His tongue entered her mouth more deeply, causing her to whimper at the subtle gradations of ever-increasing pleasure. His arms curved around her protectively, and he shifted his weight to keep from crushing her, even as he continued to devour her with sweet, soul-stealing kisses. His breath was unsettled and much too fast, as if he had run for miles without stopping. Aline pressed her lips against his throat, discovering that the driving pace of his heart matched her own. He knew, as she did, that every moment of forbidden intimacy came with a price that neither of them could afford. Inflamed beyond the point of caution, McKenna reached for the buttons at the front of her gown, then hesitated as he struggled once more with his conscience.
“Go on,” Aline said thickly, her heart thundering in her chest. She kissed the hard line of his jaw, his cheeks, every part of his face that she could reach. Finding a sensitive spot on the side of his neck, she concentrated on the vulnerable place until his entire body quivered. “Don’t stop,” she whispered feverishly. “Don’t stop yet. No one can see. McKenna, please love me…love me…”
The words seemed to erode his will to resist, and he made a rough sound as his fingers worked quickly at the row of buttons. She wore no corset, nothing but a thin lawn chemise that clung to the round curves of her breasts. After spreading her bodice open, McKenna tugged the chemise down, exposing the soft pink tips of her nipples. Aline stared up into his tense face, relishing his absorbed expression, the way his eyes had narrowed in passion. He touched her breast, his fingers curving beneath the pale weight, his thumb passing delicately over the peak until it contracted. He bent over her, circled the aroused nipple with lazy strokes of his tongue. Aline gasped in pleasure, her thoughts catching fire and burning to ashes as he drew her fully into his mouth. He tugged and licked steadily, until heat gathered in every part of her, and the place between her thighs had begun to throb in fervid demand. Letting out a shivering breath, McKenna pressed his cheek against the naked curve of her breast.
Unable to stop herself, Aline slipped her fingers into the waist of his trousers, past the fasteners of his braces. The surface of his stomach was tightly muscled, the skin satin-smooth except for the sprinkling of coarse hair beneath the hollow of his navel. Her hand shook as she searched for the first button of the trousers. “I want to touch you,” she whispered. “I want to feel you there—”
“Hell, no,” McKenna muttered, catching her wrists in his hands and dragging them over her head. His turquoise eyes were brilliant as his hot gaze traveled from her mouth to her breasts. “For God’s sake, I can barely control myself as it is. If you touch me, I won’t be able to stop myself from finishing this.”
She writhed helplessly beneath him. “I want you to.”
“I know that,” McKenna muttered, bending to blot his gleaming forehead on his sleeve, while maintaining his careful hold on her wrists. “But I’m not going to. You have to stay a virgin.”
Aline tugged almost angrily at her imprisoned arms. “I’ll do as I please, and be damned to everyone!”
“Brave words,” he mocked gently. “But I’d like to hear what you’d tell your husband on your wedding night, when he discovered your maidenhood had already been taken.”
The quaint sound of the word “maidenhood” made Aline smile grimly despite her misery. Virginity…the only thing the world seemed to expect of her. Relaxing beneath him, she let her wrists go lax in his grip. She stared into his eyes, feeling as if the entire world was covered in shadow, and he was the only source of light. “I’ll marry no one but you, McKenna,” she whispered. “And if you ever leave me, I’ll be alone for the rest of my life.”
His dark head lowered over hers. “Aline,” he said in the hushed voice that he might have used in prayer. “I would never leave unless you told me to go.”
His mouth descended to her bare breasts. Aline pushed upward impulsively, offering herself without reservation, crying out as he took a hard, budded nipple into his mouth. He wet the rosy flesh with his tongue, swirling and flicking until she moaned in frustration. “McKenna,” she said fitfully, tugging in vain at her trapped arms, “I need you…please do something, I’m aching so…”
He shifted his long body so that he could pull up the front of her skirts. The thickness of his erection strained behind his trousers as it pressed against her hip. Aline longed to touch him, to explore his body with the same tenderness he showed her, but he wouldn’t let her. He reached beneath the layers of muslin and lace-trimmed lawn, and found the waist of her drawers. Deftly he untied the tapes that fastened the garment, then paused to stare into her half-closed eyes.
