Barnaby stiffened in shock. “What?”
“Please?”
Barnaby took Merry’s hand from his cheek, and held it in both of his. “No,” he told her gently. “Of course not. We’ll wait till we’re married.”
“We might never get a chance to be married!” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “This may be all the time we have.”
She’s right, a voice said in Barnaby’s head. He ignored it. “Merry, I’m filthy, and there’s no bed, and you’re frightened. That’s not how it should be.”
“Henry and I were never intimate, and that’s what I regret the most—because he’s dead—” The tears spilled down her cheeks. “What if we’re dead tomorrow? What then?”
Then I shall regret refusing you.
Barnaby released her hand and carefully wiped away her tears. Her skin was soft, smooth, warm, damp. What should I do? He’d been down this path once before: a beautiful woman in tears, sex. It had left his life in ruins.
But Merry was no seductress. She was forthright and honest and nothing like Lavinia.
This wasn’t a trick. It wasn’t an attempt to manipulate him. Merry thought they were going to die, and she wanted to make love with him before that happened.
He knew what he should choose, knew what any honorable man should choose.
And he also knew that if he refused Merry, he would regret it as much as he regretted having sex with Lavinia.
Barnaby folded both blankets in half and laid them one on top of the other on the floor. It still wasn’t nearly soft enough. I can’t do this. His hair was stiff with grit. He was filthy. The blankets were too thin. He turned to her. “Merry . . .” We can’t.
The words dried on his tongue.
They stared at one another for a long moment, both kneeling. Merry’s expression was serious, solemn, and Barnaby had the feeling that she knew exactly what was going through his mind.
After an endless moment, she reached out and touched his cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Barnaby whispered.
Merry put her arms around him and kissed him, a sweet, gentle kiss tasting of tears and lemonade. A kiss that left him feeling off balance. How had the tables turned? How was it that Merry was comforting him, and not the other way around? “It’s all right, Barnaby,” she whispered against his mouth.
They kissed, and kissed again—and there was warmth, but not heat. Barnaby couldn’t find the passion he’d experienced earlier; he was too worried about what came next. She was a virgin, and he was filthy, and—
A sound like thunder came from the neighboring chamber. It rolled over them, crashing and booming, making them both flinch.
They broke apart and scrambled to their feet. Barnaby pressed Merry back against the wall, shielding her with his body. For a long, frightening moment, the clatter of falling rock reverberated around them, then it faded to silence. A puff of dust issued from the next cave.
“Stay here.” Barnaby picked up the lantern. “I’ll take a look.”
“Barnaby . . .” Merry clutched his arm.
“I’ll be careful.” He bent, placed a kiss on her brow, and loosened her grip on his sleeve. “Don’t worry.”
He peered into the next cave, and stepped cautiously through. It didn’t look as if much of the roof had come down; the rubble littering the floor was mostly small stones.
“Anyone hurt?” he called in a low voice.
No reply came.
His chest clutched faintly. He sent up a prayer: Please God, don’t let anyone be dead.
Barnaby raised the lantern and peered at the debris above the giant’s gravestone. “Anyone hurt?” he called again, a little more loudly.
Still no reply came, and now he saw why. The rabbit-sized hole was gone. There was no gap at all between this cave and the next.
Barnaby’s chest clutched again, more strongly, and he experienced a faint sensation of panic—and then common sense prevailed. It didn’t matter whether the hole was there or not; they weren’t going to run out of air. Not for a long time. And it didn’t matter if they couldn’t communicate with the men on the other side of the rockfall. Communication or not, the excavation would continue unabated, the gap would be reopened, and they’d be rescued. He knew those for facts. Therefore, there was no reason to panic.
That logic worked for the front part of his brain, but not the back. At the very back of his brain, panic dug its claws in and told him that he and Merry were going to die.
Barnaby took a deep breath, fixed a smile on his face, and stepped back into the grotto.
Merry was standing exactly where he’d left her, hugging her arms. Her eyes were huge in her pale face.
Barnaby stared at her, and tried to find a light quip, something to reassure her, but all he could think of was that Merry was right. This might be all the time they had.
