Perhaps it was an unconscious act on his part, but he knew by the slight flare of her nostrils, the way her eyes suddenly became heavy lidded, that he put off the scent. The one that attracted women to him. Merrick knew that wasn"t right. He knew, but whatever instinct inside of him wanted to seduce Lady Anne Baldwin took over. He wanted her to desire him as much as he desired her. He wanted to forget about his strange gifts and the gap that separated him and Anne. He wanted her to forget, too.
Slowly, he leaned down and captured her parted lips. They were as sweet as he remembered and more responsive than they"d been in the stable. He was no longer a stranger to her, which seemed to be working to his advantage. She moaned softly when he traced her full lower lip with his tongue. She opened wider to him and he slanted his mouth against hers, exploring her, tasting her, seducing her.
Anne pressed against him and he pulled her closer, molding her soft curves against him. He cupped her breast, his blood heating in his veins when she did not pull away. She gasped softly when he brushed her nipple with his thumb through the fabric of her shirt. He wanted her naked. He wanted to touch her skin.
Merrick backed her against the trunk of a thick tree. He kissed her neck, worked the laces at the front of her shirt loose until the material gaped open and he could slide his hand inside. Conscience whispered that this wasn"t the same as the night in the stable. He knew who she was now. He knew she was innocent. Still, he could not stop himself.
Anne knew she should stop him. Her mind was fogged with pa.s.sion. Pa.s.sion she had never felt before. What was it about this man that she could not resist? Maybe a combination of everything about him. His mouth moving against hers, his hand against her breast, excited her beyond common sense. She could even ignore the rough bark of the tree pressed against her back if only he kept kissing her... touching her.
His mouth moved to her neck, biting her skin gently before he moved lower, pushing her shirt aside. The feel of his moist mouth against her nipple, even through her chemise, sent a jolt through her. Anne twisted her fingers in his long hair and tried to remember to breathe.
"Do you know how beautiful you are?" he whispered against her skin. "How perfect in every way?"
Anne had never felt beautiful before. Certainly men had told her she was, but none had made her feel beautiful. On a deep level Anne knew that she craved Merrick"s touch so much because she had been denied affection growing up. He gave her what she had been denied, and in turn, she wanted to deny him nothing. But as right as it felt, Anne knew that what was happening between them was wrong.
Resisting him became more difficult when he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked gently. Her nails dug into his scalp. Her knees nearly buckled. The place between her legs grew moist. She ached there, ached as if her body needed something her mind could not comprehend.
Anne sank deeper into the fog of her desire. His warm mouth traveled up her neck again; then he was kissing her. When he thrust his tongue into her mouth, Anne responded likewise. That"s when she felt his teeth. They were longer than she knew them to be... almost like fangs.
She opened her eyes and thought he looked different. His facial features were somewhat blurred. She tried to struggle, but he pinned her securely against the tree. With his body pressed against hers, she felt his arousal for her. Then she couldn"t swear to it, but she thought he growled.
"Merrick," she whispered. "You"re frightening me."
His mouth was on her neck again. She felt the sharp sting of his teeth before he suddenly wrenched himself away from her. He turned his back; then he disappeared into the forest. Anne blinked into the darkness. Her heart pounded inside of her chest. He"d left her alone.
A wolf howled in the distance and Anne sucked in a breath. She fumbled with the gaping edges of her shirt and pulled the garment closed around her neck. Slowly, she slid to the ground. Where was Merrick? And why had he left her alone in the darkness?
When a twig snapped, she jumped. A tall shape broke from the shadows. Merrick was now standing before her, staring down.
"Come, Anne," he said. "Let me lead you to Sin."
"Sin?" she whispered.
"The stallion. I"ll take you home."
For the briefest moment she thought she couldn"t trust him. Her eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness to see that he held his hand extended toward her. What had happened a moment ago? Had she imagined that he had looked and seemed different?
She had been frightened earlier. Perhaps her fear had only carried over.
"Anne, take my hand," Merrick coaxed softly.
She slid her hand into his larger one. They were the hands of a workingman, but they had felt like silk against her skin a moment earlier. He pulled her to her feet. Anne swayed slightly. She felt dazed, out of sorts.
"What is happening to me?" she asked. "Why do I respond to you as I do, and what do you want from me, Merrick?"
He didn"t say anything for a moment. Perhaps he didn"t know the answer. Then he said, "For right now, I want to take you
home. I want you to be safe."
