Bobbi Smith - Captive Pride

Noah felt her tense as her feminine resistance tore before his passionate onslaught. He felt her virginal tightness as he pierced her untouched depths and he froze, holding himself rigidly above her. His thoughts were chaotic. CC had been untouched until him… She had been a virgin… The enormity of the moment shocked him, yet he could not stop. The feel of her body, hot and velvet, holding him buried within her was driving him beyond all rational thought, and there could be only one outcome.

“CC…” He whispered her name hoarsely as he began to move, his body rocking slowly, gently against hers.

CC lay completely still. The passion she’d been feeling had vanished now that the pain of his penetration had ripped through her. She had never known there would be pain; she had thought his touch would only bring pleasure. She bit her lip to keep from crying out as he began to move in a foreign, yet somehow oddly familiar, rhythm.

Noah sensed the change in CC, and he brought his own surging desires under control with an effort. He was determined to make their joining good for her and he bent to kiss her, murmuring softly to soothe her fears.

“Easy, love. It’ll pass. Relax…”

CC gave a small, shaken sob as he claimed her lips, and Noah felt an even greater agony to know that he’d really hurt her. His kiss was soft and sweet, drawing her from herself and gradually easing the tension that pervaded her slim form.

CC had been stunned by all that had happened, but the gentle persuasion of his mouth on hers helped to calm her, and she sighed quietly.

“I want you, CC… I have from the beginning,” Noah told her as he trailed burning kisses down her throat and across her bare shoulder.

His action sent a shiver of awareness through her. CC was amazed to find that the knifelike agony of his possession had passed and only a pressing fullness remained. When his hands left her hips to cup and caress her breasts, she felt the faint stirrings of pleasure again and instinctively she pressed her hips to his, feeling a need for something more deep within.

A shudder of pleasure shot through Noah at her innocent invitation, but still he held himself in check. He had blundered once; he would not do it again. With patient care, he worked at arousing her once more, his hands skimming over her in an erotic play that teased her to the heights of desire and banished all thoughts of pain from her mind.

CC could not remain still beneath his burning weight. His masterful touch had transported her to rapture’s precipice, and she needed him to show her the way to total fulfillment.

“Noah…” She whispered his name as she lifted her hands to frame his face and draw his eyes to hers. “Please, Noah…”

Her plea broke what little control he still had over his own passions. He began to move within her again, this time taking care to pleasure her as he went. He never stopped touching and kissing her as his hips drove in age-old rhythm into her welcoming softness, and when she reached her pinnacle of delight and cried out her ecstasy, he held her tightly. His own peak soon followed, the knowledge that he’d taken CC from pain to pleasure heightening the joy of his excitement. They crested and soared, completely immersed in the splendor of their joining, and then rested, wrapped sensuously, intimately in each other’s arms.

A near-violent fury shook Matt as he stood in the study with a group of men listening to the conversation between Harley Winthrop and Colonel Thornhill praising the soldiers stationed in Boston.

“Gentlemen,” Matt interrupted abruptly, his sudden anger overwhelming him, “it’s been my experience that the troops stationed here are less than the professional soldiers you make them out to be. I should think that discipline would be one of your most pressing concerns.”

Winthrop cast him a quick look of surprise as he wondered why His Lordship would be interested in military affairs. Colonel Thornhill, a tall British officer of ramrod-straight posture and a long, flowing mustache, frowned at his inference.

“How’s that, Lord Kincade?” Thornhill inquired. He knew that the Kincades had only just arrived in Boston, and he wondered what possible contact this young man might have had with the troops.

“I had the occasion to rescue a young girl from two of your fine troopers several days ago,” Matt informed them coldly.

“Rescue a girl from our troopers?” They exchanged puzzled glances. “I dare say-”

Matt cut them off. “She had been beaten, and had I not arrived on the scene when I did, she surely would have been more sorely abused, if you understand my meaning.”

“I hadn’t heard of this infraction,” Thornhill blustered. “Two soldiers attacking a young woman?”

Winthrop frowned in consideration and then shrugged, chuckling maliciously. “Must have been a colonial wench. She was probably a working girl…”

“Sir!” Matt took offense at his remark. “Indeed she was a colonial, but she was no prostitute. She went out on the streets that night to fetch a doctor for her seriously ill parent. Your fine soldiers, instead of protecting her, were the cause of her terrible anguish! She might have died at their hands.”

“Were you able to identify the soldiers?”

“No, all I saw was their backs as they ran away,” he told them scathingly.

“And the woman?”

“I don’t know if she followed up on the report I made to the constable or not,” Matt answered uneasily.

Matt had wanted to check on Faith after that morning, to make sure that she was all right, but he had hesitated, believing that she wanted nothing more to do with him. When the doctor had returned to the inn the following morning, he had instructed him to attend Faith at her home and then report back to him after seeing her. Upon his return, Dr. Spalding had assured him that the young woman and her mother were doing fine. It had heartened him to know that Faith was better, but since she had sent no message with the doctor, he’d been forced to accept that there would be no further contact between them. He had directed the constable to her home, too, but the officer had never reported back to him with any findings or information, giving him reason to believe that Faith had been unable to identify her attackers.

“Evidently she didn’t, Lord Kincade,” Thornhill dismissed. “I’m sure it’s all blown over by now. Usually these girls lead the soldiers on, you see…”

“Our men do have their raucous moments, but all in all, they’re good fighting men.”

“No, I don’t see, Thornhill. And Winthrop, I’m surprised by your attitude! You call attacking a defenseless woman a ‘raucous moment’?” Matt was furious.

“Lord Kincade,” Thornhill began with a rather mollifying tone, “you’ve only just arrived here in the colonies. You can’t possibly know the way of things yet…”

Matt’s blue eyes turned icy as he faced the two officers. “Sir, I’m learning, and what I’m learning does not endear the military’s presence to me!” He gave them both a curt bow. “If you will excuse me?”

And without another word, Matt strode with dignified aristocratic grace from the room. He was still angry when he reached the ballroom, and he stood stiffly in the open double doorway watching the dancers as they performed the minuet. A servant passed with a tray of champagne and he helped himself to a glass of the sparkling wine, downing it quickly in his disquiet.

His gaze searched the crowded room for some sign of Noah or CC, and noting their continued absence, he wondered at Noah’s reason for wanting to be alone with her. After returning to the house as Noah requested, he had discovered that Edward had not been looking for him. The awkwardness of the moment had passed quickly as he’d joined the men in the study, but he still had been left to ponder his brother’s interest in lovely Cecelia Demorest. She was definitely an attractive young woman, but the Widow Woodham seemed more Noah’s type-sophisticated, worldly, sensual…