Dr. Collier grunted as he took hold of her hips.
“Impatient, are we?” Cressida chided, steeling her body against what was to come. His fingers dug into her flesh in a pleasing manner.
“My lady,” he repeated, voice straining. “You’ve tormented me long enough.”
“Have I?”
“You vixen,” he breathed, and thrust upward into her, pulling her down over him in the same movement.
Cressida cried out. He filled her, stretched her, then pulled back and thrust again. An exquisite, molten satisfaction spread outward from her middle. It had been so long.
“I thought I was meant to have my pleasure,” she managed between harried breaths.
“Then take it,” he rushed, panting as he moved her against him. “I… I don’t think it’ll be long before…”
His words trailed off as Cressida fondled her own breast.
“Christ. Yes, touch yourself,” he moaned.
She bit her lower lip, moving her hips against his, matching his intensity and rhythm. His face was set hard in concentration, his mouth open. How handsome he looked, even now, without his spectacles and in such a state. How had he not been hooked by some marriage-minded simpleton with a conniving mama? Cressida wondered at it, even as she rolled her nipples between her fingers.I was not certain, his voice echoed in her memory. She moaned as his thrusts became harder, more insistent. Ofthis, at least, she supposed he must be certain. The congress of two bodies, healthy and supple, unattached and unencumbered. A beautiful thing, Cressida reckoned, her fingers now circling her aching clitoris.
“What a surprise you are, Dr. Collier,” she whispered, not far from a second climax.
“Call me Matthew,” he rumbled.
“Matthew,” she breathed, cresting over that hill once more.
He cried out as she did, pulling her down into his arms, holding her tight against him as he finished. They remained like that, warm and heady, their bodies still joined as their breath returned.
“Say it again,” he whispered, tightening his hold.
“Matthew,” she said, basking in a delectable, honeyed warmth.
He kissed the top of her head, then found her hand and laced his fingers through hers. She felt overwhelmed by a serenity she’d not known for the longest time. Once more she was a girl in her garden, the summer sun kissing her skin.
“This is nice,” he sighed.
It was.
A tiny curl of worry unfurled deep in her gut.
Matthew felt invincible. He’d lunched with Sir Frederick Catton not once, but twice. Both times in the off-putting strangers’ rooms of the Athenaeum, but itwasstill the Athenaeum. And even if he was still barred from their spectacular library, he did have access to one of the most estimable private libraries in London.
And he’d been with her. The cleverest, most beautiful, most elegant women in the world. Who wanted him, of all people. Not just once, nor even twice; thus far they’d met three times in the space of a week.
He still could not fathom why.
Just two months prior he’d been at a low point. Matthew felt a surge of anxiety just thinking of it all: Harriet in her wedding finery, the cold emptiness of his bed, the future opening like ayawning chasm before him, dark, empty, and lonesome. Which was why he’d dug himself deeper, seeking cheap thrills, the rush of winning something, anything. Even if it was over a lowly card cheat like Charles Sharples.
Yet as so many things had fallen into place, still the deadline of the approaching bank holiday loomed at the back of his mind and lodged itself in his chest. He hadn’t forgotten Fliss’s appearance at the steps of the Euston Station hotel, and his harassment of Lady Caplin.
Matthew’s jaw tensed. It wouldn’t do. He wouldn’t see her caught up in his mess. It was time to do something about it.
But what? Pay the scoundrel off and reveal himself as a mark? He would never rest until the end of his days; Sharples would turn up on Matthew’s doorstep whenever he was short a few pounds. He would constantly be on edge, incapable of enjoying Lady Caplin’s library or her company, to say nothing of what the members of the Athenaeum would think. And he needed their votes if he were to have a chance at membership.
The only alternative he could think of—pummeling the brigand until he learned never to darken Matthew’s door—was appalling. It made his stomach turn, made him wish he were made of something else. Something colder, harder.
Matthew frowned at the tumbler in his hand.