Safe from the wolves or safe from him? Anne wondered. She should go home. She should go home and slip back into the safe, boring life she had known before she had kissed him in her stable. A stranger. A man who worked for her uncle. But a man
who made her feel as she had never felt before. A man who was not afraid to show her affection. A man who said she was beautiful.
Merrick pulled her along behind him through the woods. The path was actually not that far and they stumbled upon it, startling
the black stallion that had stood waiting for their return. Merrick spoke softly to the animal and he gentled. Merrick climbed up into the saddle and pulled Anne up in front of him.
"What about Storm?" Anne roused herself from her dazed state to ask. "And the saddle and blanket we left behind?"
"I imagine Storm has headed back to the stable. If she"s not there when we return, I"ll go back out and find her. I"ll fetch the saddle, too."
He would cover for Anne. Erase her mistakes tonight. He had possibly saved her life earlier. Merrick with his odd abilities and his scent that still affected her. He could have taken advantage of her in the woods. Anne was fairly certain she would have allowed him to seduce her fully. Why hadn"t he? And had she only imagined that his features had blurred for a moment, had seemed misshapen, his teeth like fangs?
Of course she had. The wolves had given her a fright and she had been still reacting to that. The feel of his hard chest pressed against her back affected her now. His strong thighs molded on either side of her. Anne needed a distraction. He walked the horse, she a.s.sumed for her benefit, but the slow pace only prolonged the torture of being pressed against him.
"Why do you call your horse Sin?" she asked.
"Because he"s as dark as sin."
The silence between them stretched again. Merrick"s heat penetrated the back of her riding gown and she wondered what it
would feel like to have his bare flesh pressed against hers.
"He seems fast, your horse," she blurted.
"Yes," he responded, and his breath brushed her ear, causing her to shiver. "Fast as any I"ve seen."
"Do you race him? I would, if he were mine, that is, and of course if I were a man."
"I race him," he responded. "Mostly at small country fairs, and only if the purse is fat. The horse loves to run. He likes the compet.i.tion." The horse didn"t seem in the least bit anxious to hurry them back to the stable at the moment. Anne wasn"t even certain they were headed in the right direction now that she thought about it.
"Merrick, do you know where you"re going?" she asked. "I don"t think this is the path back to the house."
"I know where I"m going," he a.s.sured her.
A few moments later they left the shelter of the trees behind them. Merrick pulled the stallion up and Anne gasped. Ahead of
them, the ground bladeless and cracked, lay the moors. Moonlight shone down and the ground stretching before them looked strangely beautiful.
"Are you ready, Anne?" Merrick asked close to her ear.
She knew now why he had brought her here. Her heart soared that he would, that he knew how important it was to her-to live this one dream.
"I"m ready," she whispered.
"Hold tight."
He kneed the stallion and they shot forward into the moonlight.
It wasn"t exactly Anne"s dream of being in her underwear, alone, and riding bareback, but it was better. Better because she had
Merrick to share the moment with. He laughed along with her, and she knew that he shared her joy. He understood her as no man had ever understood her before. And he was right. Everyone should have a dream, even a small one like this.
Chapter Six.
Anne laughed out loud from the sheer joy of racing across the moors in the moonlight, the wind in her hair, Merrick at her back, his arms around her holding her securely in front of him. He was right. She"d never been on a horse as fast as the stallion. Sin"s hooves thundered along the cracked ground, throwing clots up in their wake.
"Want to go faster?" he leaned in close to ask.
"Oh yes," she breathed; then they both leaned in together and the stallion shot ahead.
Her blood sang in her veins. Anne closed her eyes and simply lived in the moment-felt the horse powerful and surefooted beneath her, felt the wind dance across her face and a man"s strong heartbeat against her back. She never wanted it to end, but of course it had to.
Merrick slowed the stallion. Sin"s breath fogged on the air as he snorted a protest. Merrick knew the horse well. The stallion loved to run.
"There"s a fair in the shire not far from Blackthorn Manor next week," she told Merrick. "You should race Sin there."
"And will you come to watch us run?"
Anne loved country fairs, if her aunt and uncle found them boring at best. "If my aunt and uncle will bring me," she answered. "They don"t usually care for such things. My aunt would rather attend a grand ball in London."
"And what about you, Anne? What do you prefer?"
He"d brought the stallion to a halt. The moonlight bathed the land around them in soft light, again making her marvel that such a harsh landscape could be beautiful.
