Twenty-eight years later
Lenore felt her belly clench as she stared at him.
He towered over her. At least by a good foot and no doubt outweighed her by more than a hundred pounds. His shoulders were so broad they blocked out the light behind him. His chest was thick with muscles lurking beneath his white shirt. Long legs with heavy thighs and lean hips were scant inches from hers. Depthless blue eyes were boring into her and when she looked closely into them she could see red-hot flames leaping there. The rest of him might be cold as ice but his gaze was hotter than the flames of hell. He wanted her. The thick bulge she sensed pressing against the fly of his pants was all the confirmation she needed that he did.
She should move back, she thought. She knew well what he wanted and wasn’t sure now was the right time. She needed to put distance between them but his thumb smoothed across her lips in a slow, delectable glide. Tingles wriggled down her sides to pool in her lower abdomen. She felt the tell-tale heaviness between her legs, the moisture easing from her to wet her thong. She knew he could smell the scent of her arousal for his nostrils flared and he inhaled deeply.
“Don’t,” she said breathlessly.
He slid his hand along her jaw and to the nape of her neck, pulled her face to his. “Don’t what?” he whispered as he lowered his mouth to hers.
Just like that—with the touch of his lips—she was lost. All thought of what she had been sent there to do pushed out of her mind. Her world canted to one side, slid out from under her feet. Had it not been for his hand firm at her neck and the brawny arm he slid around her, she might well have gone to her knees.
He drew her up hard against his body, took firm possession of her mouth and slipped his tongue deep inside, a low growl welling up to underscore his need. When he ground his heavy erection against her, she could no longer maintain her impassiveness. She snaked her arms around his waist, splayed her hands over his back and held on tight as he ravaged her senses. She rocked her hips from side to side against his shaft, pressed her tongue past his lips to duel with him, gave back as good as she was getting.
“Hmm,” he voiced low in his throat then spread his hand over the back of her head to anchor her, to give him more purchase. She felt the sting of his teeth against her upper lip and clawed at his back.
The taste of him was like nothing she had expected. His body certainly wasn’t cold and his mouth was sweet, honeyed heat. The soft breath spreading over her cheek as he kissed her was warm and smelled of lemon.
* * * * *
Daniel wanted to be inside her. He needed to be inside her. Had to be inside her. His hands dropped to her ass and he cupped the taut cheeks—lifting her clear of the floor as easily as if she were a feather. The moment her legs came up to wrap around his waist, all rational sane thought fled his mind. He carried her to the bed across the room and fell with her atop it. Thankfully it was a sturdy piece that had seen many such trysts in its day else his weight would have buckled the legs.
As it was, the bed skidded backward to collide with the stone wall. With one foot on the floor, he levered his body above hers then frantically tore at the waistband of her breeches—dragging them down in quick, brutal jerks. The breeches snagged on her boots, he cursed then jerked at them as well until he could pitch them to the floor. The petticoat came off with them. He growled at the sight of her pantaloons and literally tore them from her hips. Her gasp spurred him harder and he ran his hand between her legs, cupped her then rubbed vigorously. Her female scent was so intoxicating it made his head spin.
Her head whipped back and forth on the dusty bed covers. Her hips arched up to give him leverage to rub her more briskly. The tips of her breasts strained at the uniform shirt and he dropped his mouth to capture one through the crisp cotton.
“Aye,” she hissed and buried her hands in his hair to hold his face to her bosom.
Fumbling with his fly, he grunted with each movement until he had freed his cock. It leapt ahead of him like a guided missile and went straight for her wet heat—the heady scent of which was driving him mad. With a savage snap of his hips, he rammed into her. She met him with a fierce upward snap of her own hips and they were locked together in a frenzied battle of groans, grunts, thrusts and outright plunges.
She was gripping him with a hot, velvet fist that slid along his hard length. Tight, slick, greedy little clasps ran up and down his cock as he pummeled her hot channel. Through the fabric of her shirt he found her nipple and clamped his teeth around it. He suckled hard. As he did, her nails raked his scalp, tugged viciously at his hair even as she pulled his mouth harder against her.
He wanted to be fully naked against her. He wanted to lick and suck and nibble at her breasts. He ached to feel her naked belly against his. He wanted—nay, needed—the glide of their flesh against one another.
Her legs clasped him tighter and he knew her release was close at hand. She was straining against him—her heels gouging into the small of his back. His own climax was rushing toward him like a speeding rocket. He dug his hands into the toned flesh of her ass.
“You. Belong. To. Me,” he said through clenched teeth, punctuating each word with a savage thrust. “You. Are. Mine.”
“Aye,” she agreed with a grunt.
The orgasm burst so powerfully he thought the top of his cock would fold back on itself. It was a forceful eruption that poured from him in wave after wave of hot seed. His lower body was jacking like a piston ramming into her. The sound of their bodies slapping together sounded loud to his ears—drowning out the roar of his blood pounding fiercely against his eardrums.
Her hands had gone from his scalp to his back and the savage dig of her nails into his shirt as she held her hips up in offering to him made him growl. He felt the hard quiver of her inner muscles and went still with his cock buried as far as it would go in her body.
“Aye,” she shouted as her orgasm rippled fiercely through her wet cavern.
She clung to him so tightly he found it hard to draw breath, but that didn’t matter. Her body was his. He had claimed her again, branded her again, spilled his seed into her again and even then the happy little fellas were swimming around inside her with maniacal delight at being given their freedom. He could almost hear them chortling whoopee!
The thought made him giggle and that broke the moment. She stiffened, her head came up and her eyes narrowed.
“You find this amusing?” she demanded, her lips taut.
“Peace, woman,” he said, lowering his head to her breast. He swiveled his cheek against her so he could look up at her. “I was just thinking about my seed cavorting inside you and it made me laugh.”
“You didn’t laugh,” she accused. “You giggled.” Her eyes narrowed even more. “Like a girl.”
“So sue me,” he said then winked.
She snorted but threaded her fingers through his hair and gripped it hard. “I’ll snatch you baldheaded if you ever do it again. That wasn’t a manly sound, highwayman.”
“Get up, wench,” he said, slapping at her naked ass. “We’ve a coach to rob tonight.”
Lenore McGregor Farrell frowned at her husband. “If my da catches us…”
“Your da and my father are old men. They couldn’t catch anything save a cold,” he said with a snort. He sprang from the bed and began pulling on his clothes.
“If they ever find out what we’ve been doing, they’ll lock us both in the dungeon at Arlington,” she told him. She left the bed and picked up her breeches.
Ten minutes later they were dressed. She in a dark brown coat and breeches. He in a claret-red velvet coat and doeskin breeches—like his namesake the infamous Gypsy robber, Daniel Rees.
He looked about the cottage to make sure they were leaving nothing incriminating behind. One last look at the bed where he had lain with his wife—the same bed where twenty-nine years earlier he had been conceived—and shooed his woman to the door. As she passed him, he reached out to rub her stomach. It was a little ritual they had each time they left her da’s cottage.
He loved her flat little tummy—and what was under that flat little tummy—as much as he loved tweaking the ears of the rich people they robbed. That little tummy where chortling little fellas were busy making the acquaintance of a couple of teasing little eggs. Within a few minutes, there would be another rowdy highwayman created to ply his trade upon the coach road.