He touched her cheek. “I want you to know—”
She kissed him to shut him up.
She might be temporary, but she was not a substitute. She wasDésirée. A woman with her own mind, and emotions, and desires. Soon she would be gone, but he would remember her. Thenewone would be the substitute.
He pulled her into his lap as though he could not stand for her to be even an arm’s width away.
She felt the same. His body was so hard, his skin so hot. She ran her eager palms over his wide shoulders, his muscled arms.
“My jacket,” he murmured against her lips. “I left it upstairs.”
She tossed his cravat over the back of the chair.
His kisses deepened. “This is a dangerous game.”
It was not a game.
She loved him, damn his hide, and she was going to leave him. He would hire a better governess and she would move to France.
But they had not done so yet. Her trunk was still upstairs, and the pile of queries was still on the floor unanswered. Until that changed, there was still time to take advantage of every moment they could, while they still had each other’s arms to tumble into.
“I might be temporary,” she murmured between kisses, “but I am here now. What are you going to do about it?”
His voice was husky. “What would you like me to do?”
“Everything.”
He lifted her in his arms and deposited her on the sofa instead. He climbed atop her, propping himself up on one elbow to gaze down into her face.
“Everything-everything?” he asked again.
She reached for him. “Everything.”
Love was not something she meant to curtail. Later, when they were separated by land and sea, what she would regret most would be any failure to take advantage of what little time they had together.
Not that she would admit this interlude to her brothers. Marrying off their virgin sister to some title enamored with the size of her governmentally reimposed holdings was their dream, not hers. She would rather die a spinster who had once given herself to love.
She tugged his shirt free from his waistband. He reached beneath her skirts and made her forget what she was doing altogether. His teeth lowered her bodice until her erect nipples appeared in the firelight. Her head lolled back as he suckled her breast and teased between her legs with his fingers until she was slick and feverish and panting.
“I want…” she gasped.
“We will,” he promised. “But first…”
His fingers did something more, plunging and teasing, rubbing exactly where she most needed until her body spasmed with ecstasy.
Only then did he fling his shirt over his head and allow her access to his naked skin, as though he would permit himself no gratification until he was certain he had satisfied her first.
He had done so beyond reckoning. Her heart was still pounding and her limbs still boneless and spent. But the spot at her apex, the spot he’d coaxed into pure bliss, already throbbed with anticipation at the new pleasures yet to come.
She sank her fingers into his hair and pulled his mouth to hers. Next time wouldn’t just be for her. Now they would find the peak together.
He fumbled at his waist, then fitted his hips to hers. His hands were embracing her, caressing her, and the thick heat jutting against her legs was something new. She wiggled against him, but he did not immediately penetrate.
“Not yet,” he murmured. “You’ll know when.”
His shaft slid against her from the outside as he teased her breasts and nipples with his hands and mouth, stoking her just as expertly as he had done with his fingers.
When she thought she would die if he did not grant her release once more, only then did he position the tip of his shaft at the edge of where she wanted him most.
