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  It would be a night filled with passion, a night that she could cherish in her private memories for the rest of her life.

  She luxuriated in the soft brush of his hair as he lowered his head to her breasts and cried out with pleasure as he tongued her nipples, following that up with a strong suckle. Lost in the moment, she held his head close, not wanting him to ever stop what he was doing, lest the icy hot tremors of delight within her body should stop too.

  Her thighs writhed against the slightly harsh skin of his legs and then parted, baring her mound, inviting his attentions there should he so choose.

  His hand slid over her skin, down toward her hip, teasingly slowly, dancing around the ticklish spot just to one side of her belly. She jumped and gasped as the featherlight fingers stroked the front of her thigh in concert with the strong suckling of her breast.

  Marcus was playing her, she realized. Playing her with all the talent of a virtuoso in one of the world's leading orchestras.

  And her body's responses were the notes, the chords he produced.

  The touching went on and on, soothing strokes of his palms followed by quick rough squeezes and the dash of a hard fingernail over sensitized skin. Mariah held her breath, released it, then lost it all over again as Marcus found another place to awaken, to arouse.

  And all the while, one place in particular seemed neglected, the place that was throbbing and weeping liquid between her thighs.

  "Marcus..." She breathed his name as his tongue found her navel and dipped inside, hotly teasing and making her ache with need.

  "Shhh." He whispered against her skin, his breath cool against the moisture he'd painted there.

  She shivered once more, but it was all about the desire he was igniting, not the temperature of the room. Her fingers itched to touch him in return, to learn his shape, his contours, his textures, his—oh God.

  Marcus had reached that place.

  She'd hoped for a caress or two, needed the feeling of his hand doing something—anything—to ease her desires. What she got—was his mouth.

  *~*~*~*

  Marcus was enjoying what was turning out to be a wonderful experience.

  He liked sex, knew he was more than adequate at fulfilling a woman's needs and generally hopped into bed at the drop of a chemise or—now and again—the drop of a pair of breeches. He was a reborn man, a newly awakened soul in many ways, eager to take what the world had to offer on these altered terms.

  He wasn't dying anymore. He was living. And he intended to live life to the fullest.

  At least that had been his intention when he'd accepted the rather outrageous offer from this unusual woman. After all, he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when said gift horse offered him an uncomplicated night of sex.

  But the first touch of her lips to his, the first taste of her skin and the first moment their bodies had met and embraced—naked—Marcus' ordered existence shifted.

  Had he thought her unusual? He was wrong. She was unique.

  Her enticing blend of innocence and sensuality was playing havoc with his brain, which refused to assume its normal stance and observe the proceedings dispassionately. He could recall most of his sexual encounters in detail, but every minute with Mariah was obscuring the last. Every second, every lick, stroke and caress—they were heated flashes of something quite new, something Marcus had not experienced before.

  He'd prided himself on his attention to his partner's desires. Tonight, he was having a hard time containing his own. If she'd touched his cock, he'd have exploded in her hand, so hard was he at the mere sight of her naked body.

  Her taste was on his tongue, her scent in his nostrils—he felt like he was drowning in Mariah Dean. Willingly submersing himself in all that she was. He wished for more hands, for two or maybe three cocks, for several tongues to sprout from his limbs so that he could devour her all at once rather than having to waste time moving to discover a new place to enjoy.

  He spared barely a second to wonder at the ineptitude of the man who had shared her bed during their marriage. Clearly all he'd done was prime Mariah for this moment, here—now—with Marcus.

  The candlelight played over her slender curves as he shifted between her thighs and let the aroma of her pussy dance into his mind. He lifted his head and looked at her face as he moved her where he wanted her to be. It was a pretty good bet that she'd never had a man's mouth on her like this before, to judge from her responses. They varied from wide-eyed surprise to gasping encouragement.

  She seemed completely confused, aroused and uncertain.

