“Griffin.” Raw desire infused his name as she moaned it into the heavy silence of the night.
He buried his smile in the soft cloud of her dark hair, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Yes, love?”
He touched her again, one more pass, before delving within her folds to where she was wet and scorching, her pearl a plump bud begging for his attention. He stroked her slowly.
“That feels so…oh!Oh my.”
He nuzzled her cheek, watching her expressive face as he pleasured her. Looking at her, brazen and beautiful on the stairs, skirts to her waist, legs spread for him, mouth open, breasts thrust forward, made him harder than he had ever been. He wanted her with a desperation that shook him, but he would not linger on that. There was no time for thought here in this moment. No need for deliberation.
All they required was this connection: touch and pleasure. Senses only.
He worked her into a frenzy with ease, increasing his pressure and speed until he felt her tensing beneath his touch. Until her breath was emerging in pants. Until she was squirming and writhing in an instinctive effort to cure the ache within her.
And then, he moved down her body at last, intent upon seeing her, tasting her. The only way he wanted her to spend the first time was on his tongue. She watched him, her expression a mixture of desire and wariness. She pressed her thighs together, hiding herself from his view. All he saw was beautiful legs, long and curved, clad in stockings and drawers. So much white. So much lace. His mouth watered, and the pressure in his ballocks grew.
She was beautiful. The loveliest thing he had ever seen. But skittish. Understandably, since she was a virgin. He tried to recall how it had been his first time, but there were so many years and memories intervening, that particular memory was hazy and indistinct. He recalled coming too quickly, spurred by the shock that a woman as beautiful as the widowed Countess of Fielding would allow him to touch her, let alone invite him to her bed. He recalled being nervous he would make a mistake.
And he thought he sensed some of that same nervousness in Violet now. Her lashes were low, her breathing still unsteady, her cheeks flushed. He placed his hands on her knees with the gentlest of touches.
“What are you doing, Griffin?” she asked, breathless.
“Open for me,” he coaxed. “Let me see you. Let me bring you pleasure.”
“But I…”
Her protest trailed away as he guided her legs apart. Through the gaping split in her drawers, he had his first sight of her cunny. Swollen with need, pink and pretty, in the low flickering of the lamp, she glistened.
“Perfection.” The word escaped him before he could even contemplate it. Because she was. “You are bloody perfect, spitfire, and I want to taste you.”
Correction: hehadto taste her. Full stop.
Without waiting for her response, he settled himself between her thighs. He tugged the parted halves of her drawers open, and she was exposed, her mound completely on display for him. He could not wait a moment more. He licked her, seam to clitoris. Up and down, slow and steady. She was sweet and musky, and he could not get enough of her. He buried his face in her pliant flesh, sucking her pearl.
She bucked, crying out, and he groaned low in his throat. More than perfection, she was heaven. Paradise. He released her, alternating between teasing the demanding bud with his tongue and teeth, before sucking once more. His hands found the full curves of her rump, filling both palms, and he angled her the way he wanted, so she was a feast for him to consume.
And consume he did, until she was once more at the edge, thrusting against his face for more, the sounds in her throat sweet affirmations of just how well he was pleasuring her. She was the center of his world, and he was filled with a new, foreign awareness.
This lover was not like the rest. This lover, this experience, was something to be savored, and he knew it. Every inhalation of her scent, every taste of her, every sound, built the desire within him to a raging crescendo, until he feared he would come along with her, spending into his trousers like a green lad.
One more nip of his teeth on her pearl, and she shuddered beneath him, her body bowing off the steps, her thighs trembling as the waves of release prepared to crash upon her. She was close. Right at the edge, and he wanted to send her over. He sucked as hard as he could, then rubbed his face in her cunny, using the bristles of his beard to stimulate her.
It was all she needed.
She stiffened, coming with a low keen, her hands in his hair. He stayed where he was, licking up the juices pouring from her core, until he was drenched in her, soaked in her essence. Tonight, he would sleep with the scent of her upon his beard and skin, and he would not wash it off.
At last, she sighed, collapsing back against the steps, and only then did he rise, flipping down her skirts, extracting a handkerchief from his coat and wiping his mouth. Their eyes met. She was breathing as hard as he was, and his cock was rigid enough to hang a bucket of coal from it.
He had never experienced a more carnal, candid, delicious moment.
“That,” he could not resist telling her, “is my idea of decorum.”
The smile she gave him, along with the sudden pink of her skin, told him more than words could. “You are a wicked man.”
He retrieved the lamp from the stair behind him. “Guilty of the offense with which I have been charged, and quite unrepentant about it.”
Now all he needed to do was clear his name of the guilt that did not belong on his shoulders. A grim mood reclaimed him as he escorted Violet upstairs.
Lucien returned homefrom his intensive strategical meetings at the Home Office with Swift at his side, feeling rather buoyed by the productivity of the plans he had forged with the new team he had created since taking over the League. Buoyed, and yet weighed down, for in his private meetings with the Home Office, he had also received troubling information.
