14. Alas, Asleep but Not Alone

14

ALAS, ASLEEP BUT NOT ALONE

A few moments prior

Having never been particularly afraid of the dark before, 'twas a revelation—an unwelcome one—to realize how, when one anticipated the arrival of another with not dread but instead with growing glee, being faced with interminable darkness made the minutes crawl slower than a broken carriage through frozen sludge.

The blackened windows Susanna had noticed upon their arrival let in not a shred of light. Protected her from discovery every bit as much as they vexed beyond belief.

Even Reaver had more patience than she, the audacious canine daring to intervene the one time she'd approached the door, thinking to look out.

Oh no you don't, young female who my man has taken a swift liking to , the barely vocalized lingering growl seemed to say.

Hands on hips (completely ludicrous, as the dog couldn't see her any better than she could see him—or could he?) she glared down toward the sound. "Really, now. You would stop me from assuring us both of his safety?"

Aye, I would . Another rumbled growl (sounding much like his master) that Susanna deciphered clear as day. As he tasked me with yours, or did you not hear his parting directive?

Stroking her fingers through the dog's thick, drying fur was a simple matter of reaching out a few inches, as Reaver's head met her outstretched hand. "Parting directive? Mighty high in the instep for a canine, are you not? Did your, no doubt impressive, hearing pick up something mine failed to? For all I heard was ‘Go to sleep, pretty Susanna'—yes, I might be annotating a bit there—‘you shall sleep. And I shall stand guard.'"

Her stroking fingers became vigorously scratching ones as she knelt to hug the comforting bulk to her. "Bah, I say. Upon his return, I shall let my hitherto reckless side roam free." While I allow myself to roam all over your master.

Hitherto? Funny human! (Forget the dark, 'twas vastly more frightening how her mind insisted upon attributing articulate rebuttals to a rough-looking cur she would have likely run from if she had crossed him on the road.) Has not this entire journey of yours been one grand and reckless adventure?

"All right, I shall grant you that." Could hounds purr? For she would swear the one panting near her shoulder practically did. "But it wasn't until your man decided to claim me and fairly turned me topsy-turvy that I began to enjoy it?—"

"Reaves?" The hushed voice reached her ears a second after the dog strained in her grasp. "Coming in, boy. Don't piss your excitement."

As if I would! Affronted at the very thought, the dog's long snout nudged her chin, to Susanna's giggle.

Not two seconds later, Captain Tucker slipped quickly through the door. Gave her a trice to admire the twinkling stars overhead, the glistening snow scape behind and the welcome breadth of his strong form in silhouette before he heaved it to and bolted it behind him. She gave him a scant second to turn?—

And launched herself into his arms

"You're back," she cried, relieved, pleased, breathing in his crisp, comforting scent while checking hair and scalp, shoulders and arms for any new injuries. "Whatever took you so long? I imagined all sorts of tragedies that might have befallen you, kept you away. But you are here, solid. So very welcome."

She cared naught that he couldn't hear her, the only thing that mattered was that he'd returned. That his hands went first to her waist and then to her bottom as she clutched and climbed up his brawny mass.

That his scent, now filtered through a light waft of stable and outdoors, comforted as much as it titillated.

What mattered was that she could not seem to stop the cravings riding her. The need to taste him. To lick her tongue into his mouth, revel in the slow glide and fast thrust of his against hers when her hunger finally reached him.

Carriage. Inside. Now. Please , she either said or thought. Perhaps only wished. But Captain Tucker, good man that he was, knew how to discern orders—and yearnings.

With a minimum of grappling, he found the carriage and pushed her inside the narrow opening. He followed, the coat she shoved from his shoulders falling behind them, to a single woof of welcome and a thump-drag .

I hope your dog doesn't chew wool. But she wasn't concerned enough to stop. Not when Leo's broad-fingered hands met the bare skin of her thighs as she tugged him farther inside and brought him with her as her back met the squab.

"Ah, sweet Susanna." His voice was a deep husk in the darkness. "Am I dreaming? I have fancied you—this—for hours."

His breath, warm and moist against her neck, thrilled every bit as much as his words.

Silly man. If naught but a dream, 'tis one we both share, she answered with her heart, her lips busy attacking his again, her fingers fumbling with his falls, needing to release him. To feel him.

Needing to ride him.

I have craved you from that first kiss, when you expressed wonder that I did not fear you.

For she knew what it was to fear. Earlier this night and back home, in what should have been her safe abode.

But with Leo? Her brave and caring Captain Tucker? Never will I fear you, good man, not when what bursts between us is like dawn spilling across the sky… Giving light to places within me I had not realized had grown so very dark.

As though she had spoken out loud, he wrenched his mouth away from hers. "Tonight, though, here in the darkness, we kiss." The words were a promise. But one he threatened to break when he stilled her questing fingers. Wrapped his hand snug about her wrist and halted her efforts.

