Page 13 of To Dance with a Devil

She nodded and got to her feet, moving back to Magnar, who whickered softly as she approached.

“At least let me help you mount,” he said as she untied the horse and led him to stand beside an old tree stump.

“No need,” she said curtly as she stepped onto the stump and got herself into the saddle with impressive ease. “I’m used to doing things for myself,” she added, arranging the skirts of her riding habit.

“I’ll ride back with you,” he said, hurrying back to his own mount. Perhaps they could talk on the way, though his greeting so far was not filling him with hope.

“I’m not going back yet,” she said and rode off without waiting for him.

“Bonnie!” he yelled, to no avail as she guided the horse out of the little orchard and back onto the track. “Damnation,” he cursed as he mounted, and set off in pursuit.

***

Bonnie looked over her shoulder, infuriated if not surprised to find Jerome was following her. What was wrong with him? She’d told him he’d had a lucky escape, hoping that would ease his mind, even though she’d lied and had no idea if it was true. Her courses weren’t due for another couple of days yet, but she needed him to stay away from her. If he didn’t, she was in danger of making a fool of herself over him, and she’d done enough of that already. She’d had enough sympathy and understanding from her friends. They were all very sweet and kind, but there was only so much pity a girl could stand.

To know Jerome pitied her too, and pursued her because he felt guilty for what he’d done, was more than she could bear. If she allowed him to be nice to her, she’d crumble and fall into his arms, and then they’d both be sunk. He’d persuade her to let him do the honourable thing and sacrifice his future for her, and she’d have to bear the dismay in Lady St Clair and the earl’s eyes, and know that she’d tied herself to another family who didn’t want her.

Well, she was done being unwanted. If she was destined to be alone, so be it. She’d do it on her own terms, though, and never again would she stay where she was not welcome, lonely among people who wished her elsewhere.

“Come along, Magnar,” she said, leaning forward to speak to the great stallion. “Take me away from all this.”

She urged the horse on, catching her breath as the powerful beast thundered across the hillside as the track gave way into open countryside. She heard Jerome hailing her but ignored him. The lively mare he was riding was fast and nimble but no match for Magnar, who ate up the ground beneath him as if he was Pegasus flying across the fields. How wonderful to fly this fast, the illusion of freedom allowing her to slip free of the burden of sadness that weighed her done. It was only in moments like these, with a surge of recklessness, that she found some measure of respite from a world where she didn’t fit.

Bonnie laughed despite herself and gave a whoop as the horse jumped a high hedgerow as if it was nothing at all. For a brief time she allowed her misery and despair to fall away, to live in the moment and find happiness in the thundering of hooves and the wind on her face as the countryside flashed past. Her heart was beating with exhilaration, the excitement of riding so hard and fast a burst of joy that she couldn’t contain.

Glancing over her shoulder, she found Jerome gaining on her and caught his eye. Despite everything, she grinned at him, unable to keep her delight from bubbling over. He laughed and shook his head, and she knew he felt it too. He delighted in the same things she did, in adventure and fun and in living for the moment, snatching at happiness.

Jerome understood; it was why she’d fallen so hard for him.

All at once, the fields gave way to thick woodland and forced Bonnie to slow Magnar. She brought him to a halt by the edge of the woods. She was laughing still, tears in her eyes, though she could not tell now if they were from joy or misery. Before she could decide, Jerome was there. He leapt down from his horse, grinning like a fool as he ran to her and hauled her from her mount.

“You mad, diabolical girl!” he exclaimed as he lifted her down. “I thought my heart would give out when you took that second hedgerow, it was so huge. Good God, but you can ride.”

He gave a bark of laughter and lifted her again, high in the air, spinning her around before setting her down. His hands were still at her waist and he gazed down at her, his eyes serious now.

“Ah, Bonnie,” he said, and then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

If he’d asked her to marry him again, she could have fought it. If he’d tried to persuade or cajole her into being sensible, she’d have known what to do, but she couldn’t fight the touch of his lips upon hers when her entire being lit up like a firework the moment she was in his arms. She clung to him, wishing she wasn’t so weak, so desperate to belong to him, to belong somewhere. His lips were warm and increasingly hungry as he deepened the kiss. His hunger fed her own, and Bonnie’s appetites did little by halves. His kiss was like a spark against dry timber and up she went, lighting up the sky and flying beyond good sense and what was right and proper. All those things were distant concepts now, drowned out by the roar of flame as it consumed her, desire scalding her blood, intoxicating her mind until she was drunk on the heat, the wanting, and the all consuming passion.

Before either of them knew what they were about, they were lying under the shelter of an ancient oak, its boughs so low they touched the ground and hid them from view, not that they were anywhere near a track or road this far out into the countryside.

“Yes, yes,” she murmured as Jerome’s hand slid beneath her gown.

You fool, you fool, whispered a voice in her head, but it was too faint, too feeble to be heard over the thunder of her own heart and the pulse of desire that beat in her ears, in her chest, between her thighs, wanting him, needing him. Her hand smoothed over him, to his waist, to the fall on his trousers and the little buttons there.

“Bonnie, oh, saints preserve me, I’ll go mad…. Stop, stop, we must… yes, no… no… don’t… don’t… don’t stop, Oh God.”

***

Jerome was lost, insane, out of his damn mind. What was it that happened when she touched him? He couldn’t account for it, couldn’t account for the wild, untamed thing that flared to life inside him when her hands were on him.

He’d always loved women, loved the intimacy and honest joy in the way it felt to thrust into the silken heat of a willing female, but he’d never been so lost to his baser nature as to lose control. He’d not lost control with the most exclusive and skilled of courtesans, and even when he’d believed himself in love, he’d never been so powerless in the face of his own desire. Yet Bonnie, who knew nothing but what she’d learned at his hands that one night, had the power to turn his brain to mush and melt what little remained to a puddle on the floor. There was no thought in his head past the need to be inside her, to lose himself in her. The where and the why, the right and wrong of it was so beyond his comprehension it might as well have been a long dead language chiselled in stone, buried and forgotten for centuries for all the chance he had of understanding all the reasons he must stop.

For all she had run from him and told him to leave her be, she clung to him now, urging him on, begging him to hurry as he lifted her skirts and sank into her with a shout that joined with Bonnie’s exalted cry of pleasure and lifted the birds from the trees with angry squawks and chattering.

There was only the exquisite pleasure of her body, her generous curves moulded so perfectly to his, cushioning him and welcoming him like the most long awaited home coming. She’d tugged his shirt free and her slender hands were on his skin, her nails scoring his back as she arched beneath him, clutching at him as he sought her mouth and stole the soft moans of rapture she made with his kiss. The thick and copious material of her riding habit was nothing but an irritation, impeding him when he wanted her lush body exposed to his hungry gaze and questing hands, wanted to put his mouth upon her and kiss every inch of that satiny landscape as she quivered and trembled and murmured his name.

She cried out as they crested the peak together, calling for him as her body tightened around him and sent him spiralling into a place he hardly recognised, so far removed was it from any other experience he could compare it to. Pleasure rippled through him in ferocious waves, claiming him and tumbling him under until he thought he’d die of it.