She managed to open her eyes to watch him, how his gaze became hooded as he watched her in return, her arousal dampening his beard when he rose to kiss her mound before sliding two digits into her channel.
She cried out, bucked her hips, desperate for and terrified of more sensation, more pleasure. Her climax rose like a wave, swelling inside her until it broke, white hot and screaming from her belly. It spread through her fingertips and toes, until her neck could no longer hold her head up as she called his name, completely undone.
She was still trembling when he stood. “I have to touch myself, love,” he said, then released the buttons of his trousers and took his cock in hand.
Her breath caught and eyes widened. He was thick, with an angry, swollen head, and when he stroked, he hissed with pleasure.
Then he bent over her, one hand braced on the desk beside her hip, the other stroking his cock. “Nothing is better than this, Marigold. Nothing better than having you like this.” He bent and licked her again, took her clitoris between his lips and sucked, making her back rise off the surface. “I’m going to come so hard with the taste of your perfect cunt on my tongue.”
The first sparks of another release caught fire in her core, the conflagration growing out of control to the sounds of his moans, the steady thrum of his tongue on her clitoris. She gripped his hair, her hands spearing the soft curls as she held him in place, ground against him. When she burst, a fire flooded her from within, consuming whatever doubt lingered and clung to the surface of her skin.
Archie stood, cock in hand, his teeth bared as he grunted. “You’re mine, Marigold,” he growled, “mine.” Hot stripes of hisrelease spilled on her thighs, her mound, her lower belly, marking her,claimingher.
To hell with what the law or society said, she was his, in every way that mattered. She had been from the moment he’d smiled at her.
He gasped as his eyes fell shut. “And I can never have you.” The last words emerged as a sob, and he fell forward, catching himself with his elbows on either side of her, his face buried in her neck.
A knot swelled in her throat, pressing until tears burned. Whatever desire—and try as she might, she couldn’t pretend all they shared was desire—existed between them, their time together would end after the hearing. Two weeks until everything in her life would change, and Archie would be the one to grant her freedom.
And she would never see him again.
He stood, not meeting her eye. “I’ll get a handkerchief, clean you up.”
Her heart clenched. He must have mistaken her silence as displeasure at what he’d said. “Wait, I—” She grabbed his hand, sat up, the evidence of what they’d done still streaked over her skin. “I want to be yours,” she whispered. “But… I don’t know how to be.”
He pressed his forehead to hers, and his breath, rasping and labored, mixed with hers. “I’ve always wanted impossible things. And I think I always will. What can I do to make you stay?”
She cupped his cheek, kissed him tenderly, even as her heart tore in half. “If I don’t put an ocean between my children and their father, he’ll try to control them. Controlme. I can’t allow it.”
“I won’t let him.”
A rogue, disbelieving chuckle escaped her. “Even you can’t change the world. If everything were different, if I weren’t a mother or a marchioness…”
“You won’t be a marchioness much longer,” he said, then swallowed hard. “We have ten days before the trial, and then we will know what happens next. But whatever it is, I won’t leave your side.”
But she couldn’t promise him the same. Giving her heart over to his keeping wasa tremendous risk, but she trusted him, with her future and with her present, and she wouldn’t spend any more of her life regretting inaction. “Is this impossible?”
Archie smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I think,” he said against her lips, “it’s time to believe in the impossible.”
Chapter 26
Archieleanedoverhisdesk and skimmed his fingers up her arm, teasing the hem of her sleeve. “You’ll speak first, and remember to address the judge asmy lord.”
Marigold brushed his hand aside. “It’s impossible to focus while you’re touching me.”
“It’s impossible not to touch you. Besides, you’re ready.” He bent close, hoping to catch a kiss, but she leaned away, sliding off the edge of the desk where she’d been sitting, blowing a kiss in his direction as she settled in the chair opposite and out of reach.
Archie wondered how he survived in his office without Marigold in it. She’d been there all morning practicing her testimony, as she had been every day for the past week, although they hadn’t succumbed to pleasure again since he’d brought her to completion in the same room.
Yet.
Marigold’s nerves were frayed, and no matter how often he urged her to trust him, he understood her tension and felt no small part of the same himself.
But her impact on his office and in his life was inarguable. Her soft scent—like a summer meadow—hung in the air after she left. She’d left a handkerchief behind the day before, and he kept it in his pocket like a talisman. He realized he was becoming too attached to her, but the pressure of the case and his desire for her had wound themselves together into a knot so impenetrable he stood no chance of unwinding it.
His body craved a release from the strain. He wanted her back on the desk, but this time naked as he wrung pleasure from her, slowly and inexorably, until she was dripping and desperate for him—
“You’re being awfully cocksure about our chances.” She shifted in her seat, and he imagined she was aching for him. Unsurprisingly, Marigold demonstrated far more restraint in her desires, although he hadn’t missed her slow perusal of his body when he’d shed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.