"You cannot hear me"—but Susanna certainly heard her frustrated whimper clear enough—"but kissing is not all I want to do this eve."

"Ah, my restless Lady Reckless, calm now." His lips nudged her jaw as he spoke. His grip moved her fingers away from his falls and to his back as his other hand skimmed past her shoulder to curve over the top of her head. Upon realizing she had wedged herself against the wall of the carriage, he lifted his glorious weight from her to tug her an inch or two downward. "I'm not finished yet, lass. Not nearly."

She wrinkled the fabric of his clothing within those restless fingers he accurately accused her of, unable to stop the tilt of her abdomen as it sought out his hard length. "Either speak or kiss, dear knave, else I shall strum myself and act a true trollop before you now."

The breadth of his chest and shoulders swamped her like an ocean wave, made her giddy because her body fair floated against his. He didn't push her down; he didn't drown her. Though she feared her raging desire, her internal dampening for him took her further and further away from the steady shore she'd clung to in her mind these last difficult years.

And then she gripped his flesh. Granted, 'twas the flesh of his back, firm and hot beneath her hands where she'd delved beneath his shirt. His skin against hers was softness over hard muscle. She hugged him to her, ran one foot over the back of his leg, the action opening her to the decadent press of his affair right where she wanted him. She gave another whimper. Turned her face and encountered the gentle fingers he'd placed along her cheek. Sucked one inside, ran her tongue past the tip all the way down to the base, where she let the tip of her tongue linger until that wasn't quite enough.

Her lower body rising now, she wiggled her head until she could suckle his finger in earnest. His surprised moan brought further dampness to her core.

He swore. A single damn . And then, "Aye, all over, I vow. We kiss. From here…" He pulled his finger free, trailing the wet of her saliva on her chin and neck before encountering his shirt she still wore and yet his finger continued downward…

Downward…

Until he reached right where she needed him. Desperately so, it seemed to her. Odd, for one who had learned to appreciate being ignored.

Yet now? With him? Her throat gave a strangled, self-muffled keening sound when his fingers encountered flesh that felt heavier, more swollen than ever before. She arched toward his gossamer touch.

But then the fingers holding her scalp sifted through her hair, gave the lightest of tugs. "You nod," he said on one of those rumbling snarls that stroked her ears. "You nod, and I lick you to completion tonight."

She gasped. Tightened.

Lick? Aye, that please.

She gave a whimper when he, her invisible watchman in the night— her protector —feathered fingers through her aching core. Would that she could see him! Witness his body above hers, see his head between her thighs.

Would his eyes be heavy lidded? The hunger in his gaze difficult to glimpse? Or would the heat she felt be mirrored back? The unquenched craving only deepening at his look of desire?

She blinked, cast her gaze around them, saw utterly nothing. Not with the light out and naught to encroach upon their haven. Even the dog had gone silent, no sounds beyond the carriage, beyond her own accelerated breaths and the intense thrumming of her heartbeat.

The darkness heightened everything. No sight. No sounds—not for him, only her.

She would have to devise several touches that had meaning. Mayhap a hand curved about his neck, I'm falling for you . A kiss upon his jaw, I think you are the most handsome man I have ever beheld . The squeeze of her feminine muscles around his masculine ones, she thought on a gasp as one finger dared enter…

Give me all of you. Hard. Fast. …Forever?

"Come morning," Leo promised, speaking past the saliva moistening his mouth, "when I can see your face, when you can communicate words and I can read your expression and am not completely blinded…" Because he could not fathom the ultimate intimacy with her, not this first time, where he could neither hear nor see…

Not after the hints she'd revealed about her past. What if he did aught that reminded her of her husband? Her expressive eyes, quick-to-smile (or pinched) lips would tell him before he trod too far the wrong direction.

"Come morning," he vowed, his heart hammering so fast 'twas a wonder he wasn't lightheaded as his exploring fingers met the beckoning heat between her legs, slick with dew, desire he could not wait to taste. He tightened his hold on her scalp. "Then I shall take you fully as we both crave." If that is still what you want.

But tonight? Now? He needn't have worried.

For her head didn't simply nod. It jerked in such a frenzy that he was chuckling against her belly as he made his way unerringly past the linen of his shirt. His adventuress remained pliant, open beneath him, one foot on his shoulder, the other propped on the squab, as he scooted to kneel on the floor of the carriage.

Brushing her hair one last time, he brought his arm down, parted her folds just enough to inhale. To be greeted by the velvet welcome of pure passion. "You smell both sweet and wicked, lass."