  Marcus grinned as he kissed, then licked, the tender skin inside her thigh. Within moments Mariah would be one thing and one thing only.

  His.

  And where the hell that possessive thought had burst from, Marcus had no idea at all. But it was there, sitting smugly at the back of his brain, whistling a tune and smirking.

  He did his best to ignore it, lured by the sight of swollen pink folds shining delectably just inches from his mouth. One more glance upward—she was watching him again, astonishment and sexual heat dancing in the candlelit depths of her smoky gray eyes.

  He held her gaze as he lowered his head.

  And sucked. Hard.

  She whimpered, a tiny but encouraging sound, driving Marcus to tongue her, to swirl his way through her hot honey and find the hard bud he knew would drive her wild.

  And sure enough, as soon as he touched her clit the whimper turned into a gasping cry and her eyes rolled back in her head. She went limp, then tensed in his hands as he investigated every single inch of her pussy—thoroughly.

  Her taste smothered him, something tangy, womanly, a flavor that apparently he'd been seeking all his life. He couldn't get enough of her. He wanted her hot moisture all over him, infusing him; he wanted it there where he could breathe it in every single moment by simply inhaling.

  Marcus let his tongue go where it willed, probing her secret places, delving between pussy lips that burned with passion and finally seeking the entrance to her sex, pausing there to toy with the flesh he knew would be incredibly sensitive and responsive to whatever he did.

  A low growling moan erupted from her throat as her thighs parted even wider, offering, inviting—demanding more.

  More would be a pleasure. For both of them.

  For an instant of time, Marcus paused, torn between the urge to bring her release with his mouth and the need to be inside her. It would take no more than seconds to send her flying, screaming his name, shuddering around his face, clawing at his tongue with the spasms she'd experience.

  She was trembling, on the edge of a precipice—if he pushed her over, could he bring her there again tonight?

  He wasn't sure. For once, his senses were scattered, confused, a muddle of lust and need and dulled by the aching hardness of his balls and the throbbing of his cock, eager to find its own relief within her heat.

  He breathed in her scent once more, then pulled back, loving the tiny mewling whimper Mariah made as he moved away from her pussy.

  "'Tis time, sweet. Take me inside you, Mariah." He was barely whispering the words, but she heard them. Her legs adjusted although her eyes were closed and he sensed her total involvement with what they were about to do.

  He stared at her face as he moved into position, nudging her flesh with the head of his cock, mingling their moisture as his body urged him on with its own signs of need. Her lips were parted, her teeth shining points of light between the lush reddened skin that he wanted to kiss even at this moment. He wondered if he'd ever seen a look quite like that on the face of a lover.

  He couldn't remember. In fact, he couldn't even recall any of his previous lovers. This instant, this bed, this experience—they were wiping away his past with a firm hand, introducing him to something quite new and perhaps, on some level, a little frightening.

  For a man who'd faced his own mortality and stared death in the eyes, it was a strange notion.

 
But as soon as Marcus moved his hips forward and began to sink into Mariah's slick heat, all his other thoughts vanished. She was silken and snug around his cock, a new territory he couldn't wait to explore.

  She opened for him, her tight muscles welcoming him with a movement that was almost a sigh of pleasure if such a thing was possible from this particular part of her body.

  Her legs gripped his hips instinctively, her ankles thudding into his back as she pulled him closer, deeper, claiming him every bit as much as he was claiming her. With tiny upward thrusts of her hips, Mariah met his penetration with a demand of her own—that he sink himself deeply inside, lay claim to what he knew, deep within him, was his to take.

  Her passion. Her desire. Her fulfillment.

  It was a first for him, this incredible awareness of a woman's needs and the overwhelming sensation that he—and only he—could understand them and satisfy them.

  He was alive to every tiny movement she made, every sound she uttered, every twitch of her fingers or ripple within her secret places. As he slid deeper, she moaned, low in her throat, probably unaware of the sound, but fueling his desire with this evidence of her pleasure.

