Chapter Seven

E mmaline was drowning on a wave of sensation as Christian kissed her and she returned his kisses with an ardor that surprised her. Oh, how she adored him; it didn't matter that she barely knew him, and now that man wished to marry her.

Someone—a duke—wishes to marry me. Me!

Then she couldn't think at all, for his kisses were hot and insistent, and the weight of him as he pressed her into the mattress was so lovely.

"I want to touch you," she murmured against the strong column of his neck. That clean, wintery scent of him infiltrated her nose and carried her away. "I want to try everything ." In her five and twenty years, this moment was one of the most exciting.

"I can deny you nothing." With his eyes dark with wicked promise, he pulled back a bit and met her gaze. Muscles played beneath his skin, and she joyfully slipped her fingers through the mat of hair on his chest. "Do what you will. We have all night." When he came down over her again, she sighed and trailed her fingertips along his strong shoulders.

"You're glorious." Never had she had the chance to explore a man's body, but Christian didn't seem to mind. Every time she touched him, traced the planes and valleys that made up his form, his muscles went taut. He didn't bid her nay. Instead, he watched her as she stroked her hands over his torso, slid one down past his flat but slightly soft belly to brush her fingers against his hard, hot shaft. With her other hand, she rubbed a dusky, flat nipple with the forefinger until it puckered. When he sucked in a shuddering breath, she grinned. "So responsive, so different."

"And you, my sweet little witch, will encourage me to spend before I'm ready." He claimed her mouth with a string of drugging kisses that sent every thought out of her mind. When he was done, he eased off her once more. "I intend to worship your body right now, though."

Before she could respond, he slid down her form, kissing her skin as he went. "Ah, Emmaline." His hot breath steamed her mons. Gently, insistently, he encouraged her to bend her knees and splay her thighs, which put that most private part of her on display. "Let me show you how much I already admire you."

"What do you mean?" She trembled, both from anticipation and nerves when he stroked the inside of her thighs with his fingers. Though she'd listened to Gigi's more risqué stories of what she'd done with various men, she'd honestly thought they'd been made up tales designed to shock the listener.

"Just this. If you don't enjoy it, I shall stop." With his fingers on her flesh, he spread her open, then dipped his head and put his mouth on her.

"Oh!" Wild sensations shot through her body. Her blood lit with tiny fires of desire. A strangled moan left her throat as he flicked his tongue over that swollen nubbin at her center. Again and again, he worried that button, and with each pass, pleasure shivered down her spine to lodge deep inside her. His fingers tightened on her hip, her thigh as he applied himself more ardently to his task. With her next moan, she melted into the bedding, suddenly boneless, for he replaced his fingers with his tongue; that change in friction and texture hurled her over a gentle crest of pleasure. "I had no idea…" And she still wasn't quite certain what had happened just now, but it had been lovely.

The dratted man chuckled with pure masculine smugness as he came back up her body. "Now who is the responsive one?" Every dip and contour of his body was enhanced by shadows from the lingering flashes of lightning that were fading from the area. His rampant member surged thick and proud from a nest of dark brown curls, but before she could look her fill, Christian once more covered her body with his. "Indeed, we were meant for each other."

"It's encouraging." Their skin glided together, the hairs on his chest tickled her sensitive nipples as he claimed her mouth. The foreign taste of herself on his mouth oddly enhanced her need, and Emmaline held him even closer. He explored her lips with a languid grace, and when she wriggled into a more comfortable position beneath him, she jostled his erection. His hiss of breath thrilled her. When he dipped his head to take a nipple into the warm cavern of his mouth, she slipped her hand between them to explore that mysterious shaft.

To give him the same pleasure he did to her.

"Emmaline, easy." The duke left off with his exquisite torture to lay a hand over hers. He curled her fingers around his length, demonstrated how to stroke him, what brought him to near madness. "Gently, love. I'm nearly done as it is."

She giggled. How could she not? The whole business of ruination and coupling was full of wonderful, odd things. "Ah, so then I shouldn't do this?" Heady with desire, she gave his shaft a bit of a squeeze before she stroked and twisted her hand down his entire length. Oh, it was silky and hard and so thick!

"Minx," he gasped on the edge of a groan. He tweaked her nipple in response.

Pain-tipped pleasure cartwheeled through her, and it was her turn to gasp. "And I absolutely should not do this." Daring much, Emmaline cupped his hair-covered stones. She stroked them, squeezed them, rubbed her fingers over them and must have hit a particularly sensitive spot, for he uttered a growl mixed with a curse and flexed his hips against hers.

"Emmy!" Urgency threaded through the exclamation. The insistent prod of his member sent awareness pinwheeling over her. "Perhaps you aren't a frightened wallflower at all."

Such power a woman could wield during intercourse! "It must be the company I've suddenly been keeping, or perhaps the magic of this night." His support for her bolstered her confidence. Knowing she had a lifetime of everything to look forward to sent a host of tingles playing about her spine. How am I so fortunate?

"Enough, sweeting." He kissed her, possessed her mouth with a series of deep, drugging kisses that turned her brain to mush and her body pliant and warm. "I want you. Want to show you how much I adore you, what we will perfect between us over the years." His words were breathless, halting, as if he exercised tight control over himself.

"Oh, Christian." She cupped his cheek, kissed him again and again, while she rested her other hand on his back. "If this is what love at first sight feels like, then I am well and truly lost." When she held his gaze with hers, so many emotions pooled in those dark brown depths that she reveled in each one. "I want you too."

