But before her lips had even reached his fall, he tilted her backwards into his arms. To her surprise, he gently laid her to the floor, cradling her head in one hand. As his free hand sweetly cupped her cheek, his mouth slanted across hers in drugging kisses. Desperate to feel the heat of his bare flesh against hers, she unbuttoned his waistcoat and tugged his shirt from his breeches.
Ever so slowly, he slid his hand from her face, down her neck, along the curve of her bosom until his fingers finally cupped an aching breast. She shuddered with pleasure. His tongue teased hers as his fingertips toyed with her nipple. She had never dreamed she could want someone this much. She arched her back into his touch until she almost screamed with desire. She wanted him to feel the same way.
Her hand sought his breeches, slipping between his fall to the hot skin hidden within. She closed her fingers around his member, first gently, then firmly, and slowly began to stroke.
He nearly collapsed upon her, which only served to align their bodies even closer together, as if they were two halves of a whole finally coming together. The closeness of their bodies allowed the curve of her thumb to brush against her own core with every stroke of her hand along his shaft. The warmth of his kisses and the sensation of his fingers lightly tugging at her nipple caused a whirlwind of need and want pulsing between her legs. Violet could hardly process the heady new feelings as they overwhelmed her senses, she only knew she wantedhimand she wantedmore.
The combination of kisses and swirling fingers and the relentless stroke of the back of her own thumb stoked her fire until she was certain she would shatter right then and there. Something was happening to her body, something almost painfully sweet, that tightened every muscle with the promise of impending pleasure. Her breath caught. As if sensing her close to the precipice, he lifted his fingers from her breast and loosened his other hand from her nape.
Dismayed by his retreat, she craned her head forward, but he was already moving, baring her breast and fastening his mouth over the nipple still swollen from his touch. Her breath was rapid and shallow. He bunched her skirt and petticoat against her waist. As cool air kissed her bare flesh, she could almost imagine they were out-of-doors beneath the stars. Her heart soared.
As he suckled first one nipple and then the other, he slid his hand down her now-bare belly. Her legs parted and widened of their own accord. Thanks to her hard-luck past, Violet imagined herself the most sexually experienced private governess in the history of Mother England, but she had never,neverimagined lovemaking could be anything like this. Her buttocks tightened and rose up, tilting her pelvis into his touch as if unable to withstand another moment of anticipation.
When his finger slid across the moist heat between her legs, she gasped. When that same finger slid inside, entering her in tantalizingly arrhythmic thrusts, she cried out in wonder.Thiswas what she’d been missing. The wanting, the craving, the building pressure infusing her senses with his taste, his touch, his scent. She reached for his hair to lock him tight to her breast, but he was moving once again.
His mouth joined his finger at her core. Bolts of pleasure electrified her entire body. He licked and suckled as his finger relentlessly drove into her again and again. Her hands fell atop her own breasts, the nipples swelling beneath her fingers. Her trembling legs locked about his shoulders, pinning him in place, as his mouth and his finger worked their magical torture. This was beautiful. This was incredible. Her head thumped back against the floor, her eyes closing in anguished surrender.
He slid a second finger in to join with the first, widening her, filling her, as his tongue teased her into a frenzy. He was perfect. He was going to make her—
Helpless, her back arched as her muscles contracted against his fingers. She gasped at the unexpected pleasure, the sudden rush of ecstasy and release as her spasms ebbed and her limbs relaxed bonelessly against the floor.
Only then did he return his hands to her hair and his mouth to hers.
“You’re so beautiful.” The words were so soft, she felt them rather than heard them.
“Mrmph,” she mumbled inarticulately, muscles limp. “And you’re so talented.”
Chuckling, he rolled sideways, pulling her atop him so that he was the one on the floor, and she the one cuddled against his chest. “That was better than boring old gold sovereigns?”
“Mm-hmm.” She opened her eyes to grin at him. “Do it again.”
He laughed at her with his eyes, looking for all the world like a man replete with self-satisfaction, even though it was she and not he whose passion-muddled brain had had the pleasure of release. “Already? Why, Miss Smythe, you are a very strict task-master indeed.”
Wonder filled her. Not only had Violet never previously been in a circumstance where she had even wanted intimacy, he had chosen to pleasureherrather than the other way around. Just because he wished to please her. That alone was an unimaginably erotic sweetmeat she was powerless to resist. She’d be a task-master indeed if it meant sharing more moments like these.
She smiled up at him. “None of that ‘Miss Smythe’ anymore. Employer or not, by now you’ve earned the right to use my given name. Please call me—”
His eyes widened with nothing short of horror as he nearly dumped her on the floor in his scramble to his feet. “Oh God. You’re right. I’m youremployer. You should be safely under my protection, not requiring protectionfromme.” He tore his anguished eyes from hers to the stained glass window, then ripped his gaze away as if the three kings might smite him where he stood. “Forgive me.”
“You didn’t force me,” she reminded him quickly. “I wanted this. I wantedyou.”
The worst was that she’d managed to convince herself, for one beautiful moment, that it meant as much to him as it had to her. That they had somehow transcended a mere master-servant relationship. That he felt for her as strongly as she foolishly, cursedly felt for him. Maybe he even did.
But it still wasn’t enough.
Chapter 26
Later that evening, the relentless snip... snip... snip of Alistair’s garden shears finally began to pervade his consciousness. Slowly, he became aware that in his distraction he’d managed to behead most of the roses rather than tend them. He leaned back. Of course he had done that. Everything he meant to nurture and preserve ended up cut short before its time. Sighing, he tossed the shears aside and threw himself on his back to stare up at the stars.
Here he was, then. On the Waldegrave family lands, crouching six feet above one third of the Waldegrave family. Or was he? They had never been three. There had only been he and Marjorie, and then he and Lily.
And Violet, he acknowledged slowly.Nowthey were three.
Or could be, if he didn’t ruin it. Hadn’t already ruined it. He’d been a fool.
He’d been a fool because hewasa fool, and would likely do a thousand foolish things more before his time on this earth was through, but he had not meant to treat her so shabbily.
In fact, very little spoke well of Alistair these days. He thought of his first wife fondly, but more and more infrequently. He spent half of his Sundays thanking God for the miracle of Violet’s arrival in his life rather than saving all his prayers for his daughter. And after nine long years, he still failed to find a cure for Lily.
