Her delicious shivers prompted him to draw her closer to the fire before he began to undress her. His hands were knowing and sure as he unfastened her gown and lifted it off. Bess undid the tapes of her petticoat herself and stepped out of it, leaving herself clad in only a short shift and her stockings.
William gathered her to him again, and she felt the heat of his hands through the thin material that both revealed and concealed her curves. “Your body was fashioned to give a man pleasure.” His possessive hands fondled her breasts, and he dipped his head to kiss, then tongue her nipples through the delicate fabric. The clinging wet material turned transparent, so that the bright pink tips of her breasts were now temptingly visible. His eyes told her of the inner excitement the sight of her body brought him.
Every glance, every touch heightened her arousal and made her hands bold enough to go inside his doublet to unfasten his shirt. “William, I want to look at you and touch you in the same way.” When he shrugged out of his doublet and removed his shirt, Bess's dark eyes drank in his male splendor. She had never seen him unclothed, and she thrilled at the realization that his wide chest and powerful shoulders had nothing to do with the padded doublets that were the fashion.
“Oh,” she gasped, as she ran her hand over his sleek muscles. “You're so hard.”
He took her hand and brushed it across his groin. “Hard as marble.”
“Let me see!” she demanded, as a hunger for the sight of him gnawed inside her belly.
William stripped off his clothes and stood before her completely nude.
“Oh, my God,” she murmured with breathless admiration. His cock was so dominant, it was a full minute before she could take her eyes from it. Then she saw the other things that made the male so different from the female.
His hips were narrow, but his thighs bulged with muscles, which had no doubt developed from long hours in the saddle. She reached out inquisitive fingers to trace a sinew and watched in fascination as his shaft reared and bucked as if demonstrating the brute force it possessed.
Bess gazed at him in wonder, her eyes slowly sliding up his magnificent male body. “You look like your stallion.”
“That's exactly how I feel—rampant!”
“Now I understand. … My God, how ignorant I was. Now I see how difficult it must have been to control your raging need. I understand your haste.”
“I was in a hurry, Bess, but I'll never be in a hurry again, sweetheart. Slowly. I'll savor you slowly.” He drew her closer to his body and thrust his phallus against her soft belly.
Her back was to the fire, and he inched up her shift until her bottom was bared. The flames heated her naked flesh, arousing her further. Bess pulled the front of her shift up above her thighs, then she rubbed herself against him. “Mmmm, that feels so good.”
He kissed her eyelids. “Foreplay with you is like being in paradise.”
Bess thought it a lovely word. “Why, because I'm a virgin?”
He cupped her hot bottom cheeks. “That's part of it, knowing this is the first time you'll be fully aroused, knowing I'm the first to breach all your defenses. But a year from now, when you'll be anything but virgin, foreplay will still be like paradise. Your body is so lush, Bess, and your inborn sensuality so potent, nothing will stop it once I've awakened it.”
She rubbed her cheek across his dark auburn chest hair and nipped at his nipple with her teeth. “If you light a fire in me, you'll have to douse it.”
“Oh, I'll certainly try, sweetheart, but I suspect it will be more than a fire. It will be a conflagration.” He laughed down at her, then lifted off her shift and flung it into the air with a flourish. She was now clad in white lace stockings, held up by ribbon garters. “Those are the sauciest garters I've ever seen. Walk about for me, so I can get the full effect.”
“You rogue, what do you mean?”
He rolled his eyes in ecstasy, making her laugh. “There's something so titillating about red curls and green ribbons. I can't describe it. … Walk over for me and look in the mirror.”
Bess went to the mirror and blushed pink at her wanton reflection. Her high mons was covered by a profusion of red-gold curls, while on either side a green ribbon decorated her thighs. Bess liked the naughty picture she made. He'd had her stripped down to her stockings once before, and she remembered vividly what he'd done to her that night. Only this time he didn't have to stop! This time she would let him play out his erotic games to their wicked conclusion! Bess cupped her breasts and admired them in the mirror.
