One Wicked Wish by Anna Campbell
Chapter 10
Halston surged across the distance between them and caught Stella up in his arms for a passionate kiss. She met him with white-hot desire. No uncertainty, no coyness, no games. Her hands tugged and ripped at his shirt, as if she needed to touch his skin more than she needed to breathe.
It took an almighty act of will to lift his head. She looked wild and desperate, her eyes brilliant with hunger. She was gasping after that overwhelming kiss, and under the nightgown, her breasts rose and fell. He caught a glimpse of peaked nipples and a shadowy hint of the curls at the delta of her thighs.
The silk did little to conceal her body, but even so, he cursed any barrier between him and her nakedness. It had cost him a king’s ransom, and right now he wanted to rip it to shreds until all he could see was Stella.
He dragged his shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor. “It’s exciting that you want me.”
Her gaze skittered across the raised red scar that the bullet had left, but he was grateful that she didn’t mention it. “I want you more than I can say,” she admitted.
How he loved the frankness of her lust. His shaking hands plowed into that sumptuous fall of hair and when he brought her close, her breasts crushed into his chest. He kissed her again, feeling the slide of silk against his skin.
With arousing murmurs of enjoyment, she clawed at his back. He was already hard, but her unfettered pleasure in what they did made him swell against his trousers. Her hands explored his arms and shoulders, avoiding his injury, before tracing an incendiary line down his spine.
A grunt of shock escaped when she gripped his buttocks, hauling him into her body until he rubbed against her stomach. Their bodies fitted as if designed to meld together. She moaned against his lips, kneading his arse with a rhythm that only made him more frantic to be inside her.
She ripped her lips free of his and bit his neck. The sting thundered through him and stoked his desire. Her busy hands slipped between them, ripping at the fastenings on his trousers until he sprang free, throbbing and eager.
When her fingers curled around him, bright light blinded his eyes. The blast of heat threatened to blow his head off.
Halston caught her hips and hoisted her high. The movement pulled on his wound, but he didn’t give a damn. She made a guttural sound redolent with approval and curled her legs around him, bunching up the nightgown.
When Stella opened to him, he caught a drift of rich female arousal. He staggered forward until her back slammed into the wall. Her hands hooked around his shoulders, as she rained greedy kisses over every part of him that she could reach. His face, his neck, his shoulders, the top of his chest. Each touch of her lips sparked a fire, until raging flame consumed him.
He jiggled her until she was poised, ready for him. Unable to hold back, he plunged deep. She cried out, and her hands turned into talons, scratching him.
Halston sucked in a great gulp of air. She was deliciously tight, and hot and sleek with need. Closing his eyes, he rested his head on her shoulder and let intense pleasure flow through him.
She shifted, and her grip eased to a caress. The silent invitation was irresistible. He began to move with hard, determined thrusts that knocked her against the wall. She pressed her cheek against his. Each gasp when he penetrated her played a magnificent symphony in his ears.
Those gasps rose until she clenched around him in spasms of ecstasy. Fumbling, shaking, aware of her quaking climax going on and on, he swung around and stumbled to the floor. As he descended, he banged his knees hard. He registered the pain at a distance.
Supporting her back, more careful with her than with himself, he lowered her to the carpet and thrust again. He wanted to stay inside Stella forever. Her body offered the closest glimpse of paradise he was ever likely to get.
It went against every masculine instinct to wrench free. With unsteady hands, he shoved up the crumpled nightdress to reveal her bare stomach.
Halston lost himself on her skin, groaning with unrivaled pleasure. He collapsed at her side, struggling for breath, feeling like he’d just run through a forest fire. He was utterly exhausted, utterly enthralled. Stella had taken all of him and wrung every drop from him. He wondered if he’d ever find the strength to get up off the floor.
Surprising him again, she took his hand. The link confirmed the bond forged out of that astonishing conflagration of pleasure.
After that astoundingly good fuck, this connection should seem trivial. Holding hands was something sweethearts did. Innocent children.
Whereas Halston was no innocent child. Nor was Stella.
But the warmth that stole over him with the chaste contact was as powerful in its way as that first, earth-shattering entry into her body. He curled his fingers around hers, unable to find words to express his pleasure in what they’d just done.
His heart slowed. He was no longer deaf to everything except the stormy force of his blood. He heard an owl hoot outside, then another owl answered. He heard the fire crackling in the grate.
And he heard something else, something that he took a few moments to identify. His senses might reawaken to his surroundings, but his mind still wandered the outer limits of the stars, where this lovely woman had transported him in that delirious swiving.
Horror flooded him. And self-recrimination. He’d been staring unseeing up at the ornate plasterwork on the ceiling. Now he turned his head toward Stella. Even that small movement strained him. She really had used him up in a way he couldn’t remember before.
“You’re crying,” he grated out. “Devil take it, did I hurt you?”
To his regret, she released his hand and sat up, folding her legs beneath her. He’d suspected from the first that she had spectacular legs. He’d been right.
“No, of course you didn’t.” Her voice was clogged with tears.
“You were very tight, and I wasn’t gentle.”
Trembling hands wiped her face, as she answered in that same thick voice. “It was a bit of a shock at first.” She directed a glance down to where his trousers gaped open and his dick lay flaccid against his thighs. “You’re much larger than Niccolo.”
Halston told himself that only a petty human being would appreciate hearing that. “You haven’t had a man in ten years. I should have been more careful.”
