LITMIR.BIZ

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and laid her on the bed. ‘There are definite advantages of doing this in the warm,’ he remarked, looking down at her.

      ‘On such a soft bed as well.’ Nell wriggled into the downy covers, wondering what he was waiting for. ‘Oh!’ Marcus leaned over, grasped her hips and pulled her to the edge of the bed. ‘What are you doing?’

      He did not answer, but went to his knees, parting her thighs as he did so. Nell gasped as the dark head bent, rearing up on her elbows in alarm. ‘No! You can’t, that’s indecent!’

      He looked up, laughter crinkling the corners of his eyes. ‘Tell me to stop, then.’

      ‘Stop! Ah…no, don’t stop.’ Nell fell back, limp and gasping, unable to do anything but endure the delicious onslaught of tongue and lips as he worked his ruthless, wicked magic. Her body was burning, melting, twisting like metal in the forge and he was the alchemist, transforming her into liquid gold, into…exploding starlight.

      Nell came to herself to find her head on the pillow and her body pressed into the bed by the hard weight of Marcus. Tiny aftershocks still quivered through her body and she arched up, instinct pressing her against him so the quivering became a new, demanding ache as he shifted, poised to take her.

      His face was stark as he looked down, predatory even, but she saw the tenderness in his eyes and smiled, curving her arms up around his neck to pull his head lower for a kiss.

      ‘Are you certain, Nell?’ Marcus asked, and she felt the strain in his muscles as he held himself back, knew that if she shook her head he would leave her despite his need for her.

      ‘Love me, Marc,’ she whispered.

      ‘Always.’ His lips brushed hers then he lifted his head again, their eyes locked as he surged slowly into her. Deep in the back of her mind, she had feared her body would resist him, that the terror of the past would sweep back and take over, but those ghosts had gone, exorcised by his tenderness, and she opened to him, revelling in the knowledge that he was filling her, completing her. They were one and, whatever happened after this night, they always would be.

      ‘Marc?’ he queried, his voice almost harsh with the effort he was using to keep himself still now he was within her.

      ‘Yes, Marc,’ she murmured, a little dazed, lifting her head to kiss the corner of his mouth. ‘My Marc.’

      ‘Ah, Nell.’ His eyes were almost black as they watched her, holding her as he began to move and she found the rhythm and went with him, drove him and was driven, gasped and clung and was lifted higher and higher until it all unravelled and she was crying out against his mouth and she felt him shudder and pull away, leaving her, and she was lost in the darkness with just his voice to cling to. ‘Nell, oh my God, Nell…’

      Nell woke to find herself wrapped around something hot and large. She blinked for a moment, confused, trying to wake up from the dream of ecstasy and Marc. Marc. She had let go, allowed herself to think of him like that, dreamt of him taking her, loving her.

      The pillow against her cheek moved and she blinked again, trying to focus.

      ‘That tickles. You have indecently long eyelashes, Nell.’

      ‘Marc?’

      ‘Who else did you expect, might I ask?’ He sounded more amused than affronted, his voice rumbling in his chest under her ear.

      ‘I thought you were a dream.’ She pushed herself up on one elbow and looked down at him. The lamps were still burning and in their light she could see he was lying on his back, as relaxed as a big cat, his hair tousled on the pillow, one arm flung out above his head, the sheet clinging, like a sculptor’s attempt at decency, to his hip bones.

      ‘I am solid reality,’ he protested, laughing at her.

      ‘I recall parts being extremely solid,’ she said naughtily, sliding her hand under the sheet, revelling in his gasp as her questing fingers found him, already more than half aroused.

      ‘Nell, that is disgraceful behaviour. Can you not see I am quite exhausted?’ Marc’s attempt at severity was deeply unconvincing. Her fingers tightened at the root and began to pull upwards. ‘Even if that is not!’

      ‘Oh, dear. I am wide awake,’ she said with a pout that made him gasp with laughter. ‘Whatever is to be done?’

      ‘Why, you will have to do all the work.’ He shifted across the bed a little and lay back watching her from under heavily lidded eyes. ‘Ride me, Nell.’

      It seemed outrageous. She pulled away the sheet and straddled his narrow hips, tightening her thighs along his flanks then lowered herself, inch by inch as he groaned, his eyes closing. The feeling of power was overwhelming. Nell inched lower, her hands splayed on his chest, his nipples hard under her fingertips as she teased them out of pure instinct. Then she was lodged securely, the whole hard silken length of him tight within her.

      There were muscles she did not know she had that she could tighten, she discovered by accident as she hung, breathless above him, tiny movements that wrenched a groan from his throat. ‘Nell, this it torture.‘ His voice belied the word. This is bliss, it said.

      But she could not resist any longer. Nell began to move, slow at first, then faster, driving them both up, up, while his fingers tightened on her hips and his body bucked under hers and then as the whirlwind caught her again he spun her over, so he was on top for two hard thrusts before he pulled free and her cry was lost in his shout of triumph and the world spun out of control again.

      The next time she woke, she knew where she was and who she was with and every glorious thing that had happened since she had opened the door to find Marc there, his hands gripping the door frame. Those hands were drifting across her body now, tracing the swell of her belly, tickling up her ribs, playing with her nipples, which tightened into hard knots of exquisite—

      ‘Marc! Are you in there?’ The shout was accompanied by a thud on the door from a clenched fist.

      Nell opened her eyes with a small shriek. Beside her, Marcus threw back the sheet and vaulted out of bed, stark naked, strode across the floor and unlocked the door.

      ‘What the devil?’

      Nell’s second shriek was muffled as she slid down under the covers at the sight of Hal, snow melting on his coat as he shouldered into the room past Marcus. ‘We’ve got him, as near as damn it. One of the keepers saw him at the back of the stables and he took off towards the Aylesbury Road—not the woods. His tracks are plain if we can get on them before they are filled with drifting snow again. Get dressed—you can’t go chasing after him stark boll—’

      There was a muffled sound that Nell had no trouble interpreting as Hal receiving a cuff round the ear from his older brother.

      ‘Er, sorry, stark naked.’

      ‘Well, get out of here and find the guns and I’ll be right down,’ Marcus growled. ‘Can’t you show a bit more discretion, damn it? This is a lady’s bedchamber, not a cavalry barracks.’

      ‘Quite, of course. Only you weren’t in your room so I assumed…’

      ‘Hal!’

      ‘Sorry, Nell.’ The door closed with a discreet click.

      Nell peered cautiously over the top of the sheet. Marcus was pulling on his breeches and looking remarkably cheerful.

      ‘You’ll have to marry me now.’

      ‘Nonsense. Hal is hardly likely to be gossiping about this.’ Nell slid out of bed with a harassed glance at the clock—just past six—and began to pick up scattered clothing. She straightened to find Marcus looking at her with an expression that sent goosebumps scuttling up and down her spine. ‘Stop that!’ she protested, diving into the comfortingly chaste nightgown.

      ‘Well, don’t bend over dressed in nothing but your very delightful skin if you do not want me transfixed,’ he said mildly, picking up the bundle

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