He growled low in his throat and pounced. With one arm about her back, the other beneath her knees, he swept her up, raising her mons until it was high enough for him to kiss. Bess arched provocatively, then squealed as he buried his tongue in her, carrying her to the high bed before he withdrew it.
“Lie back,” he murmured.
As she did so, Bess lifted her hair so that it spread over the green cover in silken splendor. He knelt on the bed and gazed down at her. “Open your legs for me so I can look at you,” he said huskily.
Bess lifted her legs and placed a small foot on each of his shoulders. The tip of her tongue came out to lick her lips. “Would you help me remove my stockings, sir?”
William reached down her leg and slowly drew off a lace stocking and garter. Then he brought the dainty bare foot to his mouth for a kiss. Bess curled her toes in pleasure, allowing him a peek at her pink cleft as his hands slipped off the other stocking.
Her teasing, wanton behavior told him she was becoming highly aroused and that she was inviting him to make love to her. But William didn't want this deflowering to be painful. If he gauged her sensuality right, she had a long way to go yet before she was in full-blown arousal. He would wait until she was begging and writhing in white-hot need, so that all she would experience when he mounted her was pure sexual pleasure.
He stretched out beside her on the bed, then came up over her in the dominant position and pulled her into a fierce embrace. One of the most beautiful things about her was her mouth, and he knew he'd never have enough of it. He splayed his fingers into her hair and lowered his mouth, molding his lips and his body to hers as she lay captive beneath him.
At first his kisses were tender and melting, then they turned sensual as his tongue delved deep, tasting her honeyed sweetness and tempting her tongue to duel with his in a play of love that felt like hot, sliding silk. These kisses aroused a ferocious hunger that became rough and elemental in their intensity. Her full breasts were crushed against the hard, sleek muscles of his chest, the hair on his chest abrading her nipples, turning them to diamond-hard jewels.
Now he traced the outline of her mouth with the tip of his tongue, licking her full, sensual lower lip, then sucking it into his mouth as if it were a ripe strawberry. A flame ignited between them, burning their mouths with a smoldering, savage heat that made their blood surge and pound wildly until raw moans of passion erupted from their throats.
William rolled to his back and took her with him, so that now it was Bess who was in the dominant position. She gazed down at him, smoky-eyed, then with feverish hands and mouth explored his body and his maleness to the full. She cupped and stroked and rubbed and kissed and licked every naked inch of his muscle-hard body. Never had he experienced such a splendidly uninhibited female in his life. Then, suddenly, she wrapped her legs about his thigh and began to ride it, raking his flesh with her nails and panting, “Rogue, Rogue, please.”
He stroked the inside of her thighs to loosen their grip on him, then he took her down to the bed and rose above her, suddenly looking ruthless and completely masterful. She needed him to be in full control. She needed him to dominate her completely so she could yield to him. And he became everything she needed.
He positioned himself so that the head of his phallus touched her cleft, then he thrust inside her sheath with a steady pressure that did not falter at the barrier but thrust through it until he was anchored deep. She was so tight, a hot shudder jolted thr
ough his body, then slowly, with long, drugging strokes, he began to make her his.
Never in her wildest imaginings had Bess ever dreamed anything could be so powerful and cataclysmic. At first there was pain, but she didn't fight it, she welcomed it, relished it, loving the fullness and instinctively knowing the pleasure would drown everything with exquisite liquid tremors.
He knew when her passion suddenly soared above every other sensation, for she began to writhe and arch her body and her legs slid high about his back, holding him captive until her ravishing was complete. She craved more kisses, then, when even they weren't enough, she slid her scalding mouth down the powerful column of his neck and she began to bite his shoulder.
He felt his seed almost start two or three times from the silken torment, but with an iron will he stroked deep and strong, knowing the surging wave was building inside her as surely as it built inside himself. He urged her on with raw whispers of love, taking untold pleasure in her cries of passion. Then, suddenly, she screamed and clung to him tightly, and a cry was torn from his own throat, as miraculously they climaxed together.
