“Oh Caro,” he breathed. “You’re so beautiful I’m almost afraid to touch you.”
“Don’t be.” She looked down so he wouldn’t see the tears glittering in her eyes as she slipped her arms around his waist. “I’m here, love, and I’m yours.”
With a deep groan he took what she offered, drawing her close. As his mouth found hers, his fingers sank deep into the soft curve of her hips, fitting his body against hers. She tasted his kiss like liquid fire, searing her blood, as the pressure of his body against hers overwhelmed her senses. When he lifted her against him, she moaned into his mouth, her nipples tightening as they brushed against the rough hair of his chest and the hard, hot power of his arousal against her belly.
He swept one arm beneath her knees and she gasped with surprise, clinging to his shoulders as he carried her the few feet to lay her on the bed. After the hard bunk of the Raleigh’s cabin, the feather bed felt light as dandelion down beneath her and the linen sheets were faintly redolent of rosemary. Alone, Caro looked questioningly up at Jeremiah as he shoved back the bed’s curtains, the rings scraping along the iron rod.
“You’re too fair to hide away in the dark, sweetheart,” he explained, thinking how a real virgin would have pulled the sheets up tight beneath her chin instead of curling so invitingly naked against the bolsters the way Caro was now. “Whether by candlelight or moonlight, I want to see you. If it’s not, of course, too much for your poor maidenly innocence?”
She chuckled, throaty and more alluring to him than she realized with her silvery hair tumbled across the pillow. Watching him with the same hunger that filled his eyes, she slid across the mattress to make room for him.
“Nay, Caro, not so fast.” Lying down on the bed beside her he curled one arm around her waist and pulled her back, rolling her deftly beneath him. “No scuttling away from me now.”
“Whyever would I want to?” she asked breathlessly. Although he supported most of his weight on his elbows, she liked the feel of his body on hers and the way the mattress gave gently beneath them. Exploring, she rested her hands on his lower back to feel the bunch of muscles there, the little indentations below his waist. She reached up to kiss him, teasing light as a feather.
“No reason on earth that I can consider.” Past teasing, he caught her lower lip in his teeth, working it gently as his hand found her breast, and felt the tremor clear through her body. Beneath his fingers her nipple rose firm and taut, delighting him with her response. With a broken sigh, she arched her back into his caress, her hips instinctively rising beneath his to rub against him in a way that tore at his selfcontrol.
“Easy now, sweetheart,” he growled, intensifying the caress as her fingers clutched convulsively into his shoulders. His heart was pounding in his ears, his blood fevered, and the tension that had swirled around them all evening focused now on the beautiful woman beneath him. “My sweet, hot Caro.”
“You make me feel so—so perfect, Jeremiah,” she whispered raggedly, and closed her eyes with the heat that his touch brought her. She had never dreamed there could be so much pleasure in the world, so much sweet, agonizing pleasure.
“Almost there, love, almost there.” He raised himself up just long enough to ease her legs apart, his hands gliding across the soft skin of her inner thighs until she trembled. When he touched her, wet and hot and ready, she whimpered, her legs curling around his hand as she desperately sought the release her body craved. “Almost home.”
He opened her legs wider to take him and she stared up at him wildly, her eyes dark with passion and her breath no more than ragged gasps. “You won’t—you won’t hurt me, will you?”
He was so close he could feel her heat welcoming him, guiding him. He was long past playing games, long past pretending, past anything but the intense reality of her need waiting for him. Groaning, he buried himself in her with a single stroke, into her heat, deep into her velvety sweetness, and, unbelievably, through the very real barrier of her maidenhead.
Chapter Thirteen
“Caro.” With the need pulsing in his veins and every nerve on edge, he couldn’t say more than her name alone. How could he, when she was so hot and tight around him? Her eyes were squeezed shut and she’d stiffened beneath him, her breathing so shallow it was almost panting. Damnation, he’d hurt her, and he’d never wanted to do that. If only she’d told him the truth!
“Don’t stop,” she whispered with ragged, incoherent urgency, lifting and twisting her hips to meet him. “Oh, please, Jeremiah, don’t stop!”
It was all the encouragement he needed, and she gasped as he began moving in her again, slowly at first and then faster, more demanding, in a rhythm she soon learned and answered. The first tug of pain she’d felt had vanished, and she curled her legs over his broad back, slick with sweat, drawing him in as deeply as she could. Hot tension coiled tighter and tighter in her belly, aching for a release that only he could give, and she cried out and clung to him desperately as they rocked closer to the edge.
“Oh, love, I’m sorry,” he gasped, his face taut as he drove into her. “I’m sorry, but it’s just too good. You’re too good, Caro!”
She wanted to tell him it was all right and that she loved him, but he shifted higher, touching her deeper, and all her thoughts shattered and vanished before the wave of sensual pleasure. She had never dreamed her body was capable of this, and fleetingly she remembered all the ribald winks and leers from her mother and her friends so long ago. But this was different, because this was her Jeremiah, and she felt herself hurtling over the edge, crying his name, the exquisite ecstasy of her release beyond imagining.
Afterward she held him as they lay tangled together, gently stroking the long length of his back as his breathing calmed and his body relaxed. She knew she’d done the right thing, knew with all her heart. At this moment, their bodies still joined so intimately, she felt closer to him than she’d ever been to another person. But though she longed to ask him if he’d experienced the same joy from their lovemaking that she had herself, his face was turned away from hers, toward the pillow, and she fought back lonely tears of disappointment. Could she really have misjudged him—and herself—so badly?
Finally, with a sigh, he rolled to one side, propping his head up on the pillow to look at her, his hair falling damply across his forehead. There was, she thought unhappily, certainly no joy to be found in that grim, handsome face now.
“Caro,” he said with more gentleness than she expected. “Why, love? Why?”
She swallowed hard, reaching for the sheet to cover herself. The way the shadows fell across the bed curtains hid his eyes, and she wished desperately she could see them now and know what he was thinking. Once again that single word of his could be the beginning of so many questions with so many different answers, but she gave him the only one that mattered.
“Because I love you,” she said, her words quavering, “and because I dared to believe that you love me, too.”
“But, damnation, Caro, what about your blessed husband?” There was confusion in his voice, and more than a share of anger. “You’ve been married to the man for fourteen years. I can’t believe in all that time he never made love to you once, especially considering—well, considering the circumstances.”
“No, go ahead and say it,” she said bitterly. “Considering that Frederick paid five hundred pounds for my maidenhead, he should at least have had the privilege of taking it.”
“Aye, something like that.” He reached out then to brush his finger across her cheek, and only then did he realize she was crying. “Why, sweetheart?”
Another why, and this time the answer wouldn’t be as simple. She turned her face away from him, instead staring up at the canopy overhead, and let the hot