Lessons from a Scandalous Bride (Forgotten Princesses #2)(44)

“You think I’m brave?” she asked, her face growing warm at the praise.

“You alone carry your little brothers and sisters to the churchyard following their deaths. Yes, I think you’re brave.

“And for someone so brave,” he finished, “I don’t understand how you can be so afraid.”

“What am I afraid of?” she demanded.

A beat of silence hummed between them before he answered. “Everything, it appears.”

Everything.

Her eyes burned as the word penetrated—as she absorbed that he was right. As he eased into sleep beside her, she held herself still, reeling with the realization of what she had become—a person she didn’t want to be. Yet with her stepfather’s threats hanging over her head, she didn’t know how she could be anything else.





Chapter Seventeen

The pale light of dawn greeted her as she slowly opened her eyes. For a moment, she stared uncomprehendingly at the single window, absorbing the bluish light creeping between the curtains. Her thoughts were fuzzy and it took her a moment to register where she was . . . and even longer to process who shared the bed alongside her.

In that instant it all flooded over her, and her eyes flew wide.

Every sensation struck her full force. The long press of his body against hers. The weight of his arm draped over her. The span of each of his fingers against her belly. His chest was warm and broad—endless at her back. Her heart thudded violently against her rib cage.

Cleo’s thoughts raced, recalling the events of last night.

She was ruined. No mistake about that. Strangely, she couldn’t summon much regret about the loss of Thrumgoodie, and she suspected the reason had something to do with the man pressed alongside of her.

“How long are you going to pretend to be asleep?”

In one smooth move, he rolled her onto her back and came over her. His face was inches from hers, their noses almost touching. His thumb grazed her temple, feathering the tiny hairs there.

Even in the dim light, his eyes shone clear and bright, scanning her face as though he were memorizing it. In all her life, another person had not looked at her with such complete intensity.

Her heart stuttered against her chest so violently she was sure he felt it, too. She waited, her flesh tight and prickly with anticipation. Still, he did not move—didn’t lower his mouth that remaining half inch.

With a faint groan, she surrendered and lifted her mouth, touching his. It was all he needed, and she realized in some distant corner of her thoughts, that he’d been waiting for her to do this very thing.

Their mouths fused together hotly, devouring, consuming with hungry lips and feverish tongues. She held his face with both hands, clinging to him, desperate and needy.

His hands touched her everywhere, sure and firm, molding to her curves, caressing her in places that made her cry out against his mouth. He made short work of shedding her clothes, tossing them to the floor.

He stared down at her for a long moment. Ideally, this should have been the moment where reason returned in a flood, but he looked so beautiful gazing down at her, his eyes glittering and intense, his dark hair falling across his brow. And then there was his body.

Never had she seen such a sight. Lean and hard, his muscles played along his torso and rippled over his ribs. His sinewy arms were braced on either side of her and she wanted to turn her face and kiss every inch of the sculpted flesh.

He lowered down until his chest mashed into her breasts. The lean line of him aligned with her own naked body and the sensation fired her every nerve. She gasped as his narrow hips settled between her thighs.

His roughened palms glided over the outside of her thighs and her breath caught as those big hands slid beneath her garments, cupping her buttocks. He positioned himself deeply against her, and there was no mistaking the prodding bulge. She moaned at the sensation. And then he began to move. The hard length of him rubbed against her, sliding between her moist, intimate heat without penetrating.

An ache grew low in her belly, shooting a direct line to where he pressed against her. The friction became unbearable. She became slippery and wet against him.

She thrashed her head against the pillow. “Please, please, Logan.”

He rubbed deeper, moving in a manner that mimicked the act of lovemaking. She shook, trembled from desire, the need so great in her that she at last convulsed in his arms. Her nails dug into the smooth expanse of his back as fiery sensations rushed through her.

It went on and on. Ripples of pleasure crashed over her like a pounding tide.

She cried out his name and he drowned the sound with a blistering kiss. Suddenly he stilled against her, the throbbing length of him no longer moving and creating that delicious friction . . . and she was left with a vague sense of dissatisfaction. A hunger for more.

His arms, braced on either side of her, shook with restraint. She couldn’t help herself. She moved against him, used some wanton part of herself that she didn’t know existed inside her—that she had prayed, for years, didn’t exist within her.

“What are you doing?” he grit through clenched teeth.

The answer materialized in her mind. “Enjoying life,” she returned. “Isn’t that what you said I should do?”

“Stop,” he commanded, his jaw tense as though in pain.

It was wicked of her, she knew, but she didn’t stop.