Those he could use to bind one wild and recklessly passionate female irreversibly to him.

17

It was a strange night, mild, but the wind had turned waspish, unpredictable and unsettled, whipping past in gusts one minute, dying away to nothing the next. Clouds had rolled in, heavy enough to trap the day’s warmth beneath them; slipping away from the house, Pris didn’t need more than a light shawl.

With the moon well screened, the night closed darkly about her. She found it comforting. The route to the summer house was engraved in her mind; she walked quickly along, keen-incipiently desperate-to reach her destination.

“Damn Rus.” She muttered the words without heat; she didn’t truly begrudge her twin his jubilation, but he’d chatted and laughed over the tea tray until she’d thought she’d scream-or even more revealingly plead a headache. She never suffered from headaches; such a claim would instantly have focused all attention on her. So she’d been forced to wait patiently until Rus had run out of words on which Adelaide and Eugenia could hang and everyone had at long last retired before she could attend to her own urgent need.

The need to see Dillon again.

The need to be with him again, alone in the night. To be in his arms, to feel them close around her, to feel again-live again-for what might very well be the last time.

She hurried on, her feet silent on the grass as she ducked into the shrubbery. It wasn’t as well tended as a shrubbery ought to be, yet wasn’t impossibly neglected, not overgrown so much as escaping from the confines gardeners had sought to impose-she’d always felt at home in its less than stringently correct surrounds.

Thanks to Rus, she was late, later than she’d ever been. She could only hope Dillon had waited, only pray that he hadn’t thought she’d forgotten, or simply decided not to come to him…

Why wasn’t she running?

Grabbing up her skirts, she did just that. Weaving past branches, leaping over steps, surefooted she raced down the narrow paths lined by thick bushes, screened by high hedges. Her heart raced, too, not in panic but in desperation-yes, definitely desperation. An emotion she didn’t appreciate feeling, yet accepted she did. Accepted that she had this one night, this one time, and that would likely be all.

Ever.

Quite when that truth had slid into her mind and taken up residence she didn’t know, but it was there now. After Dillon, instead of Dillon-she couldn’t imagine any man taking his place. She ran on, faster, more frantically, needing to grasp this last night, this last moment-to have it shine, and then enshrine it in her heart.

She pelted into the central grassed court-and ran straight into a wall. A warm wall of muscle and bone.

Dillon caught her, steadied her. Instantly alert, he looked over her head, scanning the path along which she’d come. “What is it?”

Finding nothing, he looked down at her. His hands remained locked about her upper arms, holding her upright, protectively close. “Why are you running? What from?”

She couldn’t tell him why, but…she moistened her dry lips. “Not from. To.” She stared into his face, drinking in the dramatic beauty, visible even in the poor light. “You.”

Reaching up, she cradled his face; stretching up on her toes, she pressed her lips to his.

Told him why with her lips, with her tongue, with her mouth. Told him why with her body as he gathered her in, as his arms slid around her and locked her to him.

Above them, the wind gusted, then abruptly rose to a wail, a wild, elemental power unleashed. It raced through the branches and rattled them, whipped up to the sky and set the clouds roiling.

In the grassed court, her hands framing Dillon’s face, Pris heard it, sensed it, felt it. She drew the power in, let it fill her, flow through her. Let it take her own wildness and fashion it anew, into something finer. Something shining and glorious. Something infinitely precious.

It was she who drew away to sink to the ground, to the lush grass, a sweet-scented bed as it crushed beneath her.

His hand locked about hers, Dillon looked down at her, through the darkness trying to read her eyes. “The summer house…” When she shook her head, he drew in a ragged breath, his chest rising and falling. “Your room, then.”

“No.” Reaching up, she caught his other hand; exerting a steady pull, she drew him down. “Here. Now.”

Under heaven.

He came down on his knees, let her draw him into a kiss, another heated exchange that set their pulses racing. The next time he drew back it wasn’t to argue; his face etched with passion, his expression one of stark desire, he shrugged out of his coat, spread it behind her, then followed her down as she lay back upon it.

Dillon sank into her arms, let her welcome him, let her hold him and trap him-let her dictate. Her, only her. Only with her-for her-would he do this, cede control and let her lead. Only she made him feel like this-that nothing was more important in his life than having her, appeasing her, worshipping and possessing her, doing everything in his power to keep her forever his.

So he gave her what she wanted, let his wildness free, let it mate with hers and drive them. Let the sparks flare, let the flames ignite, then roar-let the conflagration take them and consume them.

She wanted to rush, to race, to greedily grasp and devour; he held her back, forced her to slow-forced her to know, to feel, to appreciate every iota of worshipful strength he had it in him to lavish on her, every last scintilla of passion he tithed to her, every last gasp of surrender he laid at her dainty feet.

How would she know if he didn’t tell her?-and for this, he had no words. So he showed her instead.

Showed her, as the wind raged overhead but left them untouched, cocooned in the long grass, protected by the shrubbery, to what depths passion could descend, to what heights it could reach-to what bliss it could lead.

Clothes…he shed them, his, and hers, until she lay naked beneath him, until their bodies met, brushed, touched, and caressed without restriction. His hands, his mouth, his lips and tongue played upon her beauty, possessed her, claimed her anew. She was his, became his in even more wondrous ways as about them the night deepened and cooled, while in the drifting, shifting shadows of the grassed court they burned with incandescent fire.