So don’t waste it.
He crossed to her, and put the lantern down, and took her in his arms. “It’s not as bad as it sounded.”
Merry hugged him back tightly, almost desperately.
Barnaby bent his head, and pressed his mouth to her dusty hair. “We’re going to get out of here. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that,” she whispered. “No one can promise that.”
“I do promise it,” Barnaby said firmly, and then he tilted up her chin and smiled at her, and said, “We are getting out of here,” and he kissed Merry as she deserved to be kissed, wholeheartedly, with no doubt, no hesitation, no holding back.
He kissed her, and swung her up in his arms and laid her on the blankets, and kissed her again, losing himself in her mouth, while the warmth between them flared into heat, and the panic loosened its claws and faded away, and all that was left was sensation and a hot, urgent throb in his blood.
He nipped Merry’s earlobe, laid burning kisses down her throat, fumbled open the buttons at the nape of her neck, baring the curve where her throat met her shoulder, and kissed her there, fierce, hungry kisses, using his tongue, using his teeth.
Barnaby yanked open more buttons, loosened the drawstring of her chemise, and was confronted by the creamy swell of Merry’s upper breasts. He lost his breath for a moment. Such plump, enticing curves. He bent his head and laid a trembling, reverent kiss on that exposed skin. Smooth and soft and smelling of woman.
He groaned, low in his throat, and his trembling reverence fell away. His next kiss was hot and greedy, tasting as much of her as he could, exploring with his lips, his tongue—but Merry’s nipples were just beyond reach and the damned corset was in the way.
Barnaby reached behind her and yanked at the laces, not thinking about propriety or respectability, letting the heat blur his thoughts. The corset opened half a dozen inches before the laces snared in a knot, but it was enough, because once he’d pushed the chemise out of the way, there were her nipples, pink and taut.
The air squeezed out of his lungs. God, her breasts were perfect. Perfect, and beautiful, and absolutely begging to be kissed.
He drew in a ragged breath, and bent to this task. Hungry kisses that made Merry gasp and arch closer. Her fingers buried themselves in his hair. She choked out his name.
Barnaby kissed her breasts, while the heat rose in him until he could barely think. His thoughts lurched in his skull as if he were drunk. Drunk on Merry’s taste, on her scent, on the eager, breathless noises she was making.
He tore his mouth from her skin and gulped several ragged breaths. His pulse pounded in his head. He felt hot enough to asphyxiate.
Barnaby sat up and wrenched off his coat, ripped off his neckcloth. It became easier to breathe, easier to think. He inhaled several deep breaths, staring at Merry, at her rosy lips and flushed cheeks, at her bare throat, at the delicate line of her collarbone, at her pale, round breasts nestled in her corset, the pink nipples peeking at him.
But it wasn’t her breasts that captured his attention, it was her eyes, dark in the candlelight. Barnaby gazed into her eyes, and felt his heart clench painfully in his chest. I love you. He reached out and touched one soft cheek with trembling fingers, then bent his head and kissed her, losing himself in the perfection of her mouth.
Heat built between them. Barnaby came up for air, eased one thigh between her legs, bent his head and found her mouth again, kissed her, rocked against her.
“Oh,” Merry gasped.
Barnaby laughed into her mouth, and rocked again, and again, settling into a rhythm. Heat grew in him, flushing from his toes to his scalp. He kissed her more deeply, more urgently.
Time dissolved. He had no sense of how long they kissed for. His weight was half on her, his leg nestled between hers, and she was clutching him tightly, pressing back, and the rhythm between them became faster and faster . . .
Merry trembled beneath him and caught her breath.
Barnaby kept rocking, while Merry gasped and shuddered and clung to him. When her grip eased and her body relaxed, he let the rhythm stop. Blood pounded in his head. He dragged air into his lungs. “We can leave it at that,” he said breathlessly.
To his relief, Merry said, “No.”
Barnaby rolled his weight off her. His cock was painfully hard, pressing against his breeches. He reached for the hem of Merry’s gown and drew it up her legs, exposing slender, shapely calves clad in white knit stockings.
Slow, slow.