He couldn't stop his fingertips from feathering over her silky heat. Nor his head from lowering. Couldn't stop his thumb from seeking out the hard knot at the top of her treasure. Knew, if he could have seen, she'd be pink, flushed, glistening. Knew, if he could have heard, she'd be panting—the fast breaths lifted and lowered her stomach, her abdomen, where he rested one hand.

"I do anything you like not, tap my head twice." As if that would get your attention. "Or hell, kick me." He chuckled when she reached forth to run her nail tips through his unkept hair. The surprisingly sharp caress tied him in knots all the way to his weighted ballocks.

His thumb circled, then retreated, his wet fingers sliding along her cleft, testing her entrance. Gauging her response. "And I shall stop." But when she arched into his hand, nudging her hollow against his fingers, bidding him to enter, he had to admit, "Though you may have to kick hard, Susanna, to claim my attention away from this ."

One lick of his tongue made his meaning clear. One early taste that had every muscle in his loins straining. He brought his tongue fully into his mouth, swallowed. Figured parts of him started glowing. "Hold on, now."

That last was more to himself as his hand left her stomach to part her plump folds for his mouth. His other hand, answering her entreaty, and sliding forth a finger past the wet satin to snug inside her passage.

Where she gripped him, hard. Hard and eager. Hips tilted. Nails grazing above his ears.

He leaned forward, ever so slightly, and touched his tongue to her flesh. Swallowed a satisfied growl as the musky luster of her met his mouth.

He slid another finger alongside the first, relishing the tight clasp of her inner muscles. The faster arches of her hips, the less languid caresses through his hair.

Aye, Leo, like that, he could practically hear, only faster, please. More.

Which was easy. Was what he needed too. So he kissed her, full on. Mouth against her quim, lips laving her swollen flesh, tongue circling her pearl. And he sucked. And licked. And moaned. His fingers moved faster when she strained toward him. Clutched his head now. Threatened to swallow his hand. His tongue. His blame heart, if he wasn't careful.

Yet he could not help but wonder, what sort of sounds did she make? Any? As his fingers thrust deep and his tongue painted over her pearled knot, as her physical responses grew wetter and more wild, did she only pant? Did she curse? Or did she mayhap speak with naughty abandon? All things he could not wait to learn tomorrow.

And then there were no more thoughts. No more questions, for the lass arched against his mouth, legs straining, fingers pulling on his hair, hips thrashing…

He imagined a deep and throaty groan as she peaked, but had no time to debate, no time to do more than pull back, after one soft lick, his tongue swiping over his glistening lips, as he swallowed and smiled. His shoulders rolled back as pride puffed his chest. Only to have her clamber up to push against his chest, push hard, as Leo allowed himself to be shoved backward against the opposite bench, as her fingers fumbled in truth, scrabbling to open his falls.

But this time, she knelt between the squabs. This time, she didn't straddle him, only liberated him—to his definite groan—and proceeded to curve her dainty yet strong fingers around his length. Another groan and he encircled her hands with one of his, rode the startling sensation of the pressure she created, the friction beneath those delicate fingers that frigged him with such innocent enthusiasm, there in the silent dark, that Leo found himself laughing even as she fetched his mettle in such a way he felt both unmanned and yet more potent and powerful than he ever had after an act of intimacy.

"What a fine kettle you have brought me to," he admitted, knowing he had to be hoarse, when he thought he could speak without singing hallelujah to the heavens after that most miraculous of releases, using the long length of the shirt he still wore to soak up his spend before shoving it to the side and finding her in the darkness, to pull her on top of him. "Finesse vanishes every bit as much as our light, I fear."

But her lips upon his, her tongue stroking his, the unheard words that brushed by his cheek, his ear, the fierceness of the embrace she gave him before settling across his chest, one leg tucked between his, the other between his bulk and the seat, her fingers resting against the pound of his heart, told him without words that aye, they had both been humbled.

What the morrow would bring he did not know. Travel was most likely a certainty. Evading Haggart and Bowyer and the others ever more important. Sleep should have been impossible. There were…what, only another two—if he were lucky—hours remaining till dawn?

But unlike these last few months, where the black silence of night shrouded him in aloneness, pleasant remembrances of the last few hours buffeted his brain with every bit of solace as the longed-for sounds of the wind…

Sounds…

The little catch in Susanna's throat—a moan? a whimper?—each time she'd caught him staring at her mouth and her words had faltered beneath a shy smile.

The sigh of delight when she beamed at him each time he'd correctly surmised her meaning.

The sound—a squeal? a gasp? (Dare he hope, his name ?)—she made when he'd strummed his tongue over her pearl, his fingers nestled deep inside to the welcome squeeze of her body, and she reached her pinnacle.

What she might have said when they both stroked him to the same? (His name, again, mayhap?)

Deciding to imagine all of them, for once Leo slipped into slumber with a smile…