Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(57)

Aline turned cold with alarm. “I’m afraid this is all I can offer, McKenna,” she said. “One night, with no promises and no regrets. I’m sorry if you want more than that. It just isn’t possible.”

“The hell it isn’t,” he muttered. “My lady, you’re about to receive an education in how to conduct an affair. Because for the duration of my stay at Stony Cross, you’re going to work off your debt to me…on your back, your knees, or any other position I desire you in.” He pulled her away from the huge oak, her gown bedraggled, and her hair mussed and littered with flecks of bark. Jerking her forward, he covered her mouth with his, kissing her not with the intent to please, but to demonstrate his ownership. Although Aline knew it would be to her advantage to keep from responding, his kiss was too compelling for her to resist. She did not have the strength to break free of his inexorable grasp, nor could she avoid his compelling mouth, and before long she melted against him with a shaken moan, her lips feverishly answering his.

Only when her response was obvious to both of them did McKenna lift his head. His rapid breath mingled with hers as he spoke. “I’m going to come to your room tonight.”

Aline wrenched herself away from him, stumbling back to the forest path. “I’ll lock the door.”

“I’ll break it down, then.”

“Don’t be an ass,” she said with a touch of exasperation, hastening her stride despite the protests of her much-abused legs.

The rest of the walk back to the manor was silent, except for the sound of their feet crunching leaves and twigs and gravel. Aline was increasingly uncomfortable, becoming aware of a multitude of twinges and aches, not to mention the cold stickiness between her thighs. Her scars had begun to itch and burn. She had never wanted a hot bath so badly in her life. She only prayed that McKenna was too preoccupied to notice the pained hobble of her gait.

The manor was dark and quiet, only a few lights burning as a concession to guests who had decided to prolong their revels. McKenna walked Aline to a servants’ entrance at the side of the house, where there was far less likelihood of either of them being seen. Anyone who witnessed Aline’s disheveled condition would easily guess what she had been doing.

“Tomorrow, then,” McKenna warned her, standing in the entrance…watching as she made her slow, painstaking way upstairs.

Thirteen

McKenna wandered to the back terrace in a kind of stupor, feeling drugged and floundering…no doubt similar to the way Gideon Shaw had felt while he was drunk and drowning in a storm-swept ocean. In all of McKenna’s imaginings of this night, he had always pictured himself as completely in control. He was experienced with women, cognizant of his own sexual needs and the responses of his partners. He had known exactly what he was going to do with Aline, and how the scene would be played out. And then Aline had changed everything.

Sitting at an outside table in the shadows, McKenna clasped his head in his hands and closed his eyes. The faint mingled scents of oak and sap and female arousal clung to his hands…he inhaled the fragrance greedily and felt heat stirring in his groin. He remembered the feeling of sliding inside her, the lush flesh that had surrounded him so tightly. The gasps that had come from her throat. The taste of her mouth, spiced with wine and ginger. She had satisfied him more than anyone ever had, and yet he already desired her again.

A virgin…damn her. Damn her for the feelings she roused in him, the confusion and suspicion and protectiveness and sexual hunger. He would have bet every last cent that she had taken dozens of lovers by now.

And he would have lost.

McKenna tightened his palms on his head as though he could crush out the traitorous thoughts. She was not the girl he had once loved, he reminded himself grimly. That girl had never really existed. And yet it didn’t seem to matter. Aline was his curse, his fate, his consuming desire. He would never stop wanting her, no matter what she did, no matter how many oceans and continents he managed to put between them.

God…the sweetness of her body, so tight and warm around him…the salty-fresh scent of her skin, the perfumed softness of her hair. He had felt his sanity dissolve as he took possession of her, and he had lost all thought of withdrawing at the moment of cl**ax. It was possible that he had made her pregnant. The thought filled him with primitive satisfaction. To see her big and helpless with his child, overtaken with his seed, dependent in every way on him…yes, he thought grimly. He wanted to occupy her with his own flesh, and chain her to him with a bond she could never break. Aline didn’t realize it yet, but she would never be free of him—or the demands he would make of her.

“What a deadly dull evening,” Susan Chamberlain, Gideon Shaw’s sister, remarked sourly. They had just returned from the village fair, having left the festivities just as things began to get interesting. Apparently the provincial pleasures of having one’s palm read, or watching tumblers and fire eaters, or drinking local elder wine, was lost on people as urbane as the Shaws and their kin.

“Yes,” her husband, Mr. Chamberlain, chimed in, “the novelty of mingling with rustics wears off rather quickly, I’m afraid. It is better to spend time in one’s own company than to consort with people who have no more intelligence than the sheep and goats they herd.”

Annoyed by his snobbery, Livia could not resist making a retort. “You are fortunate, then, Mr. Chamberlain. With that attitude, it seems likely that you will indeed be spending a great deal of time in your own company.”