Chapter 27
It was Godric who drew back from their marathon kiss first. Of course he was also the one in pain—two kinds of pain, now. “Darling?”
“Mmmm?” She kissed his chin, his cheeks, his nose.
He shifted his hips and whimpered. “Pull the curtains shut,” he said in a hoarse voice.
She froze.
“Do it, Eva,” he repeated, using that voice—the one that had always commanded instant obedience from his men. Naturally Eva hesitated just long enough to make him worry it wasn’t nearly as effective on women. At least on one woman.
“I’ll make you glad you did,” he promised.
Honey, it seemed, really was more effective than vinegar, and she quickly reached for the partially opened side drapes and pulled them shut.
“Close that gap in the front ones, too, sweetheart.”
He felt her slender body jolt, but she complied.
“Good,” he said. “Now take off your breeches—but not your boots,” he added swiftly.
“But—”
“Hush, just do it.”
“This won’t be easy,” she complained, but she moved to the back-facing seat and he heard sounds of compliance.
“Nothing worthwhile is easy, darling. Take you, for example.”
“Ha! You are quite brave for a man tied hand and foot.”
Godric laughed, waiting patiently as he listened to the sounds of struggling, grunting, and the occasional muttered complaint.
“There,” she said, her voice rather breathless. “I’ve got them off.”
Godric groaned at the image. “Tell me what you are wearing,” he ordered gruffly.
“You really are a naughty old man.”
“I know,” he agreed. “Tell me.”
He heard a heavy sigh and then, “I’ve got on my coats, but no breeches or, er, smallclothes.”
He had to swallow repeatedly to clear his flooded mouth. He was a filthy old man.
“And your boots,” he rasped.
“Yes, my boots.”
“Oh God.” He let his head fall back with a painful thunk. “I wish I could see you.”
“I could open the curtains.”
His head whipped up. “Don’t you dare.”
A low, sultry laugh filled the darkened coach.
“Now, untie my ankles.”
“You give a lot of orders for a man bound hand and foot.”
“Be a good girl, and I’ll let you unbutton my breeches when you are done.”
He grinned at the sound of boots scrambling on the chaise floor.
“This would have been a lot more comfortable if I’d done it before taking off my breeches.”
“Mmmm, but I like imagining you just the way you are.”
She gave an unladylike snort of derision, but Godric noticed her fingers worked with remarkable swiftness to loosen the knots.
“There,” she said.
He shifted on the bench seat and spread his feet, flexing his cramped leg muscles before positioning his arse in the middle of the narrow bench seat.
“My fall, Eva, straddle my thighs and unbutton it.”
She had no smart retort for that.
When she lowered herself onto his spread thighs he just about lost consciousness imagining what she looked like. Her hands shook and she fumbled with the buttons.
“I don’t want to waste time untying my hands, darling, so you’ll have to do all the heavy lifting.”
She made a gulping sound, her fingers froze for an instant, and then she resumed her labors. “So,” she said in a tone of strangled bravado, “that’s how this marriage is going to be?”
Godric laughed; his Eva.
He stopped laughing when she pushed open the flaps of his breeches.
“Push them down a bit, just a—oh, yes, that’s good. Now, take—urgh.” A small, warm hand wrapped around him and he had to bite down on his lower lip to keep from shouting something vulgar.
“You just hush, now,” she murmured in a voice that shook, which made her audacity all the more impressive. “I’ll take care of the heavy lifting.”
* * *
Eva marveled at the size and heat and feel of him. She also marveled at the things she could make him say—the way she could make him sound with just the smallest—
“Good God!” he shouted as she squeezed him just the slightest bit.
Eva grinned.
“Now, darling,” he said, and it was his turn to have a shaky voice, “if you don’t want to humiliate your betrothed . . .”
Eva knew what he wanted—she’d spent the last week watching horses mate, for pity’s sake—but it would be something of a trick with his hands still restrained. Still, where there was a will, and all that.
She sat up high on her knees, one hand clutching his shoulder, the other holding him between her legs as she lowered herself slowly over him. Which was when she realized how easy—and rewarding—it was to make him beg.
“Please, Eva.” His breath was hot against her chest as his head rested against her.
“Please what, my lord?”
He gave a breathy, demented laugh. “Have mercy, darling. Please, take me inside your body.”
His words rocked her to her core and she lowered herself onto him, taking his thick length all in one, long slide.
The noises they made filled the carriage while he filled her, his size momentarily shocking her, the pain of the stretch a familiar, lovely, surprise.
