Page 60 of A Remarkable Rogue

“Yes,” she murmured as her arms snaked around his neck to keep herself pressed against him.

“For me.” An army captain, a bastard son…a man who could offer nothing more special tonight than a straw mattress and coarse sheets.

“Yes.” A heated whimper rose on her lips. “Oh, very much yes…”

He placed openmouthed kisses against her throat and felt the spike of her pulse against his lips. Each heartbeat shot through him all the way down to the tip of his aching cock. “I want you, Baroness.”

She ground her hips against his erection to signal that tonight, body to body, she was his equal in every way. “Then have me.”

He scooped her into his arms, carried her to the bed, and followed down after her. He shed his trousers even as his mouth found her breasts and suckled hard, pulling her nipples deep into his mouth.

She welcomed his roughness by arching herself beneath him with a shuddering moan. Her fingers twisted into his hair and pressed his head harder against her, and her thighs spread wide beneath him as he settled into the cradle of her hips.

“Now,” she begged and writhed beneath him. “I can’t wait. Now, Nate, please!”

He reached between them to position his cock against her, and he buried his throbbing tip in her slick outer folds. Claiming her mouth with his, he plunged inside her and swallowed her cry of pleasure.

He shuddered at the exquisite feel of her. He wasn’t prepared for the overwhelming sensation of her body accepting his, the delicious heat and softness that enveloped him, or the way her sex clenched tightly around him. And when he began to stroke his hips against hers…bliss.

She dug her fingernails into his buttocks to urge him to go faster and deeper, and her hips rose up beneath his to meet each hard thrust. He groaned. There was nothing gentle about what they were doing. This wasn’t making love. This was sex. Raw and primal. Animal. Each desperate for the other, they craved release and demanded satisfaction.

She reached up to grab the headboard for leverage and locked her ankles together at the small of his back. She cried out his name as her body bucked beneath his. Her thighs quivered around him but never loosened their hold as sudden release swept over her.

Nate lost his breath as her spasm of pleasure flowed into him. The sensation overwhelmed him, and for a moment, he lost all thought. All he knew was this moment with her. His hips ground against hers in his need to sink as deeply as possible into her tight warmth, to possess her completely—

Before he could regain thought, he poured himself into her as she clung to him. Sweet release spasmed through him as he clenched his buttocks to spill every last bit of himself inside her, and the sensation shook him to his core.

He collapsed on top of her. He rested his forehead against her shoulder and fought for breath as he struggled to calm his speeding heart. Beneath him, her body shook with each residual pulse of pleasure that passed through her.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him pressed tightly to her, her legs still encircling his waist. She didn’t move, not even to shift her hips away and slip his spent length from her warmth. Instead, she kept him inside her as if she, too, didn’t want the moment to end.

“Sydney, I’m sorry,” he rasped out, his eyes still shut. “I lost control. I didn’t mean to—”

“Shh,” she whispered and silenced him with a brush of her fingertips across his temple. Her soothing touch now was as gentle as her body had been fierce only moments before, her silent caresses dispelling all notions of any kind of regret.

Nate knew then that no part of him, body or soul, had escaped being branded by her tonight, and he trembled.

Seventeen

Sydney frowned. Nate stood a few feet away from her in the drawing room at Oakwood Manor, but he might as well have been a thousand miles away.

Last night, the need inside her had set free the pent-up demons inside him. And oh, what an encounter! The night had been simply amazing, both more thrillingly passionate and deeply comfortable than she’d ever imagined making love could be.

Yet she woke at dawn to find him gone from bed, already dressed and saddling the horses. The same tensions as before still lingered between them, and she knew he thought he’d betrayed his late wife. Sydney had somehow found the strength to move past her mourning for Michael, but her hopes were dashed that Nate had done the same.

He’d maintained a painful silence yet again today, somehow even more withdrawn than before. The only time he’d spoken to her was when they stopped at a village before reaching Oakwood so she could change into the day dress she’d brought with her and he could rent a carriage to give the appearance of a proper, if wholly unexpected, arrival. But once they were back on the road, the silence resumed.

Truly, though, she had no reason to feel so bereft. Last night was exactly what she’d wanted—to be in his arms without surrendering control of her life. Her heart was still safely her own, her life still hers to manage.

So why was her stomach now tied in knots? Why did her heart skip every time she glanced at him and caught him staring back? Why did she long to caress his cheek? Even now, she had to bite her bottom lip to keep from telling him how wonderful he was, how unlike any man she’d ever met before, including Michael.

As if he could feel the heat of her confused stare, he glanced up and met her gaze across the room. He held her eyes for only a moment before turning back to the window.

Frustration flared inside her. This silence between them couldnotgo on. She refused to let him withdraw from her, not after all they’d shared.

She gathered her courage and asked, “What are we going to do?”

“We’ll stay here tonight and rest,” he answered. He faced her but kept his distance. “Tomorrow at dawn, we’ll take Robert and head north to the Scottish border. I have a friend there who can take him in and protect him. Then we’ll find a hiding spot for you.”