“It was wonderful.” Her laugh was rueful. “The most exciting thing in my whole life.”
He sat up, too. “Then why are you crying?”
“It’s silly, but I’ve never felt anything like that before.” Stella made an apologetic gesture. “I promise I won’t howl my eyes out every time you take me.”
He caught her hand and lifted it to his lips. “I don’t mind.”
To his surprise, Halston didn’t, although feminine tears had long ago lost any power over him. Too many mistresses had used tears as weapons of war, to squeeze more jewelry out of him or a more generous settlement when an affair was over.
But Stella wasn’t trying to manipulate him. In fact, it was clear that her overwrought reaction left her mortified.
She was starting to look happier, thank goodness, although a tinge of embarrassment lingered in the quick glance she sent him. “I’d forgotten what it’s like when a man is inside me. I’d forgotten quite how…intimate it feels. Not just physically, but emotionally. For a little while, I wasn’t alone anymore.”
His heart was rusty when it came to poignant emotion. When it squeezed tight now, the effect was painful. “Oh, sweetheart,” he sighed and placed his arms around her shoulders.
That turbulent, searing encounter hadn’t contained a single trace of tenderness, but as he drew her against his side and kissed the top of her head, tenderness felt like it was eating him alive.
He’d always known that this affair would be unlike any of his others. It turned out that he’d had no idea how far it would take him from his usual pragmatic arrangements.
At least Stella wasn’t crying because he’d hurt her or because she regretted what they’d done. He couldn’t bear it if either of those were the case.
“I had different plans, you know,” Halston said in a musing tone.
“I’m sure that’s not true.” She shifted to meet his eyes, but made no attempt to break away, he was pleased to notice. “You meant to take me to bed. I never expected anything else.”
He gave a brief laugh and kissed her. “Bed being the point. I was going to ply you with wine and delicious morsels and share a little conversation, then take my time to arouse you, once I led you through into my bedchamber. It was all going to be frightfully civilized.”
She stroked his hair. “I liked that it was savage and uncontrolled and unplanned. It felt wonderful to know how much you wanted me.”
“There’s no doubt about that.” If she glanced down now, she’d see he wanted her again. How was it that he’d gone from fearing he’d never move again to sharpening interest in having her once more? “I promised to make you scream.”
She started to look cheerier. “You did.” She paused. “And you did. No wonder you’re looking so pleased with yourself.”
“I am, although I’m less pleased at my lack of restraint. One touch and I was lost.”
“I think it’s my turn to look smug.”
As her amusement faded, he read longing in her golden eyes. That was another thing that was different about this affair. The thought of his previous mistresses yearning for him would have made him run a hundred miles in the opposite direction.
“I wanted you, too,” she admitted. “It’s been an eon since you kissed me in London, and then I thought this evening would never end. I can’t think of anything but being in your arms. Now that I know what you can do to me, it will be even worse. You’ve lured me into the realms of sin, Gray. I fear they might become my permanent home.”
He kissed her again. He loved the taste of her mouth. He loved the way she surrendered her whole self to every kiss. “I’d like that.”
Sudden shock had him going still. What the hell was he doing? What he said smacked of promises for the future. He never made promises to a lover.
When he’d pounded into Stella’s body, the experience had eclipsed all earlier fucks. Now his emotional barriers cracked one by one.
Stella Faulkner was dangerous.
Halston should have recognized that before, but he’d been in such a frenzy to have her, misgivings went unheard.
Those misgivings had risen to a clamor, and he didn’t know how to silence them. He couldn’t countenance the idea of ending this affair. Not yet.
He told himself that was just because she was so wondrous in his arms and he still had things he wanted to do to her. But he had a bothersome sense that having her would only make him want to have her again.
She watched him, a faint line between her tawny brows. Although her eyelashes were wet, she was no longer crying. “What is it, Gray?”
Shaking his head, he reminded himself that he was a notorious rake who sought sensual pleasure and nothing more from his amours. He refused to acknowledge how hollow that statement sounded, even in the privacy of his own head.
“Nothing.” He shifted away and fastened his trousers. With his tackle waving in the air, he felt a little too vulnerable. “Let me clean you up.”
“I can do it.” She paused, then spoke in a tone that he hadn’t heard since their first meeting. Back when she was convinced that he wanted to court her cousin. “In fact, I think I’d rather.”
Blast it all, she’d sensed his withdrawal. It was frightening quite how attuned they were. Not just on a physical level.
That was what frightened the life out of him, not the unparalleled delight of uniting his body with hers. Problems only arose when he wasn’t fucking her.
Halston stood and reached out to help her up. He saw her consider refusing his hand, and he kicked himself for making such a bloody mess of this. Since they’d met in the gazebo, he’d plotted this chance to spend the night with Stella. Now because he lost control of his feelings, she was busy building barriers against him.
Feelings were always a catastrophe. Feelings could go to blazes.
The extent of his relief when she accepted his hand was out of all proportion to the action. “There’s hot water in the dressing room.”
“Thank you.”
Halston fought the impulse to follow, to watch her strip off the extravagant nightdress and sponge his seed from her skin. He still hadn’t seen her naked.
If he didn’t mend this rift between them quick smart, he might never see her naked.
That thought summoned a desolation that provided a warning in itself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d feared a woman’s rejection. Mostly – always – if a woman said no, there was always another woman to take her place. Although the sad fact was that they never said no.
Halston had a sick feeling that if Stella walked out of this room now, he’d rue the lack of her as long as he lived.
