Lady Emma Seaton? Nothing about her quite added up but the sum total of all that she was drove him to the edge of reason.
He felt like locking her up at Falder where no other man would ever touch her again—she was his woman, damn it.
His woman?
The sheer possessiveness of the thought egged him on and he felt his rising lust as a power.
‘Come.’ He did not move at all, but waited as she walked forward into his arms, his erection hard against her stomach, pressing, eager, ready. When he shrugged out of his shirt, she touched the bandage gently, the pale gilt of her curls whisper soft against his cheek.
‘Is it sore?’
Shaking his head, he removed his trousers and reached out to the curve of her waist and then lower.
Emerald felt the first push of his fingers in a place no man had touched before. Careful. Warm. Certain.
So this was it.
This was what she had heard of for ever.
‘Asher?’ She breathed his name as a quicksilver pain pierced her inside.
She would not stop him.
Payment.
Repayment.
Her repayment.
The guilt torn from her very soul made her still.
‘Open for me, sweetheart.’ The command was whispered and underlined by a quick movement. And when she did, the shards of gold in his eyes glowed against a darker brown. Triumph, conquest and elation mixed with desire.
The thick-cut pile of an Aubusson carpet beneath her back was warm as he laid her down and opened her thighs, his sex seeking an entrance, finding the pathway.
‘I have not—’
He covered her mouth with his own and took away the words, his tongue mimicking the quiet thrust of his hips and her whole world exploded into pain. And then he was still. Desperately still.
‘Lord. You’re a virgin!’ Rising above her, sweat beaded his brow and upper lip, the lines of his face softer now as tenderness stretched across desire. She tried to still him by holding her hands across his back, the firmness of muscle cut by ridged scars.
‘Ahh, sweetheart. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
The message was plain as his hooded glance sharpened, refocused, and she made to move out from underneath him.
‘No, Emma. Give it a moment and the pain will pass.’ He moved just slightly.
‘It hurts.’
‘I know. I know.’
He moved again. Forward this time. Deeper as he brought one arm beneath her back and tilted her hips. She felt the very hardness of him against her womb.
Kissing her gently, he nuzzled at her neck and ear. The cold trail of tongue across her nipple and fire consumed her. Without meaning to, she rocked forward. It was all he was waiting for, the pain less now as another feeling climbed. Higher. Closer.
‘Come with me,’ he murmured and, pulling her arms above her head with one hand, he turned her, the rhythm different, less known. A pause here. A deeper thrust there. His free hand held her bottom tight and he buried himself in her to the very hilt.
Up and up and up and over, the clenching waves of ecstasy made her jolt. Once, twice, more and more and more.
Spent, she lay lifeless and did not protest as Asher gathered her in his arms and laid her head upon his chest. Lying there in his shelter and listening to his heart while the wind gathered outside and chased clouds across the moon, she wished that time might just stop. Here. Now. For ever.
But the world ran on in the heavy chime of a clock and when his hand dropped she felt again the quick punch of sensuality.
‘I still want you.’ His words were quiet and the look in his eyes was sensuous, the scent of their lovemaking musky in the air. ‘Do you want me? Again?’
When she nodded, he carefully rolled over and bent his elbows to her side to shelter her from his weight. The touch of his thumb against her breast was questioning; as her nipples hardened she pressed into his hand, her breath shallowed and waiting.
She was cold and he warmed her. She was hot and he cooled her. He was of her and she was of him and there seemed no place that they were separate or solitary in the heady secrets of the flesh.
And when he had finished he brought her up into his arms and walked across to his bed, gently laying her down and bringing up the sheets before joining her.
Smoothing back the damp curliness of her hair, he grinned. The golden lights in his eyes were easily seen and he looked younger and happier. ‘We will be married as soon as the banns have been read. I swear it.’
Marriage!
God.
As who?
As Emerald Sandford?
She was pleased that he did not notice her confusion or her withdrawal as she lay there, listening to his breathing deepen into sleep.
How long would it be before Asher started to put the pieces together properly? Closing her eyes, she gritted her teeth. She could not tell him. He was an honourable man, a man who took his responsibilities seriously. And here she was, another responsibility, a woman whom he would feel bound to marry just because they had slept together.
Marriage.
In the circles she had mixed in, even the notion would seem ludicrous. But her father’s crowd had never had the sort of moral fibre Asher Wellingham did.
A flare of pleasure warmed her and therein lay the rub, for her steely independence faltered somewhat under the mantle of his care, and if she let herself believe in fairy tales she would only be hurt all the worse later.
The memory of him deep inside her body made her heart race. Lord, but to never again know the sweetness of his kisses and the raw white heat of passion…She slashed at the tears that welled in her eyes and swore.
She was caught between love and lies, frozen into immobility. She, who had always walked her world unfettered and straight, the wind in her hair and the sun on her back and a sharp true blade in her fingers.
And now when her world had skewed and reshaped, she understood how often she had been lonely. Solitary. Isolated. Living in Jamaica under the shadow of her father had allowed no space for frivolity, for girlish pursuits, for love.
Love.
A prickling panic overcame her. Love? Asher had never said it. Not once. Could just lust be enough? Had it ever been enough for Beau?
She rubbed at the ache that was settling at her temples and promised herself honesty.
She was the pirate’s daughter and already the whispers of her difference were starting, just as they had at home in Jamaica. She had never fitted anywhere. Even aboard the Mariposa.
Frowning, the slight echo of mistruth startled her.
She did fit!
In Asher’s arms with the promise of safety in his name and in the strong lines of his body.
Yes, for the first time in all her life she looked neither onwards nor backwards but existed just in the moment, a tiny and fragile reality that offered happiness.
Or hurt?
The ghost of her father hovered