“I should stop.” His warm hand settled on her stomach, over the drawers. “This is too dangerous, Aline.” He pressed his forehead to hers, until their perspiration mingled and their breath filled each other’s mouths in warm, tender puffs. “Oh God, how I love you,” he said huskily.
The weight of his hand made her shiver. Instinctively she spread her thighs and nudged upward strongly, trying to bring his fingers where she needed them most. With great care he reached beneath the veil of thin cotton, touching between her wide-open legs. He fondled the patch of springy curls, his fingertips tenderly burrowing to find the plump mound beneath. Aline gasped against his mouth as he parted her swollen flesh, spreading the soft folds to find the opening of her body. She burned with equal parts of embarrassment and excitement, turning her face to the side as his gentle exploration continued. He was familiar with the intricacies of a woman’s flesh, knowing exactly where she was most sensitive, his fingertips skating over the aching peak of her sex with incredible lightness. His calluses rasped the wet skin, the sensation so sweet and delicately maddening that she let out another shaking cry.
“Hush,” McKenna murmured, caressing all around the aroused bud, while his head lifted as he surveyed the meadow beyond the tall grasses. “Someone might hear.”
Aline bit her lip as she fought to obey, though small whimpers kept slipping from her throat. McKenna continued to watch for uninvited company, his alert gaze skimming the estate grounds at the edge of the meadow. His middle finger found the barrier of her virginity and kneaded the fragile impediment until it softened. Aline closed her eyes against the glare of sunlight, offering no resistance as McKenna used his knees to push her legs wider, until the insides of her thighs were stretched and taut. He entered her with his finger, pausing as he felt her jerk with surprise. His mouth touched her forehead, and he whispered against her damp silken skin. “Sweetheart…I won’t hurt you.”
“I know, it’s just…” She forced herself to lie passively beneath him as she felt his finger glide further inside. Her voice caught with a low throb. “It feels so str-strange…”
McKenna pushed it all the way to the second knuckle, and stroked the sleek inner walls, while her body automatically grasped and clung to the gentle invasion. Groaning as he felt the frantic throbbing of her flesh, McKenna fitted the heel of his hand against the tingling peak of her sex. He began a slow, rocking motion, his finger thrusting deeper, his hand nudging her rhythmically.
“Oh…” Aline couldn’t stop from hitching upward in slavish obedience to the provocations of his hand. “Oh, McKenna…”
He slid his free arm beneath her back, lifting her breasts as he kissed her breasts again, his tongue playing over the stiff tips. A swell of sensation rose, then retreated to leave her moaning with excitement. McKenna didn’t falter, caressing her steadily, his teeth catching at her nipples until they turned redder, harder. Aline concentrated on the deep slide of his finger, the coiling, clenching pleasure that went through her loins and spine, until she lost awareness of everything but his hands, his mouth, his heavy body poised over hers. She imagined his sex plunging into her, rending and stretching and filling her…and suddenly she couldn’t move as voluptuous spasms began to roll through her…waves of relief so intense that she wailed from it, while his mouth hastily covered hers to muffle all sound. Shuddering and sobbing, she rode the pleasure to its dizzyin
g summit, then drifted downward while his slick fingers eased her into tranquillity.
Murmuring quietly, McKenna held and stroked her until she went limp beneath him, her limbs turning heavy and warm. His hand began to withdraw from her drenched sex, but she reached down and covered his fingers with her own. “Come inside me,” she whispered. “I want you so, McKenna. Come in me, come—”
“No,” he said through clenched teeth. He rolled away with a groan, his fingers biting into the damp earth and dislodging great fistfuls of moss. “Cover yourself. I can’t touch you anymore, or I won’t be able to stop myself from—” He broke off with a shuddering sound that betrayed how very close he was to taking her. “Pull down your skirts. Please.”
“I want you,” she said breathlessly.
