Page 42 of Her Wicked Highwayman
Diana never could’ve imagined a kiss would have the power to make her soul so wonderfully dizzy. She was a young girl again, spinning in a meadow, faster and faster, and then suddenly falling down into the grass to stay still as the heavens whirled above her.
“My God, you are magnificent,” Tyburn murmured between kisses. His mouth traveled down her throat, then to her collarbone, and finally to her sensitive breasts. He nuzzled one, kissing his way to its peak before taking the nipple in his mouth and sucking. Sweet lines of desire sizzled from her breasts all the way to her womb, and she moaned in the dark. In some distant part of her mind, she was aware of how mad this was, to be naked on a highwayman’s lap as he suckled her breast. She’d never dreamed she would feel so wanton or so free.
“Please...,” she begged as his mouth moved to her other breast, giving equal attention to her other nipple.
He kissed his way back up to her mouth, making her lose her mind all over again. She gasped as he rose from the chair, carrying her with him. He placed her on the bed and followed her down, his mouth still hungry and insistent. She opened herself to him, whimpering as he moved down her body, his lips leaving a trail of sweet fire before he tasted her between her thighs. His palms kept her knees wide as his shoulders settled between them, and he licked and nibbled all of those forbidden places.
Diana felt treasured, desired, even cared for in a way that only made sense on an intimate and instinctive level.
“Tyburn...” She whispered his name as she came apart beneath him, the climax swift and sharp. She wanted to weep, knowing this moment with him would be over all too soon. And he would be gone once more.
Tyburn soothed her as he sat up. “Shhh... I’m not leaving ye yet, lass.”
Diana grasped his wrist, holding desperately to him, still afraid this prince of moonlight would vanish before her eyes and she’d wake from a dream aching for him.
“Lass...” Heavy emotion layered in that single endearment, as if he understood all too well what she feared. “I’mhere, ’tis no dream.”
She released his wrist and gave him a nod of encouragement. Not that either of them could turn back. Someday she’d be brave enough to tell him what she needed from him.
He unfastened his breeches and freed himself. “I vow not to leave you, lass, not for a long while,” he promised as he mounted her and entered her with a driving thrust that made them both share a moan of satisfaction. She was wet, her inner walls still clenching from the previous orgasm, which left her even more sensitive as he claimed her now.
She tilted her head back, writhing in pleasure as he withdrew and sank back into her. He nipped her throat, her chin, and her earlobe in playful bites before he captured her wrists, pinning them to the bed above her head. The pearl pendant at her throat seemed to hold the very starlight of her soul within it.
He made love to her with an almost harsh desperation, as if the deeper he sank within her, the more they would be one being rather than two. She wanted that, to feel that they shared one beating heart, one soul so full of each other that no loneliness could ever hurt either of them again.
She whispered hopeful, foolish, romantic things in the dark to this man whose true name she did not know as he took herto such heights of such joy that she knew she would never want another man as much as she wanted him.
Tyburn pounded against her as if by lasting just a few more seconds he could erase both the past and the future and capture this moment between them forever, and Diana felt all of that. It was as though she could somehow read his mind, such was their connection. His mouth sealed over hers, and she swore he whispered, “Love you, my little star,” just before she came apart with a cry that he swallowed with a kiss of tenderness.
Heat blossomed deep within her, and Diana tightened her legs around his hips, holding him to her, desperate to do what they’d failed to last time.
Let there be a life born from this night. She sent the silent prayer toward the distant stars, then went limp, exhaustion creeping along her limbs.
Tyburn nuzzled her cheek and pressed a soft kiss there before he eased his weight off her. Using the last of her strength, she struggled to catch his arm.
“Please don’t leave . . .please.”
“I’m only going to lock the door, lass. I canna have yer servants finding me here come the dawn.”
He slipped from the bed and crossed the bedchamber to lock the door. Then he returned to the bed and tucked her beneath the covers. She watched him through half-lidded eyes as he removed his clothing and settled in beside her. With a chuckle, he pulled her close and tucked her up against his side, moving her until she had a comfortable pose cuddled around him, fitting perfectly. She wanted to stay this way forever.
She wanted to ask him how he’d found her and what would happen tomorrow, but being in his arms right now was such a relief and a quiet joy that those questions no longer seemed important. She quickly slipped into sleep.
Rafe heldDiana in his arms, refusing to move or breathe lest he wake her. The wan light of the moon made the pearl on her necklace shimmer like a dewdrop from the fae realm. The hold this woman had over him was nothing if not unnatural. Perhaps she was a fae, a princess from the seelie courts in those stories he always told Isla before bed.
“Oh princess fair, give me your laurel crown and show me the way to love immortal,” he murmured in her ear. He’d forgotten, for the moment, to use Tyburn’s Scottish accent, but she was too deep asleep to hear. He stroked the wisps of dark hair that danced along her cheeks, and something within him seemed to waken long-dead embers in his heart.
“Diana...” Rafe whispered her name. The very sound of it seemed to cast new sparks of longing and desire into those embers, teasing it to a flame.
This beautiful, smart, resourceful, and brave hellion who dared breathe fire at a wicked highwayman was also such a fragile creature who doubted her own amazing strength and beauty. It made no sense. The light within her was so bright that it obliterated the darkness within him.
He’d played out a dozen fantasies he’d had about her tonight, but he still had a thousand more. He could bed this woman forever and a day and it still wouldn’t be enough. He would have given his soul for such a gift. But alas, he was all too aware of how mortal he was, that he would not have forever with her. But he vowed to cherish every second life would give him with this woman.
My Diana.
Rafe dozed lightly, too afraid of the coming dawn to surrender fully to sleep. When at last he knew he could wait no longer, he left her in bed, nestled warm beneath the covers. He pressed a kiss to her lips, then he removed the pearl necklace from her neck and bound it back around his wrist. She had given this piece of herself to him, and he would never let go of it.
He gave little thought to the money she’d stolen now. He would steal more for himself and Isla. Because he had seen her face when she’d spoken of her debts, and he’d seen the shame and fear on her face that being without money had caused her. The last thing Rafe would do would be to press her for it, not when it was so clear that she truly needed it, perhaps far more than he did. He even left the horse that she had taken that morning from the stables. He had a few more, after all. What was one more left in Diana’s care?
