When she wriggled impatiently on his thighs, Richard reached between them, found the hem of her skirt, and slid his hand beneath.
He found her-startlingly hot in the cold air in the carriage. She would have pulled back from their kiss but he refused to let her; he kept her lips trapped, filled her mouth with slow, languid thrusts as he stroked her, parted her, penetrated her.
She melted about his fingers; he probed deeper, then stroked gently. She was hot and very ready.
He had to draw back from their kiss to deal with his own clothing. Her questing fingers had already pushed his greatcoat aside and undone both coat and waistcoat. Fingers splayed across the fine linen of his shirt, breasts rising and falling dramatically, her lips swollen and parted, eyes jewel green under heavy lids, she stared dazedly down as he flicked his trouser buttons undone.
They slipped free-abruptly, she lifted her head and stared at him. "What…?"
The half-squeaked question was eloquent; Richard raised a suggestive brow.
"Here?"
He raised his brow higher. "Where else?"
"But…" Aghast, she stared at him. Then she looked up at the carriage roof. "Your coachman…"
"Is paid enough to feign deafness." Ready, Richard reached for her.
She looked back at him and licked her lips glanced at the seat beside them, then shook her head in disbelief. "How…?"
He showed her, drawing her fully to him, then easing into her softness. As she fathomed his intention and felt him enter her, she spread her thighs, slid her knees along the cushions, and, with a soft sigh, sank down, impaling herself fully upon him.
As she closed, scalding hot around him, Richard watching her face and seeing the expression of sheer relief that washed over her fine features, got the distinct impression that she was as thankful to have him inside her again as he was to be there.
Wrapping his arms about her, one beneath her hips, he took her lips in a sealing kiss then lifted her. Rocked her.
She caught the rhythm quickly. Rising on her knees, she tried to increase the tempo.
"No. Anchoring her hips he drew her fully down, held her there for a moment, then picked up the rhythm again. "Keep in time with the horses."
She blinked at him, but did; gradually, the steady, rolling rocking became so instinctive they no longer needed to think of it-but could think, instead, solely of the indescribable pleasure of their bodies merging intimately, again and again, in a journey of infinite delight.
Held firmly, closely, Catriona shuddered-with pure pleasure with sharp excitement. With an unfurling sense of the illicit-of the wild the unconventional-in her soul and his. Eyes closed, held close in his embrace, their fully dressed state contradicted, contrasted-focused her senses on-the area of then naked engagement. Along the bare inner face of her thighs, all she could feel was the fabric of his trousers the smooth leather of the seat Over her flanks and legs over the curves of her bottom, all she could feel was the shift and glide of her lawn chemise and petticoats.
Only at the core of her, in the soft, swollen, heated flesh between her widespread thighs-only there could she feel him, only there did they touch with no barriers between. Only there did they merge, sweetly slick, powerfully smooth.
With heightened senses, she reveled in the power inherent in their joining, in the deeply compulsive repetition, in the burgeoning energy rising within them.
Senses wide open, awareness complete, she was deeply conscious that outside the carriage, the world, ice cold and blanketed in white, went on, committed to its own steady rhythm, the unquenchable rhythm of life. Under the snow, life still glowed, seeds warm, fecundity waiting to flower. Just as, beneath their heavy clothes, they-their bodies and their lives-were melding, seeds sown in darkness to flower later-in summer, when the sun returned.
With their own rhythm, the rhythm of their breathing of their heartbeats, of the constant flexing of their bodies, locked to the rolling gait of the horses plodding through that wintry scene, they, too, became part of it. A natural part of the landscape, the act of their joining invested with the same, intrinsic force that breathed life into the world.
As the snow swirled and the light slowly faded and the horses plodded on, locked in each others arms, their bodies slowly tensing, straining toward shimmering release, they were a piece of the jigsaw of the world at that moment. An essential, necessary piece.
With that certainty investing her mind, her soul, Catriona dragged her lips from his. Laying her head on his shoulder, her forehead by his jaw, she breathed rapidly, raggedly. Her body moved incessantly without her direction, driven by a need she no longer needed to conceal. Didn't know how to conceal.
Caught in the moment, she clung to him, conscious to her toes of the steely strength of him, the hot hard length of him, sliding so effortlessly deep into her core, nudging her womb, soon to fill it, to provide the seed for her fruit.
Need built, then flooded her; she heard herself moan. He shifted and brushed a hot kiss to her temple, then tightened his arms about her and urged her on. Urged her deeper upon him.
She dragged in a desperate breath, and tightened about him and drew him in-into her body, into her soul.
Into her heart.
She could feel her protective distance dissolving-feel her shields slide away-leaving her defenseless. At her feet, the hole she'd jumped into that first night yawned and beckoned anew-tempting her to recommit to it, to jump in as she had when she'd first given herself to him, when she'd first welcomed him-the warrior-into her body. The second night she'd gone to him had dug the hole deeper, the third night had sealed her fate.
Now, compelled by that same fate, drawn on by a force more powerful than any she'd known, she stepped forward gladly and slid into the dark.