He released his breath in a trickle, and bent his head and found her lips, kissing her gently while his hand slid up one leg, past the garter, to the silky skin of her inner thigh. Only the fastest of young ladies wore drawers. Merry wasn’t one of them; his hand slid across warm, smooth, bare skin, higher, higher, to the thatch of hair at the junction of her thighs.
Merry tensed slightly. Barnaby stopped kissing her. “Relax,” he whispered against her mouth.
They lay quietly in the almost-dark, lips touching, while he slowly explored her, finding the sensitive pearl of flesh, stroking it with his thumb, making her tremble. “Like that?”
“Yes,” Merry whispered shyly.
Barnaby slid his forefinger inside her. She was slippery with juices. “Does that hurt?”
“No.”
He stroked her with his thumb, and slid a second finger inside her, and stroked again. He didn’t need to ask Merry whether she liked it. Her breathing was ragged. She pressed herself against his hand.
He kissed her, and she clutched his shirt and kissed him back, her inner muscles contracting around his fingers in a rhythm that made his cock strain against his breeches.
But when he inserted a third finger, Merry stiffened.
“It hurts?”
“A little.”
Barnaby tried to steady his breathing, but his lungs had forgotten how to function properly. Each breath was a shallow gasp. “It’ll hurt worse than this,” he told her hoarsely.
“I don’t care.”
Barnaby hesitated for a long moment, and then slid his fingers from her and sat up. He unbuttoned his breeches. “Are you certain about this?” Because once I start, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop. It was two and a half years since he’d last had sex. Two and a half long years.
“I’m certain.”
Barnaby unfastened his drawers. His cock sprang out. Moisture already dewed its tip. He inhaled a shallow breath and prayed for self-control.
He lay down again, and gently drew Merry’s gown and petticoat and chemise up to her waist, and settled himself between her legs. “Are you certain?” he whispered, one last time.
“Yes.”
Merry’s gaze was direct. He found he couldn’t look away. He had a sense that she was staring into his soul, that he was laid utterly bare to her, that she saw who he was, saw his fears, his regrets, his most shameful secrets—that she saw those things, and trusted him. Trusted him utterly.
Emotion welled in his chest. He bent his head and laid a kiss on her brow, a wordless declaration of love, and entered her as gently as he could.
Merry stiffened. Her breath caught in her throat.
Barnaby held himself still. Utterly and absolutely still. Rigidly still. His heart labored and his lungs labored and his muscles trembled with effort . . . and then Merry let out a slow breath and relaxed. “It’s all right,” she whispered, touching his cheek lightly. “It just burns a bit. Don’t stop.”
“Sure?” It was a rough, hoarse syllable.
“Yes.”
He withdrew slightly and slid into her again. This time, Merry didn’t tense.
Barnaby fell into a slow, gentle rhythm. It didn’t matter what his body wanted, this was for Merry. Slow and gentle. Slow and gentle. His awareness of time faded. Minutes passed, or was it hours? Gradually, the pace he set quickened—and then quickened again—and then they were both panting, and Merry was no longer relaxed, but gripping his arms, arching against him—and then she shuddered, and he shuddered too, and his climax spilled through him, great convulsions of pleasure that went on without end, his muscles helplessly contracting and releasing until he was wholly spent.
Barnaby rolled to his side, holding Merry tightly. He held her while their breathing slowed, while their pulses steadied, while their skin cooled. Finally, reluctantly, he released her. He restored their clothing to order, relacing the corset, buttoning Merry’s gown, and all the while, he found himself unable to speak. He had no words to express how he felt, the fierce, tender, utterly consuming love, the wonder.
He shrugged into his coat and stuffed the filthy neckcloth in a pocket. Merry watched him. Her expression was shy and solemn and joyful at the same time. He saw trust in her eyes. Pure, heart-stopping trust.
Barnaby stared at her for a long, long moment. Lavinia had destroyed him; Merry had restored him to himself. This is how a phoenix feels, rising from the ashes.
He reached out and touched her cheek with light fingers. How did I deserve this?
Merry laid her hand over his. “Thank you.”
Emotion choked his throat. Barnaby shook his head. No, thank you.