‘Just as soon as it can be arranged,’ Clemence promised, attacking the sash. It was not very tightly tied and he did not appear to be wearing anything under it. Suddenly diffident, she drew her hand back.
‘Sure?’ She nodded. ‘Scared?’
‘No. Shy.’ She could feel her smile wobbling, just a little.
‘There is no need. Just trust me. We have been naked together before—remember the forest pool.’ Nathan shrugged out of the robe and it fell on to the sheets behind him like shimmering water. ‘Remember the green of the trees and the cool of the water.’ His hands were on her crumpled nightgown. She shifted to help him and then it was over her head and thrown to the floor and his hands were skimming down over her breasts, the curve of her waist, to come to rest on her hip.
‘Remember how the water felt, Clemence,’ he murmured, bending his head to her as his hands stroked. With a shiver she curled against him, partly to hide herself from his hot blue eyes, partly to touch as much of him as she could. He was aroused; she could feel him pressed hot and hard against her belly. Instinctively she moved against him and was rewarded by the way his hands stilled, tightening around her.
Nathan eased her on to her back, firmly moving her hands away when she tried to cover herself, smiling at her until she smiled back, reassured. She began to relax. This was not frightening at all, this was—‘Nathan!’ she gasped as his fingers slid into the hidden folds her hands had been shielding just a moment ago, folds that she was startled to realise were wet, hot and, ‘Oh, oh, Nathan…’
‘Are you sure?’ he murmured, shifting his body over hers.
‘Sure?’ His hand was still there, making it almost impossible to think and then he slid one finger inside and she arched up against his palm, gasping.
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure. Oh, Nathan, please….’ Her body seemed to know what to do, her legs opening to cradle him. Then she felt the pressure and was not so certain.
‘Look at me,’ he said softly as she tensed. ‘Look into my eyes, Clemence. We are going on this journey together. I have you safe.’
‘Safe?’ She found she could smile, her eyes widening as he rocked against her, filled her, and, just when she thought this was impossible, completed her with a thrust that took her through a flash of pain into the blissful realisation that they were one.
His face went out of focus and then came back. He was watching her, his eyes dark, his face taut with strain. ‘Sweetheart? Did I hurt you?’
‘Mmm.’ She nodded. ‘It didn’t matter. Oh, I do love you.’ She wriggled, trying to get used to the feeling and fascinated to discover the effect that had on Nathan. She had muscles inside as well, she realised, experimenting, and watching his jaw clench and his eyelids become heavy.
‘Clemence, my love. If you do that I am going to have to move.’ She did it again and he smiled and moved and she forgot everything, lost everything, in this new power driving through her.
She shifted and found she could match the rhythm, watched his face with a kind of awe as he took them deeper and deeper into whirlpool of sensation and then realised that her body was straining towards something, tightening around him, and she was gasping, desperate for something she didn’t know, couldn’t name and his hand slid between them again and touched her, perfectly, and there should have been rockets and cannons and fireworks to go with the stars and the swirling blackness, but there was Nathan’s voice, joined with hers and a slow, slow tumble into peace.
‘I love you.’
‘I love you, too.’ Clemence, wrapped in Nathan’s silk robe, snuggled closer against his body, letting her fingers explore up and down his ribs.
‘What a good thing you had that nightmare.’ He was playing with her curls, the brush of his fingers sending delicious shivers down her spine. ‘But I thought you said you had it when I wasn’t around.’
‘It was Street, I think. I had to speak to him and Eliza just before I went to bed and for some reason he wouldn’t stop talking about the incident.’
‘Last night? Why did you have to talk to them then?’
‘Aunt Amelia had spoken to Street about marrying Eliza and—’
‘Urgh!’ Nathan sat up abruptly and clutched for his ankle. ‘That damned dog has just licked me.’ Clemence sat up, too. There was One-Eye, tongue lolling, watching them from beside the bed. ‘How did that get in here?’
‘He must have been with Eliza.’
‘No.’ Nathan shook his head. ‘He sleeps in Street’s room. Which means that either she heard you crying out from there, which is impossible, or both she and Street were down here. Which means they knew you were going to dream.’
‘And she fetched you, which is a scandalous thing to do.’
‘And it is very odd,’ Nathan added grimly, ‘but those loud cries did not attract the attention of a single one of the ladies sleeping nearby. The Ravenhursts, my love, have been plotting.’
‘Dinner last night—Jessica deliberately made it informal. And Theo and Elinor and Sebastian made sure you knew I was going back to Jamaica. Aunt Amelia stopped me talking to Street about his intentions and said she would do it—she must have told him to remind me so vividly that I dreamed!’
Clemence stared at him, appalled. ‘Nathan, I am so sorry—my dreadful family.’ His mouth was twitching. ‘You aren’t angry?’
‘Angry? Tomorrow I am going to kiss every one of your damned Ravenhursts, Lord Sebastian and the duchess included. They nearly tore us apart, simply by existing, now they’ve brought us together. And now, my love, I intend to kiss you and spend the next hour making sure you forget which continent you are on, let alone that you have a legion of interfering cousins.’
‘Again?’ Clemence gasped, as his hands on her body became deliciously wicked.