Would she be wet for him? Slick and hot? His body thrummed with pent-up need. Three years of living a monastic life had taken its toll. He felt like a drunkard who’d just been given his first dram of whisky after giving his life over to the temperance movement for a decade. He shouldn’t want her. Everything about her was wrong. He’d never forgive himself.
He sank to his knees, body wrangling control of his mind. He’d lost all ability to resist. Their gazes met, level to level, and she framed his face in her small, fine-boned hands, and she closed the scant distance between them. Her mouth, lush and full, landed on his, demanding, open.
Madness. Stupidity.
Wrong.
So bloody good. He palmed her hip as they kissed with the sort of hunger he’d never experienced with another woman. His hand traveled higher, skimming to her inner thigh. He found the slit of her drawers.Ah, yes.His fingers swiped down her seam and then back up. Smooth, wet skin, warm and divine, greeted him.
Wetter than he’d imagined.
Better than he’d dared hope.
She whimpered into his kiss, and he hummed his approval. He found her pearl next, dancing his index and middle finger over the sensitive bundle. Her hips worked against him, lifting from the cushion of the divan, demanding more.
He would give her more.
In that moment, he would bloody well give her everything and anything she required of him: a fleet of ships, a railroad, the dowager’s jewels,anything. She’d brought him to life for the first time in years, and he was seizing the aberration. The bud of her sex fascinated him. She seemed almost more sensitive than other women as she bucked, whimpered into his mouth, sucked his tongue. She was made for this. Made for him.
And he…
Twin gasps pierced the surreal fog of lust mucking up his brain.
A familiar voice rang into the sudden silence of the library, making him tear his lips from Lady Boadicea’s enthusiastic kiss.
“Bainbridge? Sweet heavens above.”
His bloody mother.
A grim sense of propriety overtook him, and he moved without even being aware of what actions he took, withdrawing his hand, flipping down her skirts.
Another, much less cherished voice followed the first. “This is an abomination, Eloise. I thought you said he’dchanged.”
The contemptuous voice belonged to the Duchess of Cartwright, his mother’s bosom bow and society’s most notorious stickler for propriety.
“Fuck.” The word escaped him, low and feral, torn from the deepest recesses of his conscience. He said it softly enough that the interlopers at his back wouldn’t hear, but Lady Boadicea did, for her perfectly formed auburn brows went aloft. Her pink cheeks shouldn’t enamor him. Nor should her swollen mouth or that bewitching beauty mark. He had shocked her, but he didn’t give a damn. He had, in fact, shocked them both.
With the crazed choke of lust abruptly banished from his body, he stood and turned to face his mother and the Duchess of Cartwright. They hovered at the threshold of the library, hands pressed to their hearts. His mother’s mouth was drawn, her skin tinged with an unhealthy pallor. He had failed her again.
Dismay settled on his chest like a weight, along with disgust and self-loathing. What the hell had he done? He swallowed down the bile that threatened to choke him and gave the two stunned, august ladies before him an abbreviated bow. “Your Graces, pray forgive me for the familiarity with Lady Boadicea. I’m afraid that she overturned her ankle, and I was attempting to assess how badly she’d injured herself.”
It was a lie, a blatant one, and he knew it didn’t fool either sharp-minded duchess before him. He had undone Lady Boadicea’s hair, had been on his knees. But what could he say?Forgive me for almost fucking Lady Boadicea on the library divan? Forgive me for sliding my fingers along her wet, delicious seam, and intending to lick her until she spent before I slid my cock inside her so deep and so hard that neither of us would be able to move afterwards?
Good God. Undoubtedly, that was the influence of the god-awful book. His trousers were once again uncomfortably snug.
“Bainbridge,” his mother bit out, her high cheekbones flushing a mottled, angry red. “This is a disgrace.”
Yes. It was. Most importantly,hewas.
He schooled his features into an icy mask. “I regret that Lady Boadicea’s injury necessitated a lapse of propriety, and I will make amends as expediently as possible.”
The Duchess of Cartwright’s lined visage brightened, her hawk’s eyes pouncing on him with unerring efficiency. “I daresay your amends shall be of the most formal variety, Your Grace?”
There was only one way to rectify his stupidity.
Only one option if he meant to save his mother from further embarrassment, to spare his family name from additional scandal and whispers. Lord knew they’d all borne more than enough in the last few years, and he had been culpable for that as well. He could not ask his proud, aging mother or his brother to endure another moment of shame because of his sins.
He swallowed hard, forcing the knot in his throat to sink all the way to his stomach like a brick. “Lady Boadicea and I will be married as soon as can be arranged.”