Each felt the throbbing and pulsing of the other as they were fused together in this fierce mating that allowed them to unleash all the pent-up desire that had been building for years. They were unable to move for long minutes as they lay entwined, their heartbeats thudding against each other, conjoined as if they were one being.
Bess mourned the loss of his weight when he lifted himself from her body, but he slipped his strong arms about her and gathered her close, gazing down at her with love. She was luminous in the candlelight, her flaming hair gloriously disheveled from his loving. Her creamy thighs bore the tiny drops of blood and pearly semen that proclaimed her lost innocence. Bess was soft with surfeit and languorously put her arms about his neck.
“I didn't know,” she murmured in wonder. “I had no idea it was like that.”
He smoothed damp tendrils from her forehead. “My love, it is seldom like that. Only for a special few is it earth-shattering.”
Bess felt soft and small and exceedingly feminine. She loved the smell of his male-scented skin, loved the salty taste of him that lingered on her tongue. She loved the heavy languor that came with being sated; she even loved the heady, musky smell of sex that floated in the air.
The corners of her mouth lifted. She had found her perfect mate. He was so strong and virile and dominant that she could be weak and helpless if she so chose. Yet he was so much a man that if she felt like being assertive and opinionated and bossy, it didn't threaten him, it amused him.
She lifted her mouth to his. “Rogue Cavendish, I have lost my heart to you.”
He grinned down at her and patted her thighs with a corner of the snowy sheet. “By the look of things you've lost more than your heart tonight. Any regrets, beauty?”
Bess stretched like a sensual cat with a bellyful of cream. “My innocence? I didn't lose it; I flung it away with great abandon. My only regret is that you didn't make love to me sooner,” she said dreamily.
“I'll make up for that, never fear. God, how long I've wanted you in bed beside me. All night. To have you fall asleep in my arms, to awaken you with a kiss, makes me the luckiest man alive.” He lifted her between the sheets and tucked the blanket about her. She curled beside him and closed her eyes. He curved an arm about her and cupped a breast, glorying in the lush weight of it. Safe inside their warm cocoon, her body and her senses replete with love, Bess slowly drifted off in blissful slumber.
In the middle of the night, William awoke and found the place beside him empty. His eyes were drawn to the flickering fire in the hearth and he saw Bess standing before it, her beautiful body bathed in the fire glow.
“Are you all right, love?” He slipped from the bed and covered the distance between them.
Her face was radiant. “I'm so happy—I just couldn't sleep.”
He moved behind her and cupped her shoulders, drawing her back against him. “That's excess energy— sexual energy.” He shuddered as her bottom brushed across his groin. His hands moved down from her shoulders to cup her breasts, and he felt her quivering response. “The firelight loves you as I do. It touches you everywhere, making you glow, making you hot.” His fingers traced her rib cage and stroked across her belly, then they threaded through the fiery curls atop her mons and he rubbed his palm against her.
Bess turned to face him and went on tiptoe to slide her arms about his neck. With a low moan she said fiercely, “I don't think I'll ever be able to sleep again.”
“I know what you need.” His voice was like dark velvet. “Will you let me burn off all this delicious sexual energy?”
She nodded her consent and gasped as he lifted her onto his marble-hard manroot. With his hands beneath her bottom cheeks, he moved purposely toward the high bed. “I'll make you sleep.”
Just after dawn Bess opened her eyes and stretched sensuously. William, in black leather pants and linen shirt, came to the bed. “Sweetheart, I wanted to surprise you. I'm on my way to buy you a mount so we can ride together. I thought I'd be back before you awakened.”
He dipped his head to kiss her and she came up on her knees to him, a naked supplicant, sliding her arms about his neck. “Take me with you. Teach me how to buy a horse. Let me do the bargaining.”