“Now. I mean it, Aline.”
She didn’t dare disobey, not when she could hear that biting note in his voice. Heaving a sigh, she struggled to restore her clothing. After a while McKenna rested on his side to watch her. He seemed to have regained control over himself, though his eyes were still bright with unspent passion.
Aline shook her head with a wistful smile. “No one will ever look at me the way you do. As if you love me with every part of yourself.”
Slowly he reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “That’s how you look at me too.”
She caught at his hand and kissed the rough surface of his knuckles. “Promise me that we’ll be together always.”
But he remained silent, for they both knew it was a promise that he couldn’t make.
Aline knew that the safest thing would be to pretend those passion-filled minutes by the river had never existed. It was impossible, however. Whenever McKenna was nearby, she felt her entire body thrilling to his presence. Emotions seemed to spill from her, charging the atmosphere until she was certain that anyone could sense them. She didn’t dare meet McKenna’s gaze in front of others, afraid that her expression might give her away. McKenna did far better than she in maintaining an impassive facade, but some of the servants, including Mrs. Faircloth, remarked on how unusually quiet he had been for the past week. It was clear to those who knew him well that something was troubling him.
“It’s his age, I suppose,” Mrs. Faircloth told Salter, the butler. “Young men are all high spirits and mischief one day, all gloom and rebellion the next.”
“No matter what his temperament, McKenna had better do his work well,” Salter said dourly. “Or it’s back to the stables for good, and he’ll be a lower servant for the rest of his days.”
When Aline repeated the comment to McKenna one afternoon, he pulled a face and laughed. He was busy polishing the lacquered panels of a carriage, while Aline sat on an overturned bucket and watched him. The covered carriage room was empty and silent, save for the whickering and shifting of the horses in the stalls beyond the court.
McKenna’s exertions had caused him to sweat until his white shirt clung limply to the muscular surface of his back. His shoulders bunched and flexed as he applied a film of wax to the black lacquer, and rubbed it until it shone like glass. Aline had offered to help him, but he had adamantly refused and taken the cloth from her. “It’s my job,” he had told her brusquely. “You sit over there and watch.”
Aline had obeyed with pleasure, enjoying the masculine grace of his movements. As in everything else he did, McKenna performed the task meticulously. He had been taught since childhood that good work was its own reward—and that, coupled with a complete lack of ambition, made him a perfect servant. It was the only fault that Aline could find with him—his automatic acceptance of his lot in life, a resignation so intrinsic that it seemed nothing could ever change it. In fact, she mused guiltily, if it wasn’t for her, McKenna would have been perfectly happy with his fate. She was the only thing he had ever wanted that he couldn’t have. And she knew how selfish it was of her to keep him so firmly tied to her, but she couldn’t make herself let him go. He was as necessary to her as food and water and air.
“You don’t want to be a lower servant forever, do you?” she pressed, bringing her thoughts back to their conversation.
“I’d like it better than working in the house and wearing livery,” he retorted.
“Mrs. Faircloth thinks that you could make it to first footman someday, or even valet.” Aline neglected to mention the housekeeper’s regretful observation that although McKenna would make a wonderful valet, his chances of that were greatly diminished by his handsomeness. No master wanted to have a valet whose looks and bearing outshone his own. Far better to keep someone like McKenna in livery that clearly marked him as a servant. “And then you would be better paid.”
“I don’t care about that,” he muttered, applying more wax to the door of the extension-front carriage. “What do I need more money for?”
Aline frowned thoughtfully. “To buy a little cottage someday, and farm your own plot of land.”
McKenna paused in the midst of his polishing and glanced over his shoulder with a sudden devilish spark in his blue-green eyes. “And who would live with me, in my cottage?”
Aline met his gaze and smiled, while a fantasy took hold of her and suffused her with warmth. “Me, of course.”
Considering that, McKenna hung the waxing cloth on the hook of the carriage lamp before approaching her slowly. Aline’s stomach quivered at the look on his face. “I’d need to earn a fair coin for that,” he murmured. “Keeping you would be an expensive proposition.”