He didn't answer with words. Instead, he moved them both into a more comfortable position and with a knee, widened her legs. As anxiety and apprehension crawled over her skin, he kissed her with a slow leisure that made her head spin. She looped an arm about his shoulders, tried to layer herself even closer to this man who'd turned her life tip over tail. Then the head of his hardened member was at her opening. With a powerful thrust of his hips, he penetrated her body and didn't stop until he'd buried himself deep into her core.

"Oh!" She cried out as a prick of pain trickled into her desire-drunk brain. Emmaline gripped his shoulder, pinched his side as she acclimated to the invasion. He was so big, so thick, so… wonderful… embedded her body, joining them into one. "I… this is… wonderful." The words were breathless, rushed, awed.

"This is only the beginning." He brushed his lips over hers. "All is well?"

"Yes." She nodded. "The pain is fading."

"Good." Then he moved within her, holding some of his weight on his forearms.

Slowly, at first, treating her to long, gentle strokes. With a few murmurs of instruction, he taught her how to lift her hips to receive him. Once she found his rhythm, she soon matched it, and his pushes became shorter and harder, given over with more intensity.

"Oh, my…" Emmaline's eyes drifted closed as she clung to him. Sensations assailed her, caught her up in a tide that required an outlet, that demanded she acknowledge everyone. "I don't understand…" What was she supposed to do now except give herself to the lovely bursts of pleasure that shook her body with each new thrust?

"Shh. Simply feel." His lips were on hers while one of his hands went between them to worry her swollen button even as he continued to stroke into her body.

The friction to that nubbin added to what he already did. It shoved her closer and closer to the edge where something glorious waited. "I need…" She bit down on his shoulder, so crazed was she from the sensations he invoked inside her. He grunted but increased his work. "More," she finally gasped out and didn't care if that made her a wanton.

But they were perfect together. Was that too soon to think?

"You are simply… amazingly you." The duke quickened his thrusts. Deeper. Faster. Stronger he moved, and during one of the passes of his finger on her nubbin, she shattered.

Emmaline's world exploded into a million points of light and rainbows as she fell over the edge into a void, where nothing existed except pleasure. "Christian!" She screamed as she found that release and kept screaming for as long as he continued to thrust, for her body sent her into that void again and again until finally, she was spent. Her feminine walls convulsed, but then Christian hit that glorious point too. He uttered her name with a note of surprise, and as he kissed her, drank from her, his shaft pulsed and jerked.

When he finally collapsed against her, she held him as close as she could while sailing in the lingering euphoria of her first coupling.

"I had no idea," she whispered sometime later as they lay together, her back to his front, his arms around her, and her limbs weighted with a pleasant lethargy. The soft patter of rain at the windows lulled her close to slumber; the storm had passed, in more ways than one, and she was left with this glorious aftermath. "No one ever prepared me for… that."

His chuckle reverberated in her chest and encouraged her awareness of him to come alive once more. "I assume ‘that' was quite delicious?" He followed the question with a nuzzle to the crook of her shoulder.

"Yes." She gasped as renewed pleasure streaked through her breasts to lodge between her thighs. "I am quite curious about it, if you should want to have another bout." I shall soon grow addicted to him.

"I would be delighted to indulge you." He pressed his lips to the side of her neck, chuckling again when she lifted her chin to grant him better access. "And perhaps I shall claim your body against the wall, on a chair, over a table…"

Heat flooded her body. "It's possible to have relations in those ways too?"

"My dear little witch." He brushed his fingers over a rapidly hardening nipple. "Men and women can engage in wicked things wherever they wish, if they're creative enough."

Shivers of sensation swept over her. Finally, she understood what her sisters meant when they'd talked about how wonderful coupling was when one found the right man. "Then, yes please."

"Mmm, I rather like it when you beg." He nudged her slightly away, maneuvered her around to peer into her eyes. "Can I assume that since you are now quite hopelessly ruined, you accept my offer of marriage?"

Did she? Could she? Dare she? Everything she'd ever wanted lay at her feet, offered up by this man, the duke she'd often joked about. Tears of happiness welled in her eyes. "Yes, Christian, yes. I will marry you. In haste, as you said, because my father is nearly gone from this world, but also because something about you has given something in my soul peace and permission to live."

I can't wait to tell this man that I love him.

"We absolutely will." He kissed her. "I shall formally ask your parents tomorrow for your hand and then do the necessary regarding a special license." Again, he kissed her, and with each one, the bond between them grew. "Once the engagement is official, I shall procure a ring. Hell, I'll shower you with gifts."

"Having you in my life is enough." So many emotions knitted around her, she decided to focus on happiness. "Perhaps my accidental love spell did indeed work. That is the only logical way to explain… this."

Except for the ghost. That was all fate.

The duke chuckled. "Or else there is something to be said for otherworldly interference." He tweaked her nipple. "As well as the notion that love at first sight is real." The rumble of his voice, the heat of his body, the strength and protection from his arms around her gave her a contentment she hadn't had in a long time. "Knowing immediately that we have each found the something missing in the other and can stop searching for it holds merit."

"Yes, it does." Then she kissed him because she could, because he was hers, and she suspected that what she'd found tonight in him would only grow stronger as the days went by. "I was never fond of All Hallow's Eve before, had dreaded it, in fact, but from now on, I will celebrate this night with jubilation, for a ghost very truly put me into your arms."

The carriage-style clock on her mantel softly chimed the midnight hour.

Christian tugged her over his body so that she awkwardly straddled his waist. "I knew you would be mine and that our lives would intertwine by this time."

She smiled. How could she not? "You did?"

"Oh, yes. Now let me show you why we will have such fun once we're wed."

With a squeal, Emmaline gave herself over to her fiancé's kisses and caresses. Life was erratic and mysterious and scandalous—she was a Hasting sister after all—but there was something to be said for casting a love spell…

The End