorientated and wondering where she was, until she remembered she’d fallen asleep in his arms not that many hours ago. Bright light now poured through the windows—the kind of light, she reflected sadly, that heralded sunny skies and an absence of storms. The kind of day, she cursed, just perfect to take a boat ride.

She could hear his steady breathing behind her and eased herself over to look at him. Had they really done all the things she remembered? Oh, yes, they had, she realised, if the unfamiliar aches in her body were any indication.

And then she saw him.

He was lying on his back, the shirt she remembered tearing apart in the height of passion open, exposing his chest to her gaze. She’d got just a hint of his injuries last night when her fingertips had grazed a ridge or encountered an unexpected dip under his shirt.

Now the ridges and dips made sense. Whatever had sliced into his face had dug deep into his chest as well, and then something more terrible had happened. It looked as if the left side of his chest had been blown apart and roughly patched together in some kind of ugly puckered design, brutal and savage. It looked as if whatever had blown his life apart had blown his chest apart with the same brutal effect. It looked so damaged that she ached with knowing what it must have cost.

‘I told you that you didn’t want to see it.’