Maggie Shayne: Weddings from Hell

They shared a light supper with Henry and Eliza and then retired to their cabin. Payen was thankful for the privacy.

"I couldn't stand one more minute with Eliza frowning at me."

Violet chuckled as she presented him her back. "She'll be fine. Unbutton me, will you?"

He kissed the side of her neck. "With pleasure."

"Any regrets?" She asked as his fingers raced down the row of tiny pearl buttons along her spine. He wanted her naked. Now.

The back of her gown gaping, sagging at her shoulders, he turned her to face him, so that he could look into those big eyes of hers and let her see the truth there. "I regret leaving you five years ago, but I could never regret being with you now."

"Are you sure?"

Sure uncertainty was strange in her. Did she doubt his reasons for changing her? "I regret cutting through Lady Verge's china plate more."

Her eyes widened. "You cut through a plate?"

"When I heard you were engaged, yes."

She chuckled so beautifully that he didn't mind admitting the embarrassing incident. "I have many regrets in my life, Violet Wynston-Jones Carr, but loving you isn't one of them."

"You love me?"

His hands came up to cup her cheeks. "Of course I do. And I'm an ass not to have convinced you of it before this. You are the color in my world, Violet. Every night is brighter with you in it."

Tears clung to the gold-tipped sable of her lashes as she smiled. "I knew you loved me, but after…what happened," she still wasn't able to speak plainly about the attack on them, "I thought you might have done it out of guilt."

"I did it for purely selfish reasons," Payen replied, tugging the gown from her shoulders so that it fell to her feet in a soft silky heap. "To keep you with me for eternity."

She wrapped long, strong arms around his neck. "No more running?"

"Not unless it's around the bedroom. But I'll chase you, my love. No matter where you go, I'll find you."

Violet smiled. "And I'll find you."

Payen would have made love to her right there, standing in the middle of the floor on a ship that swayed unevenly beneath their feet, but his wife deserved a bed on her wedding night, and so once he removed the rest of her clothes and his, the bed was where he placed her.

She lay beneath him, spread and open to his gaze and touch like a pagan offering to the gods. An offering to him.

He cupped the fullness of her breasts in his hands, lightly dragging his thumbs across the tight pink peaks. Violet gasped in pleasure, her hands coming up to cover his own, a sight that sent a surge of desire straight to his already throbbing cock. Her nipples were so sensitive, so incredibly receptive to his slightest touch. Payen took one between his lips, whipping it with his tongue before he nipped it gently with his teeth. She writhed beneath him, lifting her hips in silent invitation—one he accepted, sliding between her full thighs to push the eager length of him against her hot dampness.

He loved the feel of her. Loved her taste, the texture, the way she moaned. He loved the way she smelled, all heat and moist female, sweet and delicious.

He sucked and pulled at her nipple until it stood red and distended, and her fingers pulled at his hair, then he turned his attentions to the other breast. When he had her grinding herself against him, the slick little cove of her sex beckoning, he knew it was time to move on.

He moved down, planting kisses along the undersides of her breasts, the soft flesh of her rib cage. He swirled his tongue around the small pool of her navel and nuzzled her soft, round belly with his jaw. She shivered against the rasp of his stubble, gasped when he grazed her with his fangs.

Payen knelt between her legs as her hands clutched at his shoulders. The warm, salty scent of her arousal filled his nostrils, flooding him with a longing so great it took all his will to control it.

He parted the lips of her sex with gentle fingers. The first pass of his tongue was a quick lick just to lift her hips off the bed. The second was firmer, had more purpose. Violet moaned her approval, digging her heels into the mattress as she lifted her mons to his mouth. Payen licked again, this time coming in closer so that the light beard on his lip and chin brushed her sensitive skin, so that he could use both his lips and tongue on her.

He laved his tongue relentlessly against her little hooded friend until she was fairly sobbing with pleasure. Then, he slid two fingers into her slick pussy, curving them upward to stroke the tiny ridged wall there. Violet's hips lifted as her moans intensified, then, Payen pressed his lips against the sweet flesh of her inner thigh and bit.

She came so hard she soaked his fingers as her muscles clamped around them like a vise. Her cries echoed throughout the room and his male pride preened knowing that at least one crewman had to have heard the effects of his prowess. There wasn't a man alive who was worth his salt who didn't understand what it was to make a woman scream with pleasure.

Payen's smugness was short-lived, for the next thing he knew he was on his back and Violet was on top of him, straddling his hips and plunging the wet heat of her down onto his aching cock with such abandon that soon the sheets were tearing under the force of his fists and he was shouting out his own release as Violet sang out for a second time. Just as the tremors began to subside, Violet lowered herself over him so that she could sink her fangs into his shoulder and he into hers, sending another wave after wave of pleasure through each other.

"That was nice," she said later, tucked into his shoulder as they lay together on the torn and damp sheets.

Payen laughed. "Nice? Woman, you'll be the death of me."

Rolling toward him, she lifted herself up onto her elbow. A thick curtain of sable hair fell over her shoulder to pool on his chest. "The death of you? Hardly. I think I'm the life of you, Payen Carr."

He had to agree, but he pressed anyway. "I lived for centuries before you, you impertinent little chit."

"You existed," she corrected arrogantly. "You didn't start living until that first night with me. Admit it. That's why you ran away."

He stared at her. She never failed to amaze him. Lifting a finger, he trailed it down the satiny curve of her cheek. "You're right. And I almost died when I thought I lost you. I would have followed you into death, Violet. I was so stupid not to see it before, but I would have ended my own life just to find you in another."

Tears dripped down her cheeks, and Payen's own eyes burned as well as dampness threatened to spill over.

"You don't have to turn your back on the Templars," she told him. "I won't stand in the way of keeping your promises to them."

Pulling her close he kissed her. "I love you."

Violet opened her mouth, but Payen silenced her words with his own. She didn't have to say she loved him. He felt it in his bones, just as he knew that he could indeed keep his promises to the Templars. In fact, he planned to. But those vows would come a far and distant second to the vows he made to his wife.

My husband says I have the best job in the world. The only thing that could top being paid to do what I love is if Avon Books decided that all their authors had to be hand-fed chocolate by Hugh Jackman, Gerard Butler, or John Cusack. But my husband probably wouldn't think so much of my job then, so instead I'll let him feed me chocolate and go on being forever thankful that I have the best job—and husband—in the world.

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