  Finally, when their bodies touched and he was buried to the balls inside her, Marcus took a breath, fighting the dizziness that threatened to cloud his vision and drive him to pound himself to orgasm against her.

  He could control this fire. He would master it, not let it master him. They would both achieve their release, but damn if he'd let his cock set the pace. To do so would be to lose all hope of ever reclaiming his self-control with Mariah.

  And something told him he was going to need that self-control.

  So he bit down on the urgings of his cock and kept the pace slow, sliding his way through her exquisite inner grasp, almost leaving her, then slipping back in to press himself into her pussy and against her clit.

  She lifted her hips a little, tiny sobbing breaths marking his passage within her body, her neck arching as his movements took him ever deeper and sent her ever higher along the road to completion.

  Drops of sweat rolled from Marcus' forehead to dapple the soft curves of her belly, but he ignored them.

  His spine tingled, his muscles began to burn and his entire world narrowed to the woman beneath him and their slick wet joining. He was coming, he knew. Nothing, no amount of determination could prevent it now. The fuse had been lit and was burning fiercely toward its goal.

  His one vague, but devout, hope was that Mariah's fuse was at the same place.

  Marcus increased his pace, thrusting instead of sliding, pushing hard against her body with each downstroke. "Come, Mariah. Let go...let it happen."

  "I—I—oh God—"

  Together they soared, locked in the elemental joining of male and female, muscles clenching around each other, woman's heart to man's soul.

  Marcus felt his world fall apart as his balls pumped violently into Mariah, filling her with his seed, branding her from the inside with his mark of possession. She cried out as she rocked with him, spasming frantically from head to toe, holding nothing back as she released her flood of pleasure to mingle with his.

  It seemed to be over too quickly and yet it was a moment ripped from eternity.

  Marcus slumped, staggered by the enormity of his release, tumbling free of Mariah and falling next to her on the bed, panting.

  She was breathing rapidly too, her breasts rising and falling with the harsh gulps of air she was sucking in to lungs as starving as his own.

  "Dear God." He managed to force the words through a throat that had closed on him at some point and dried up—probably because his orgasm had drained every drop of liquid from his body.

  The air of the room was chilling his damp flesh and he fidgeted until he had them both cocooned in Mariah's bedding. Then he tucked himself close to her and held her, listening as her heartbeat slowed to something approaching normal.

  She heaved a sigh and snuggled into his arms. "Thank you."

  "You're very welcome." Marcus yawned. "And thank you in turn."

  There was no answer other than a little snore against his chest.

  Chapter Four

  Mariah woke at her usual time to an unusual sensation.

  She wasn't alone.

  She knew this because one of her feet was cold and dangling over the edge of her mattress while the rest of her was cuddled quite comfortably into a source of heat that warmed her from top to toe. After a few moments of utter and complete confusion, Mariah remembered.

  Marcus.

  And with the mere emergence of his name in her thoughts, memories of their passion flooded back and aroused her all over again.

  This would never do.

  Carefully—and with a large amount of regret—she eased herself away from him and left the bed. Had she been given a choice, she would have stayed, but there was no other option. He had to leave; she had to gather up her wits and continue with her life from where it had been so summarily interrupted last night.

  Peg was probably already in the kitchen preparing for the day ahead and Mariah must join her.

  Silently collecting her clothes, she dressed as best she could, sluicing the icy water from the ewer over her body, wincing as it touched places he'd heated last night. His lips were infinitely preferable to a cold cloth.

  With a sigh, Mariah tiptoed from the room. Marcus didn't move, just snuffled softly into the pillow they'd shared. She couldn't resist a backward glance at this mound of muscles occupying her bed. She stared, burning the image into her brain.

  She would not be able to look at her environment the same way again without seeing him there. Which was exactly what she'd wanted, of course.

  A memory. A shining moment when desire had taken over and she'd learned what could really occur between a man and a woman. The right man.