“I wouldn’t cost so much,” she protested indignantly.
He gave her a skeptical glance. “The price of your hair ribbons alone would beggar me, wife.”
The word “wife,” uttered in that low tone, made her feel as if she had swallowed a spoonful of sugar syrup. “I’ll make up for it in other ways,” she replied.
Smiling, McKenna reached down and pulled her to her feet. His hands ran lightly over her sides, lingering just beneath her arms, the heels of his hands brushing against her breasts. The musky male scent of him and the gleam of his sweat-dampened skin made her swallow hard. She drew a little rose-embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve and blotted his forehead.
Taking the dainty cloth from her, McKenna regarded the handiwork of green and pink silk threads with a smile. “Did you do this?” His thumb stroked over the embroidered flowers. “It’s beautiful.”
She colored in pleasure at the compliment. “Yes, I worked on it in the evenings. A lady should never sit with idle hands.”
McKenna tucked the handkerchief into the waist of his trousers and glanced swiftly at their surroundings. Ascertaining that they were completely alone, he slid his arms around her. His hands skimmed over her back and hips to exert delicious pressure in just the right places, adjusting their closeness with sensuous precision. “Will you be there waiting for me every night, in our cottage?” he murmured.
She nodded, leaning against him.
McKenna’s bristly black lashes lowered until they cast shadows on his cheeks. “And you’ll scrub my back when I’m tired and dusty from the field?”
Aline pictured his large, powerful body lowering into a wooden tub…his pleasured sigh at the heat of the water…his bronzed back shining in the firelight. “Yes,” she breathed. “And then you can soak while I hang the stew pot over the fire, and I’ll tell you about the argument I had with the miller, who didn’t give me enough flour because his scale was weighted.”
McKenna laughed softly while his fingertip skimmed lightly along her throat. “The cheat,” he murmured, his eyes sparkling. “I’ll speak with him tomorrow—no one tries to fleece my wife and gets away with it. In the meantime, let’s go to bed. I want to hold you all night long.”
The thought of being tucked in a cozy bed with him, their naked bodies entwined, made Aline tremble with longing. “You’ll probably fall asleep as soon as your head touches the pillow,” she said. “Farming is hard work—you’re exhausted.”
“Never too tired to love you.” His arms slid around h
er, and he hunched over to nuzzle the curve of her cheek. His lips were like hot velvet as he whispered against her skin. “I’m going to kiss you from your head to your toes. And I won’t stop until you’re crying for me, and then I’ll pleasure you until you’re weak from my loving.”
Aline slid her fingers to the hard back of his neck and guided his mouth to hers. His lips covered hers, molding gently until she opened to admit the exquisite probing of his tongue. She wanted the life he had just described…she wanted it infinitely more than the future that awaited her. Yet that life belonged to another woman. The thought of someone else sharing his days and nights, his secrets and dreams, filled her with desperation.
“McKenna,” she moaned, turning her mouth from his, “promise me…”
He held her tight, stroking her back, rubbing his cheek against her hair. “Anything. Anything.”
“If you ever marry someone else, promise that you’ll always love me best.”
“Sweet, selfish darling,” he murmured tenderly. “You’ll have my heart always—you’ve ruined me for life.”
Aline wrapped her arms around his neck. “Do you resent me for that?” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder.
“I should. If not for you, I might have been content with ordinary things. With an ordinary girl.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, hugging him fiercely.
“Are you?”
“No,” she admitted, and McKenna laughed, tugging her head back to kiss her.
His mouth was firm and demanding, his tongue sliding deep with ruthless sensuousness. As Aline’s knees weakened, she molded herself to him until no inch of space remained between them. McKenna supported her easily, holding her between his thighs, his big hand cradling the back of her neck. The pressure of his lips altered as he licked inside her mouth with an erotic playfulness that drew a ragged sigh from her. Just as she thought she would melt to the floor in a puddle of bliss, Aline was disgruntled as McKenna abruptly took his mouth from hers.