Marissa gasped out loud as his sharp teeth found one peaking nipple and fastened gently on the aroused tip. His tongue teased and tasted her salty skin and Marissa whimpered as it circled and licked the tight bud.
Through her shock and sensuous delight Marissa struggled to understand what was happening to her. Her husband had performed his marital duties on her shrinking body with a haste – and distaste – which had shown only too clearly how she had displeased and disappointed him. Never had she expected that a man could give her so much pleasure – this must be what they did with their mistresses…
But underneath this tide of unfamiliar pleasure there was something else, a building yearning, a feeling of expectation that there was more to come, a goal to be reached, to be striven for.
Marcus pulled her down gently onto the fallen towel, his hands never leaving her body, his mouth returning to hers for a long kiss that sapped her will and sent a frisson of delight pulsating through her. It was there again, this sense of building pleasure, of expectation. Her body arched under his hands and she whispered, ‘What are you doing to me?’
‘Making love to you, I had rather hoped,’ Marcus answered huskily, his voice sounding slightly amused. His breath was warm on her chin, then his tongue was trailing insidiously down the curve of her breast to the other nipple to recommence its teasing.
Marissa drew in a shuddering breath, hardly able to wait for whatever it was that was coming to sweep her away. Marcus’s fingers strayed downwards over the swell of her hip to the softness of her inner thighs, gently parting and exploring her secret core with stroking caresses.
The wave of sensation swept over Marissa, shaking her in every part of her body. She cried out, arching into his embrace, then fell back, lights exploding against her closed lids. As the pleasure ebbed, leaving her quivering in his arms, shudders shook her.
After an age she opened her eyes to meet his, smiling down at her. Marissa smiled tremulously back, reached up her hand to stroke his cheek. Marcus closed his eyes at the caress, then groaned. ‘Sweetheart, I really do not think that I can wait any longer…’
Her eyes closed again as his mouth fastened on hers, hard and demanding, then his weight was on her, pressing her down into the yielding sand, his long legs twining with hers, separating them, easing them apart.
Marissa opened her eyes, startled out of her sensual dream. The man above, the familiar weight on her flinching body, the water-darkened hair and the Southwood features lit coldly by the moonlight. It was horribly familiar and something slipped – time, perhaps – as Marissa did what she had always done to allow her body to be used. She lay still and passive, not preventing, not welcoming the invasion, her eyes open and unfocused.
Marcus froze as he realised the change in Marissa’s response to him, then rolled off her body and onto his feet in one swift movement. Something had happened, had gone horribly wrong, but he was not going to demand answers or explanations. Never in his life had he taken an unwilling woman and he was not about to start with this one.
He ran down the short beach and plunged beneath the cold water, feeling its cold kiss dousing his heated arousal. He swam hard for two minutes, killing the fire in his veins, before turning back to the shore. As he swam he did not allow himself to think. To feel. As he strode ashore he saw Marissa had pulled on her clothes and was standing with her back to him beside her horse.
‘The towels are by your clothes,’ she said, her voice expressionless, as she heard him splash ashore.
‘Thank you,’ he said, keeping his voice neutral as he searched for words. She walked away, leading Tempest to where a tree stump protruded from the sand at a convenient height for a mounting block. Her skin would still be damp and her breeches clung tightly as she bent her knee to mount. He should help her but she would not want him touching her, so he turned, pulling on his clothes over his wet skin. After a moment she managed to mount and gathered up the reins to turn the horse homeward and Marcus caught a glimpse of her face in the moonlight.
He ran to put a restraining hand on the bridle. ‘Wait, please. Marissa, you must believe that I intend to marry you.’
‘Indeed, my lord? It is doubtless very honourable of you to make the offer after your actions tonight. However, I have no more desire to marry you than you have shown up to now to marry me.’ She gazed down at him with an expression he could not read.
‘Desire?’ He laughed without humour. ‘If we are to talk about desire, Marissa, might I remind you that yours appeared to at least match mine. And certainly, unless you are a very good actress, you have obtained more pleasure from this night’s encounter than I.’
The words were out before he could stop them, call them back. She jerked at the reins, sending Tempest plunging away into the dunes, but not before he glimpsed the hurt twist of her mouth, the pain in her eyes.
But she was gone, and after one hasty step towards his hunter he checked himself. There was nothing he could do tonight to make things any better. After a night’s reflection Marissa would realise that she had to marry him. For himself, he reflected as he swung up into the saddle, the night’s escapade had made up his mind, his cousin’s widow would make an admirable wife. Provided she could forgive him for his crass words just then.
The rhythm of Tempest’s hoof-beats changed abruptly as she plunged down the bank from the saltings and onto the hard-packed surface of the coast road. It was enough to shake Marissa out of her mindless, headlong flight from the beach, from Marcus. She reined the mare in and trotted more gently up the carriage drive until a path led off towards the Dower H
ouse through the trees fringing the park.
The moon had disappeared behind a bank of high cloud and Marissa slowed Tempest to a walk to allow the horse to pick its way across the tussocky grass of the park. Now that her instinctive flight had ended she found she was acutely aware of every sensation, every sound. Her wet hair clung to her coat, soaking through the cloth between her shoulder blades, sand gritted between her toes inside the leather boots and her eyelashes felt salt-sticky. Yet despite these discomforts she felt alive, tingling with the consciousness of her body. For the first time she was truly aware of herself, of her skin, of her lips, of her breasts, of the caress of the night air on her cheeks.
She held her face up to the breeze as it sighed through the beeches and allowed her mind, at last, to be free, to think about what had just happened, what Marcus had done to her.
Through the stillness hoof-beats sounded, loud on the still night air. Marissa drew Tempest back farther into the shadows as Marcus’s hunter galloped by, his master low on its neck. Marissa let Tempest move forward to the edge of the copse and watched as the big horse vanished under the arch of the stable block.
Chapter Thirteen
Marcus was angry with her. She had spurned him, not once, but twice. He could never guess – and she could never tell him – why in the end she had rejected his lovemaking when he must have realised that she wanted him. Wanted him…
Marissa rubbed her forehead in perplexity. It had never occurred to her before that a woman could want, could welcome, a man in that way. With Charles she had feared it, forced herself to do her duty, endured what happened, prayed for it to be over swiftly.
But Marcus… Marcus had said he wanted to make love to her. He had intended that she should feel pleasure, had done everything to ensure it, been patient with her. Tempest, sensing her mistress’s distraction, began to walk slowly across the park, retracing her earlier route past the front of the big house.
Marissa shivered as she remembered the sensations that had awakened her body, and her mind. It had never occurred to her that a man would care for a woman’s pleasure, would actively incite it, revel in it, enjoy it as much as she did.
The realisation, when it came, hit her with the force of a blow. This was how it should be. It had been Charles whose warped view of the world had dominated her mind and body in the two years of their marriage. What she had accepted as normal was anything but. Suddenly the pattern of his behaviour was revealed to her as a whole: his demand for perfection in everything, his coldness, his cruelty. There, she had thought the word, for Charles had been cruel to her; she could see it now.