Chapter Eight
There was simply no time to waste.
Now that everyone had assembled before the All Things Shop, Violet knew they had a clear path round the church and the remainder of the green. To the Queen’s Ruby rooming house, where Violet and all the other visiting ladies stayed.
She led him around the back of the building, through a little-used entrance. As she’d suspected from the lights warming the parlor windows, it seemed all the ladies had gathered in the large front room.
Violet made her way down the corridor and put her ear to the wall.
“Ladies, ladies.” Through the jumble of conversation, she made out Diana Highwood’s voice. As always, the voice of calm and reason. “Ladies, please. I know the news from Summerfield is alarming, but I have faith everything will be fine. Mr. Dawes has instructed us to remain gathered in the parlor until he returns. The militiamen are searching the village.”
Violet bit her lip. If the militiamen were searching the rest of the village, that meant the safest place for her and Christian was here. For the moment, anyhow.
Another chorus of replies rose up from the ladies, and Violet took advantage of the noise. She grabbed Christian’s sleeve and pulled him up the back stairs.
“Where are you taking me?” he whispered, as they made their way down the deserted corridor.
Lifting a finger to her lips for silence, she opened the door to her chamber and pulled him inside.
What supreme patience it cost her, not to slam the door shut. But Violet forced herself to guide it by slow degrees. Inch by torturous inch. By the moment the latch finally turned with a gentle click, her heart must have beat a hundred times.
At last, she turned to him in the darkened room. “I’m not taking you anywhere. I’m just…taking you.”
“Oh.” He exhaled. “Thank God.”
Placing her hands to his chest, she backed him toward the bed. When the mattress hit him in the back of the knees, he sat down on the coverlet. Fabric rustled as she hiked her skirts a bit. Just enough to sit on his lap.
“I, Violet Mary, take you, Christian James.” She touched his cheek. “To be my husband. To have, to hold. To love and honor. All that sickness-health, richer-poorer business too. Forsaking all others, so long as we both shall live.“
His hand found hers. “You didn’t promise to obey.”
“No, I didn’t.” She kissed his jaw. “What if I substitute, ‘To make wild, passionate love to at every possible opportunity’ instead?”
“I’ll take it and gladly, so long as…” He sucked in his breath as her lips grazed his neck.
“So long as what?” She kissed his ear.
“So long as this counts as an opportunity.”
“Of course. It’s all the honeymoon we’re likely to get.”
His arms tightened around her, and together they fell back onto the bed. Kissing, caressing, clutching at each other. Pulling futilely at one another’s clothes.
With one swift, arousing flex of his arms, Christian flipped her onto her stomach. His strong, rough fingers tore at the closures of her gown and the tapes of her corset. As the garments came loose, she could hear his breath grow increasingly ragged. His desire increased hers. Dampness surged between her legs.
He tossed her skirts to her waist. His weight covered her as he positioned himself between her sprawled legs. Violet was shocked. What did he mean to do?
She felt the moist heat of his tongue against her nape. He bit her exposed shoulder.
“Someday,” he growled against her ear, “I’ll take you like this.”
With one hand, he pulled her hips up and back, bringing her swollen sex flush with the hard ridge of his arousal. He thrust against her a few times, rubbing her through the layers of his trousers and her petticoats. Her aching br**sts rubbed against the counterpane. She found herself riding his movements, craving yet more friction. It was wild and animal, and it felt so very, very good.
Then he stopped, rolling his weight to the side and lifting her by the waist. He repositioned them so that she sat on her knees, straddling him face-to-face. He kissed her neck and shoulders, wrenching the loosened fabric down.
“And someday,” he breathed, “you’ll take me like this. Slowly, sweetly. As we kiss for hours.”
Holding her hips in his hands, he rolled her pelvis. A moan of pure pleasure eased past her lips.
More. She needed more.
As he pushed the gown and chemise lower, sliding her arms free and then baring her to the waist, she rocked against him in an instinctive motion.
“Yes,” he groaned, taking her bared br**sts in his hands and thumbing her hard ni**les. “You’re so lovely. So beautiful.”
She didn’t stop to argue that it was too dark to see a thing. She felt lovely and beautiful in his hands. And most of all, powerful. She set her own rhythm, sliding over his unyielding length again and again. Pushing herself closer and closer to release.
But in the next moment, he stripped all power from her. With a muttered curse, he flipped her onto her back and divested her of the green silk gown.
“By God, Violet. When I come back, I’ll make love to you forty different ways. But tonight, I think we’d best keep it simple.”
He moved between her legs. As she stared up at him, he pulled his shirt over his head and cast it aside. Only the faintest glimmer of light penetrated the small room. With his white shirt discarded, he was a lover formed of shadows and smoke. She reached for him, sliding her hands up his arms, needing to reassure herself that he was real. Loving the feel of his strong, sculpted muscles beneath her palms. She writhed her hips, desperate for more contact.
“Now,” she begged. “Just make love to me now. Any way you wish.”
“Not yet.” He bent to nuzzle her br**sts. She gasped as his tongue swirled over her nipple, teasing it to a firm peak before drawing it deep into his mouth.
“Please. I need you.”
“I need you too. I need to feel you come for me. And considering how long it’s been, I don’t trust myself to last.” After giving her other breast a thorough mouthing, he kissed his way down her belly. “This way first.”
He parted her sex with his rough, callused fingers. And then he touched her—there—with the wicked, velvet heat of his tongue.
For better or worse, she’d always been a quiet girl. But for the first time in her life, Violet wanted to be loud. She wanted to shout and scream and call on God in twenty different languages.
Instead, she covered her mouth with her forearm and moaned into her own feverish skin. Thrashing as he pleasured her with his skillful tongue and lips. With her free hand, she reached overhead, gripping the bedpost tight.