His hands stroked her back and she opened her mouth, inviting his deep kiss. His fingers slid into the cleft between her buttocks and she immediately arched against his arousal. His eyes brimmed with amusement. “You already know how to get exactly what you want.”
The tip of her pink tongue came out to trace his lips, and her fingers undid the buttons of his shirt. “Give me another lesson; I want to learn everything.”
He lifted her from the bed and she wrapped her legs around him. “We are so alike; we both have ravenous appetites when we awaken.”
“Will you slake my hunger and thirst?” she teased.
“Will you slake mine?” he demanded intensely, his lids heavy with desire.
“Each and every morning,” she vowed.
An hour later, as Bess lay sprawled across him on the floor before the ashes of the burned-out fire, William stirred. “You need a bath. You have my male scent all over your lovely body.” He sniffed her with lusty appreciation and rolled his eyes heavenward to make her laugh. “I wonder if that bathtub is large enough for two?”
As they rode from St. Albans, heading back to Northaw, Bess patted the glossy neck of the black mare he had just bought her. “I'm sorry I called you a scabby old jade,” she crooned into the filly's ear. “That was just a bargaining tactic.”
Cavendish grinned at her. “I honestly thought you fancied the white palfrey.”
Bess grinned back. “Aye, and so did the old horse thief, but I had my eye on the black all along. We can put her to your stallion and add to our stable at Northaw.”
He didn't hide his amusement at her ambitious plans. On the ride to St. Albans, as she'd sat before him in the saddle, she had told him of her ideas to improve the house, redesign the garden, and now she was starting on the stable. She tossed her head at his laughter. “I'll show you!”
“I bet you will.” His eyes swept over her possessively. “Just don't show any other man. St. Loe couldn't keep his eyes off you.”
“I almost fainted when Elizabeth's captain of the guard rode in.”
“St. Loe was buying horses for Hatfield. It's a small world, Bess. For your sake we have to be discreet for a while.”
“I know we shouldn't be together yet.”
He couldn't bear the look of guilt that clouded her eyes. “Come on, I'll race you!”
“What stakes?”
“I'll think of something—I'll tell you in bed tonight.”
“Cocksure devil!” Bess kept abreast of him, hoping he was too gallant to trounce her unmercifully. When the gate to the Northaw property came into view, she recklessly darted her mare in front of his stallion, causing him to rein in, causing him to lose th
e race.
He grabbed her bridle. “I should take you across my knee.”
“A dangerous position—I might bite.”
He rubbed his shoulder. “You do bite.”
By the time the evening meal was over and darkness descended, the lovers were in a fever of longing to be alone. As the minutes dragged by, they seemed like hours. Cavendish thought he could get some of his paperwork done before they retired, but he finally got up from the desk, abandoning all pretense at concentration. He went to the sideboard and restlessly picked up a flagon of wine.
“Would you bring that upstairs, Sir William?” Bess asked sweetly as Mistress Bagshaw came into the room to draw the drapes.
“Of course.” His eyes glittered as he watched Bess climb the stairs as innocently as a nun going to vespers. He followed her immediately and secured the door. “Hell's teeth, the woman couldn't keep a straight face. Sir William indeed.”
“She doesn't suspect a thing,” Bess insisted stubbornly. “She helped me prepare separate bedchambers.”
“And what do you suppose she thought when she changed our sheets today?”
Bess thought it over for a second. “Who cares? I'll race you to bed!” She kicked off her slippers and stripped off her stockings. She began to laugh as she struggled with the fastenings of her gown and watched him fling off his shirt and reach for his boots. She was naked before he was and ran up the bed steps and did a little victory dance. With a yell of triumph, he launched himself at her and they rolled together into the big featherbed.
Bess reached up and grabbed his hair, shuddering with the intensity of her feelings. “Rogue, I want to make love all night!”
He couldn't stop laughing at her. “Do you hear that, Mistress Bagshaw, she wants to fu—”