“All right?” he gasped against her throat, and then he laved the exposed skin, humming his pleasure. “Salty.”
She swallowed convulsively at the raw desire in his voice, her sheath contracting around him and making them both shudder.
“Ride me, Eva, hard. I want you to use me and—”
His words broke off with a guttural moan as she lifted almost all the way off, and then lowered again, grimacing slightly as he touched some exquisite place deep in her womb, where their child was growing. She tightened at the thought, the pleasure causing his rod to jerk inside her.
Once again he begged. “Please.”
Eva responded to his ragged whisper, and she began to post. On the third or fourth stroke she discovered something magical. If she tilted her hips just so, she could rub her—“Oh, Godric!”
After that it was a blur of exquisite friction, raw gasping, and deep, glorious penetration. When Eva began to lose control of her hips, Godric took over, lifting them both off the bench with the force of his thrusts, mashing her head against the roof of the carriage as he drove into her with a savagery that detonated an explosion of pleasure, sending shock waves through her body.
Still he did not stop, pounding her ruthlessly until, “Eva,” he hissed against her shuddering body. “I’m going to—”
He grunted and hilted himself, his hips still raised off the bench as he spasmed and jerked and emptied himself deep inside her body.
* * *
“Are you asleep?”
“No. Are you?” She shifted slightly, the movement jostling his sensitive, softening prick, which was still inside her.
He kissed and nuzzled the damp, hot skin of her throat. “Darling?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you ever going to untie me?”
Eva laughed. “Perhaps.”
Godric grinned, in spite of himself. He lifted his hips suggestively. “Didn’t I just earn my freedom?”
“Oh, no. That was all my work, if I recall correctly.”
“If you were to release me, I might be able to settle my debt.”
“Ohh, that sounds promising. But I think I’d like to hear you beg. Again.”
He felt her smiling lips as she nuzzled the sensitive skin beneath his ear.
“Please, my darling, my only love?”
She shivered. “I love hearing you call me that.” The humor had gone from her voice, replaced by a fierceness that wrapped around him like a fist.
“I love you,” he whispered, and then added, “If you untie me, I can show you how much.”
She laughed and slid off him, both of them making interesting noises when they uncoupled.
“All right, you are most persuasive. But first I am putting on my clothing.”
“That is an excellent idea,” he said. He felt a lingering concern at the back of his mind that the carriage could stop anytime, the door could open, and—
“Where do you think they are taking us?” she asked as the sounds of boots sliding and scuffing filled the coach.
Godric closed his eyes and imagined what she would look like. “I haven’t the faintest idea, nor do I care.” And then something occurred to him. “But do you need to go back? I know the letter I read”—his face flamed at the admission—“said you were hiring a stud. I know it’s the tail end of breeding season. Do you need to get back?”
There was a long pause before she said. “Thank you.”
Godric squinted into the darkness, as if squinting would improve comprehension. “Sorry, darling, but what are you thanking me for?”
“For caring about my business.”
“Oh. Well, of course I care. I know how much you wanted it.”
“And you don’t find my interest in breeding and training horses, er, unfeminine?”
Godric grinned. “Believe me, sweetheart, I heartily approve of your interest in breeding of any sort.”
Something hit him in the shoulder. “Did you just throw something at me?”
“Yes, my hat. Now, scoot to the other side and turn.”
Godric complied and she went back to work on the Byzantine knot.
He recalled something she’d said earlier. “You said you thought the two boys wouldn’t have come up with this on their own?”
She snorted. “No. I smell the work of my stepmamma.”
Godric’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? But I thought she hated me.”
“But she loves me and wants me to be happy.”
“And I make you happy?”
“Funny how you can still fish with both hands tied behind your back.”
He laughed. “What a shrew you are.”
Eva didn’t dispute the accusation. “I have to admit,” she said, her finger now able to fit between one of the top strands, the one cutting into his forearm, “that I wouldn’t be surprised if they were taking us—” Both her words and fingers paused as the carriage began to slow, the sound of the wheels changing with the change in road surface.
Godric cocked his head; that sounded like cobbles, not road.
“You wouldn’t be surprised if what, Eva?” he asked as the carriage rolled to a stop and then dipped with the weight of somebody jumping off the back.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they were taking us right back to where we started,” she said.
The door opened and her young henchman stood in the opening, his face wearing an amusing expression of terror. “We’re home, my lady.”
“Well, look at that,” Godric said, smiling at Eva, “you’re right yet again, darling.”
Her groom gave him a sheepish grin. “Aye. Reckon you’d better get used to that, my lord.”
Godric threw back his head and laughed.