  And Marcus had been the right man.

  Closing the door as quietly as she could, Mariah headed downstairs. Her legs were a bit shaky, thanks to Marcus' skilled loving, and she had a few twinges and aches in places that didn't usually experience that sort of thing.

  It wasn't unpleasant, but did serve as a physical reminder of the man sleeping soundly upstairs. And the delights he'd shown her. Delights that had far surpassed any she could have imagined in her wildest dreams.

  She nearly tripped over the carpet at the bottom of the stairs, so lost was she in the sudden deluge of remembered sensation and she found herself gripping the banister to steady her steps.

  The sound of Peg rattling dishes recalled her to the present, and with another big sigh, Mariah squared her shoulders and prepared to face the day. She assumed Marcus would rise, dress and be on his way forthwith. They'd been honest with each other last night and she expected nothing more from him. She might even be able to get away without having to explain his presence.

  He might want to break his fast, she supposed...better make sure there was plenty of Peg's freshly baked bread on hand...she could take some out to the barn when he saddled his horse to leave...a bit of that nice cheese...

  With these housewifely thoughts uppermost in her mind, she walked into the kitchen. "Good day, Peg."

  "Here you are." The elderly woman turned from the table and smiled. "You slept a bit late." She nodded at a tray. "I was going to bring you up a spot of tea if you didn't come down soon. Thought you might have one of your migraines or somethin'."

  "No migraine." Mariah reached for a cup and busied herself with tea. "I'm feeling quite well today."

  If a bit shaky and sore around the more personal areas.

  "So everythin' went off all right last night, did it?" Peg eyed her mistress.

  "Oh yes." Mariah felt her lips curve into a smile. Then she realized what Peg was talking about. "The lads got the cargo landed and loaded in record time. Which was just as well, since Stinson turned up with a contingent of revenue officers from Calshot right after they'd finished."

  "Oh my." Peg held a hand to her bosom. "You was very luck
y, Mariah." She frowned. "That damn Stinson, pardon my language. He's a worm, no mistake about it." Her face creased into lines of worry. "There weren't no trouble?"

  "Er, no." Mariah sipped her tea and fought to keep any untoward expression from her features. "All went well."

  There was a sound on the stairs. Mariah sucked in a breath. Damn. She was, apparently, going to have to explain her nocturnal visitor after all. "I had a little help from an unexpected quarter."

  "You did?" Peg blinked at her, then jumped as the kitchen door opened once more. "Eeeeek." A pan dropped from the older woman's nerveless hands as she stared at the apparition.

  Mariah couldn't blame her. "Eeeek" was pretty close to what she herself would have said if she hadn't already seen quite a bit more of the man standing sleepily in the doorway.

  Sir Marcus Camberley, dressed, was a handsome devil.

  Sir Marcus Camberley, clad only in breeches and all rumpled and mussed from his bed—well, Mariah could well understand Peg's squawk. When he yawned and stretched and followed both actions with a smile and a soft "good morning"—both women sighed identical sighs. Apparently the appeal of a good-looking man, a well-muscled chest and a sensual smile broke down the barriers of age or rank along with just about everything else.

  Mariah wondered if Peg was drooling too.

  "Mmmph...glurggh...phwooo...?"

  The halting sputters came from Peg, who seemed to be not quite drooling, but still incapable of speech as she gazed, awestruck, at Marcus.

  "Um, Peg? This is Sir Marcus Camberley. He was very kind last night and provided a much-needed distraction to the revenue officers. Sir Marcus, this is my friend and right hand, Peg Dalton."

  "A distraction? I'll wager my best knickers it worked." Peg's voice returned, albeit a little hoarsely.

  "Hello, Mrs. Dalton." Marcus grinned and walked to her, lifting her hand and kissing it with as much courtly elegance as if she'd been a duchess in a London salon instead of a cook in a country kitchen. "It is Mrs. Dalton, isn't it?"