With heat, with longing, with a bone-deep raging need.

She cried out as with lips and tongue he sent her reeling over the edge, over the precipice of sensual abandon into the abyss of exploded sensation. Cried again as he drove her further, sobbed as he spread her thighs and settled between, gasped when he lifted her long legs, wound them about his hips, then drove into her.

Again, and again.

Pris writhed beneath him, clutched tight and sobbed, let her body beg and caress and drive him on. Drive him to take more, to seize and possess to the limit of his nature, to the depths of his passionate soul, to give all she wanted, to surrender and be hers-to be all she needed in this, their last moment out of time.

Reaching beneath her, he tipped her hips to his, and thrust deeper, harder, more brutally explicit as he claimed her, exactly as she wanted, exactly as she wished.

She arched, desperate to match the undulations of her body to the plundering rhythm of his, to appease and be fulfilled, to gather all that was her due, and reach her sensual limit, too.

To find where that was, and go beyond, with him.

He bent his head and his lips found the furled peak of her breast. The wind caught her scream and whipped it away, greedily gathered every sob and moan, every sound of her surrender, and hoarded them. Gloated over them as beneath him, breathless with ecstasy, she shattered again, but he still wasn’t content, wasn’t finished with her.

Wasn’t yet ready to cede and be vanquished.

But it was his turn now.

His turn as he rose above her in the dark night, a primal figure, some primitive god, arms braced, holding himself above her, looking down on her, passion deeply etched in the hard lines of his face as he watched her body rise to each powerful thrust, as with total abandon she took him deep within her, as he lost himself in her.

She couldn’t see his eyes, but could feel their fire, knew when he closed them, knew when the power caught him, when it whirled through her, through him, and without mercy fused them.

Under that sensual, physical assault she shattered anew; this time, with a guttural groan, he went with her. Joined with her as their bodies danced, as their senses spun and coalesced, as their hearts thundered, attuned, their souls aware, in concert.

They simply let go, both of them. Even though they were blind, as one, they simply knew-simply reveled in the wild winds that buffeted them, in the unremittingly untamed release that swept through them, that caught them, buoyed them, lifted them free of passion’s fire, propelled them high.

Then let them fall.

Let them feel.

Every heartbeat as they fell back to earth.

Back to the sharp scent of crushed grass, to the mingled musky scents of their sated bodies, to the softness, the hardness, the warmth, and the wetness. The heat that still held them, cradled them, soothed them. The night that enveloped them in comforting dark as their lips met, and held.

And the moment lingered.

Caught at the cusp between reality and the ephemeral.

Filled with the indescribable joy of being one.

As one.

Him and her. Wild, reckless, and true.


Dillon’s head was still spinning when, hours later, he swung up onto Solomon’s back and turned the black gelding for Hillgate End.

She’d blindsided him. Again.

She’d wanted and needed with a passion as dark and as turbulent as his own; he hadn’t been able to deny her-hadn’t even been able to slow her down enough to learn what he’d gone there to discover-what she was thinking.

God knew, when she was like that, thinking was the last thing on either of their minds. He wasn’t even sure his brain was functioning properly now.

Him, them, their future-her thoughts on those points were what he’d intended to probe. Preferably subtly, but if that hadn’t worked, he’d been prepared to simply ask-to say the words, no matter how vulnerable that left him. He had to know.

Then again…eyes narrowing he stared sightlessly into the night, and wondered if, perhaps, she’d already told him. Perhaps, like him, she found words inadequate. They were, after all, very alike.

Whether it was that similarity that made him so sure she was the one, or what followed from that, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that she understood him, the real him, better than anyone else ever had. Anyone. Not his mother, not his father, not even Flick understood him as she did. Because she was largely the same.

Because the demons she possessed-the wild and reckless passions inside her-were of the same type, the same caliber.

Her comprehension not just allowed but encouraged him to be…all that he could be. To not hold back, not suppress his passions and keep them in check, their exercise a danger to be guarded against, but to allow them free rein, to let them flow and give him strength and insight, trusting that he, the rest of him, was strong enough, sane enough to guide and harness them.

With her, he was one. One being, one whole person. When she was with him, he was so completely himself, such an integrated whole-no reservations, no part of him guarded and held back-it sometimes came as a shock. She gave him a strength that without her he couldn’t wield-his own nature.

And while he needed and wanted her, if to night was any guide, she needed and wanted him, too. Perhaps all they had to do was to take the next step? To trust enough in what was already between them and go forward?

The clop of Solomon’s hooves as they reached the road brought him back to his surroundings. The gelding headed down the last stretch to the manor, to the warmth of his stall. Dillon thought of his bed, cold and empty, and grimaced. The conclusion was clear enough.

What he should do was, therefore, clear enough. As for the when…

Flick always threw a major ball for all the luminaries of the sport of kings who were in Newmarket for the week. As usual, her ball would be held tomorrow night, after the last day of the meeting, and, of course, Lady Fowles and her house hold would be present.

With Rus rescued and restored, with the substitution scam unraveled and no more, tomorrow night seemed tailor-made for his purpose.