“Sorry,” he murmured, disengaging from her and rolling off her and reaching down to pull the bedcovers over them. “I was squashing you.”
“Mmm.” She rolled into his side, all soft woman and warm, silky hair.
Maybe she had the same problems with vocabulary.
“Thank you,” he murmured. He was sinking fast into warm, comfortable oblivion.
“Mmm,” she said again. Very eloquent.
He shifted position, slid an arm beneath her neck to cup her shoulder with his hand.
“Do you mind if I sleep here for a little while?” he asked her.
“No.”
He was sliding deeper, as he guessed she was, when a trot-trot-trotting sound was followed by a great warm lump of something landing heavily on the bed and worming its way between their legs.
“Damned dog,” he muttered, but he was too sleepy to apologize for his language or to order the damned dog to get down and leave a man alone with his lover.
***
Imogen awoke when warm lips closed briefly over her own. She kept her eyes shut for a few moments. She did not want to disturb the dream. She knew it was not a dream, that it was real, but she half wished it were just a dream, something for which she need not bear responsibility.
But she onlyhalfwished it.
His face was above her own. She could see him quite clearly. The candle was still burning. She had no idea what time it was, how long they had slept. The dog, she realized, had gone from between them.
“I should take myself off back home,” he said, “before any of the servants are about.”
He looked predictably gorgeous, his dark hair disheveled, his eyelids sleepy, his shoulders bare. He was in her own bed with her, she thought foolishly. They had donethattogether, and it had been wonderful. If there was to be guilt, she was not going to feel it yet. Or at all. She had quite consciously decided to do this, to enjoy it and him. She slid her hands over his shoulders, cupped the sides of his neck, rubbed her thumbs over the underside of his jaw.
“You need a shave,” she said.
He smiled slowly, that genuine, devastatingly attractive smile that began with his eyes.
“Are you afraid of whisker burn, Lady Barclay?” he asked.
“No.” She found herself smiling back at him. “You are leaving, are you not, Lord Hardford?”
“Yes,” he said. “After.”
“After?”
“After I have said a thorough good-bye,” he said. “No, that sounds too final. After I have said a thorough farewell. May I?”
She drew his face down to hers in reply.
“Let me do it,” he murmured against her lips as he moved over and onto her between her thighs and came into her, hard and ready and deep. “Relax.”
It was not what she had intended but... well, he was the expert.
It was delicious beyond words—to lie open on her back, all her muscles relaxed, even the inner ones that ached to close about him. To feel the hard, steady rhythm of his lovemaking into the soft heat of her body. To surrender. To receive and give nothing in returnexcepther surrender. It was against her very nature to be submissive. It was something entirely new to her.
It was... well, it was delicious beyond words.
And, totally surprisingly, she shivered into release—but release fromwhat?—after a few minutes. He felt it and held still and firm in her until she was finished, and then he continued until he was done and she felt the hot gush of his release deep inside.
For a moment—ah, foolishness indeed!—she wished she was not barren. But she let the thought go and enjoyed the full weight of his body relaxing onto her.
