With a muttered curse, he stalked to the door.
Her room was further away from the stairs and around a corner. He opened the door without knocking and went in, shut the door carefully, then walked to the bed.
She was lying there, wide awake, propped up on the pillows so she could more easily watch him approach. She’d tucked the covers up over her breasts, but her shoulders were promisingly bare.
As he halted by the bed, she met his eyes, her own wide, but nowhere near innocent. Even as he watched, her lips curved lightly in a smug, cat-who’d-managed-to-tip-over-the-cream smile.
He narrowed his eyes, pointed a finger at her nose. “I know what you’re up to, and I’m not playing your game.”
Emily felt distinctly wanton as she looked into his dark eyes. Brazen, she arched her brows. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
“My being here doesn’t mean what you think it does.”
“Oh?” She widened her eyes; beyond her control, her smile deepened. “What does it mean then?”
He studied her for an instant, then shrugged out of his coat. Growled, “We can talk about it later.”
Dropping the coat on a chair, he reached for his cravat.
Smiling even more smugly, feeling anticipation well and spread in a rich warm glow throughout her body, she sank deeper into the pillows and waited.
For her lover-her would-be husband-to join her.
He didn’t disappoint.
Some considerable time later, slumped, utterly wrung out and deeply sated in the depths of the bed, Emily finally managed to reassemble her wits, and discovered she was still smiling.
Her plan had worked.
More, she’d gained an unexpected additional benefit. He’d seen through her ploy and, either to repay her or to distract her from gloating over her success, he’d devoted himself to dazzling her with sheer, unmitigated pleasure.
She now knew that what had passed between them the previous night could, indeed, go much further. That she could be reduced to incoherent, mindless desperation, that she could gasp, cry out, convulse, and be utterly wracked by ecstasy called forth entirely by his wicked hands and even wickeder lips and tongue.
And what had come after that had curled her toes. She still couldn’t fully straighten them. Little tremors of delight still coursed through her, fading echoes of her second shattering climax.
She was lying on her stomach. Cracking open her lids, she studied him, slumped, as exhausted as she, beside her. He’d said they would talk later, but she suspected her sisters were right. Afterward, gentlemen didn’t talk-they fell asleep.
Not that she was complaining, not in this instance. Closing her eyes, she let satiation and an even deeper satisfaction wrap about her. Her plan had worked, he’d come to her bed-he hadn’t been able to stay away. Actions always spoke louder than words, especially with gentlemen.
His actions had spoken loudly enough for now.
Through the fringe of his lashes, Gareth watched her slide into slumber, and gave thanks. He’d been a fool to suggest they talk later-later meant now, and now…words of any sort about this and them were entirely too dangerous.
Entirely too unwise.
The possessiveness inside him lay quiet, serene, sated into oblivion; she’d given herself to him without reserve and that side of him had gorged. Lids closing, he felt satiation of a depth and weight he’d never before known drag him down. With an almost sinful sense of sinking, he surrendered. Later he would gather her into his arms, later he would settle her beside him.
Later, when she wouldn’t wake up and through the darkness look at him with eyes that saw too much.
In that last gasp of consciousness, his mind circled, free. She already knew more than he would wish, but he couldn’t turn back the clock. But as long as he didn’t admit to more, didn’t state what he felt for her aloud in words and make it real, he could cope.
He could cope with this. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps his sharing her bed every night would satisfy what he was starting to sense was her need. A need to know what he felt, to touch him and have him touch her, and so know…
It went something like that, he knew. So perhaps she was right, and his sharing her bed would satisfy her.
God knew, it satisfied him.
The small yard behind the inn was a frenzy of activity. Gareth ran his eye over the loaded coaches, watched as Mooktu and Bister handed up pistols, powder, and shot to Mullins, who stowed it with the rifles he’d cleaned beneath first one, then the other, driver’s seat.
They were as ready as they would ever be.
Around him, the cobbled yard was awash with Juneaux, young and old, come to wave their two men on their way, and to wish the English and Indian party the garrulous clan had taken under their collective wing God speed.
He went to extract Emily from a knot of Juneaux. Many were female, and looked at him with bright, assessing eyes. He had little doubt what thoughts were passing through their heads, especially when one old lady whispered loudly that they made a so-handsome couple.
He pretended not to hear.
Emily was smiling happily. She looked up as he neared, and her smile changed. Quite how he couldn’t have said, but it softened, became more personal, then she made space for him beside her.
He filled it, but only to smile generally at the others and remind her, “We must make a start.”
Emily heard the unvoiced phrase, and had to agree. But then his hand brushed the back of her waist and she had to work to suppress a delicious little shiver-something the women around her didn’t miss.
They beamed encouragingly.
She had to beam back, had to inwardly acknowledge how very good it felt to be the one Gareth-he of the broad shoulders and so-handsome brown-haired good looks-had come to fetch.
His hand touched again, a subtle prod. Squelching her reaction, she turned to the innwife and commenced her farewells.