"I prefer the fair," she answered honestly. "Although my aunt would count it as time spent wastefully. There are no fine gentlemen at the fair for me to attract. There is no agenda there that she would approve of. No marriage mart."
Merrick pulled Anne"s now tangled hair over one shoulder. The brush of his fingers against her neck made her shiver. "Why are you not wed already, Anne? Are the gentlemen in London all blind or daft?"
She could only be honest with him. "I am boring."
When he laughed, his warm breath caressed her ear. "You, boring? A woman who sneaks out of the house in the night and strips down to her underthings so she can ride her horse across the moors? A woman who ventures into the woods alone to confront wolves? A woman-"
"I don"t usually do those things," Anne interrupted, turning so that she could see him. "I"m having a rebellion. I"m quite certain it will pa.s.s."
"Will it?"
His mouth was suddenly only a whisper from hers. Had he brought her out here to finish the seduction? Something wicked inside of her said if so, that might not be a bad thing. The ride had fired her blood. The ride and Merrick wrapped around her. Tonight might be all they had together. Anne knew her rebellion couldn"t last. At some point she must regain her senses and return to her boring and predictable life... but perhaps not just yet.
The lady wanted him to kiss her. Merrick was tempted. Tempted nearly beyond his control. But something odder than normal had happened to him tonight. In the woods, while he"d been kissing Anne, touching her, wanting her like he had never wanted a woman before, something had stirred beneath his skin. He"d felt it rising up in him. It had come very close to consuming him... whatever the h.e.l.l it was.
His l.u.s.t for her had turned animalistic. His thoughts had become disjointed, as if they were slipping away from him. As if he were transforming into something else. For a moment, he"d actually been afraid that he might hurt Anne. That fear was the one thing that had penetrated his l.u.s.t for her and caused him to break away, to disappear long enough to pull himself back from the brink of whatever was happening to him.
Now she tempted him to lose control again. In the past, women of Anne"s station had come to him, sneaking to the stable where he worked in the dead of night. They had wanted sport with him, and Merrick had used them, he supposed, for whatever revenge against their cla.s.s he harbored in his heart. But Anne, she was not like those other women. What he felt for her was not the same. And what she made him feel was like nothing he had felt before.
He took pleasure in her joy. Her innocence was like a balm to his jaded soul. What he wanted from her was not a few stolen moments in the night. He very much feared what he did want. It was all he had promised his mother he would forsake.
"If I were a gentleman, I would take you to the fair," he told her, brushing a tangled lock of hair from her beautiful face. "I would drive you in a smart buggy and show you off. I would wear your favor upon my arm as I raced Sin."
She smiled at him in the moonlight and his heart twisted inside of his chest "But I am not a gentleman, Anne. You must not forget that."
Her sweet smile faded. In the moonlight, he saw the blush bloom in her cheeks. "You are more of one than you know," she said softly. "Or you would not be warning me not to lose my head. You would not be reminding me of my place, and of yours."
It was defiantly out of his character. Merrick had never minded taking what was offered, secretly resenting that he was at times treated like a fine stud in the stable and not a man. He had thought Anne was different, but was she? Perhaps she thought of him the same. A diversion from her ordered life. Just a part of her rebellion. Then should he feel any guilt about seducing her? Having his sport with her as she would have hers with him?
Her eyes were large and innocent as she stared into his. Soft as the eyes of a doe. No, he was not wrong about her, even if he wanted to tell himself he was at the moment. "You want more than I can give you, Anne. More than a man like me will ever be able to give you. I"ll take you home now."
For a moment, her gaze upon him sparkled, as if her eyes had filled with tears. "Is it so much to want?" she whispered. "To be loved?"
Was that what she wanted from him? Merrick had trouble believing that. More than likely, she was simply confused about what love was. Not that he really knew himself. He had never been in love with a woman before. He certainly knew what it was like to be rejected. He would spare himself that with her.
"I"m sure you are loved, Anne. Your aunt and uncle-"
"Have trouble showing affection toward me," she interrupted. Anne blinked back her tears. "I"ve done everything I know to do to win their hearts, but I feel as if I have failed. I wonder if the fault lies within me. If there is something about me that is unworthy of love?"
Was that what she thought? How could anyone not love Anne? She was good and sweet and beautiful, and he"d known that about her instinctively. He"d known she was the opposite of him. Maybe that was why he found her irresistible. She was everything he was not. She had everything he did not. But then, perhaps they were more alike than he knew. They both wanted what they could not seemingly have.