Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(106)

“Jeremy,” she cried. “Please.”

“Tell me.”

“I need you.” God, did she need him. She was nothing but a quivering mass of desire and longing andneed . “I need y—”

He crushed his mouth to hers, cutting off her words, cutting off her air. He released her arm and grasped her hips with both hands, lifting her up. In one quick, desperate thrust, he sheathed himself inside her, filling her. Filling that aching void of need. She dug her fingernails into his neck and held on tight. He withdrew an inch, tilted her hips, and thrust into her again, burying himself to the hilt.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

This was where they belonged. Together, in the dark. In firelit rooms and shadowed gardens and deep, black ebony wardrobes. Fighting themselves, fighting each other. Fighting to get closer. Fighting to become one.

He braced his head against her shoulder, grasping her hips to thrust deeper still. Harder, faster. Again, again, again. Until the delicious tension threading through her pulled tight and snapped, releasing her into the darkness.

Then he pulled her back to earth with a tortured groan and a final, anchoring thrust. The power of his release racked through them both, and they quivered together in its aftermath. His fingers bore into the flesh of her hips, and his weight crushed against her br**sts, and his shoulders heaved as he fought for breath.

“Damn it, Lucy,” he said, his voice muffled against her shoulder. “Tell me you need me.” He turned his head and laid his cheek against her breast. “Tell me you need me, because God knows I can’t live without you. I’ll kill the man who tries to take you away, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you leave.”

His hands slid up from her hips to wrap around her waist, laying claim to her, squeezing her to him until she owed him the very air she breathed. “I won’t let you go.”

She cradled his head where it lay against her heart. “Don’t,” she whispered, twining her fingers into his hair. “Don’t ever let me go.”

He didn’t let her go.

Somehow, once his ragged breathing and his pounding heartbeat had slowed to a normal rhythm, Jeremy gathered the edges of her dressing gown and pushed the sleeves back up over her shoulders. Without letting go, he pulled her nightgown back over her waist and let it fall below her knees. Holding her against the tree with his body, his shrugged off his coat. Then he gathered her trembling form into his arms and wrapped the coat around her like a blanket. Without letting go.

He hefted her quivering body with one arm and reached down with the other to pick up his gun. He slung the weapon over one shoulder, tucked her head against his other, and silently struck a path through the woods.

He was drained physically and weak at heart, and the house was too far away. He carried her toward the low gurgle of the stream. Toward the hermitage. He covered the ground at a steady pace, pausing only occasionally to rebalance her weight in his arms. He cupped her shoulder in one hand and her thigh in the other, and somehow her hand had worked under his shirt to rest flat against his chest. Right over his heart.

He looked down at her face, cradled against his chest. Her eyes were closed, dark lashes resting against the pale curve of her cheek. In the moonlight, her skin glowed white and pure, and her lips were an ashen pink. Chestnut curls cascaded over his shoulder, and if he bent his head a fraction and inhaled deeply, he could catch the scent of pears wafting from her hair.

She was beautiful. God, how he loved her.

And he had never hated himself more.

Self-loathing weighed his every step, sucking his boots down into the mud. Pulling him down into the earth, to sink through the layers of rock and fire and fall straight down to Hell where he belonged. He’d come back from London pledging to care for her, protect her. If only she’d give him one more chance, he’d never drive her to tears again. All those noble sentiments, and what had he done? He’d pushed her up against a tree and savaged her like the brute he was.

Lucy needed protection, all right. She needed protection from him.

They reached the hermitage. Jeremy kicked in the door, splintering the wooden latch inside.

Something inside him splintered as well. Something painfully close to his heart.

The air inside the cottage was close and thick. He couldn’t breathe. A desperate panic seized him, the urge to turn and run. He’d avoided this place for twenty-one years, and he’d meant to never visit it again. But now … now he had Lucy in his arms, and she had no one else. He would face this, for her.

Moonlight filtered in through the open door behind him, slowly illuminating the small room. It looked just as he remembered. A row of lead soldiers keeping watch above the mantel. The fishing tackle strewn across the small table. Two pairs of small, muddied boots by the door. Frozen in the past, all of it. Only a thick layer of dust evidenced the passage of time.

Jeremy carried Lucy in and laid her down on the rug before the hearth, slipping her hand out from under his shirt. She was asleep.

His chest constricted with anguish. Every struggling breath felt like a sob. The stale air was thick with loss and love—these two inexorably connected forces that it seemed, for him, would never divide. He was doomed to lose whomever he loved, and he was doomed to do it here.

But there was plenty of time to mourn tomorrow. The next day. The lifetime after that. Right now, his wife was cold. He pushed thoughts aside, setting his body to mechanical tasks. Focusing on simple goals. Light. Warmth.