He covered her body in kisses first, finding every part of her skin where he could set his lips. Throat, shoulder. The curves of her breasts and belly. Her hard nipples, and when he lingered on them, playing his tongue over each stiff peak as he had before, she moaned, her body bowing from the mattress.
Making love to her was akin to playing an instrument. The sweet melodies he drew from her in response to each touch, lick, and suck, intensified his ardor. And he could not get enough. She trailed her fingertips over his back, sending heat shooting through him.
“Sweet Helena.” He dragged his jaw over one milky swell, abrading her sensitive skin with his whiskers.
Her nails raked his flesh. Her lips pressed a kiss to the top of his head. Her fingers threaded through his hair, tugging.
“Kiss me again, Gabe,” she urged. “Please.”
There was no need to beg. His prick was rigid and throbbing against her sleek folds as he made his way back to her lips, sealing their mouths in a passionate union. Reaching between their bodies, he dragged his cock over her slit, coating himself in her cream. She was slicker than she had been the night before. Hot and welcoming.
As his tongue plunged into her mouth, he guided himself to her entrance. His control had been dashed as a ship upon rocky shores in the midst of a tempest. Licking her, bringing her to spend, her tentative touches, her unabashed embrace of her own sensuality, the sweet musk and perfume of her, the give of her curves beneath him… It all mingled together into one overwhelming sensation.
He scarcely dragged his lips from hers as the tip of him breached her.
“Ready for me, hellion?”
“Always,” she whispered, and then his minx of a wife’s wandering hands swept down his back to his buttocks.
Grasping him, she urged him forward.
And he obeyed. Or mayhap his body obeyed. He was mindless now. At her mercy. His hips thrust, and he was sheathed to the hilt. Her inner muscles drew him deep. The tight, wet grip of her almost made him spill. He could not remain still. There was a roaring in his ears. White-hot desire licked down his spine.
He pumped in and out, starting up a rhythm that only became more intoxicating when she joined him, thrust for thrust. So sinuously they moved together, one in body. Gabe’s fingers glided over her pearl, exerting greater pressure when she moaned into his kiss and arched into him, driving him deeper still.
Their tongues tangled. She tightened on him, her channel constricting like a vise, and he lost himself as the ripples of her second release milked his cock, draining him dry. On a shuddering groan, he planted himself deep, filling her with his seed as he tore his mouth from hers and tipped back his head as blinding pleasure washed over him.
He stayed with her there, pinning her to the bed, and could not keep from falling forward once more for another kiss. Bracing himself on his forearms, he sealed their lips. She kissed him deeply, passionately, their ragged breaths blending.
It had been the most passionate encounter of his life.
Reluctantly, he withdrew from Helena and rolled to his back at her side, staring into the intricacies of the plasterwork in the ceiling as coherent thought returned. Having Helena as his wife was dangerous indeed.
Chapter Eighteen
The strident voices of opposition so often ignore logic.
—FromLady’s Suffrage Society Times
“The utter darknessof woman suffrage,” Lady Jo Decker announced to the informally gathered assemblage of the Lady’s Suffrage Society. Bitterness and outrage laced her voice. “Can you believe it? He also called the politicians in favorappalling in their gayheartedness.”
“Who dared to write such nonsensical tripe?” Callie, Lady Sinclair, demanded. “And inThe Times, no less!”
“Naturally, the coward remained anonymous,” Lady Jo said, her lip curling. “His letter to the editor was signed with nothing more than an M.”
“Of course he was a coward,” Helena said, indignation rising like a tide within her until her hands trembled under the force of her reaction. “His opinion is not one which he ought to take pride in. Little wonder he hides behind an initial.”
“There was also another letter supposedly from a woman who opposes universal suffrage,” Lady Jo added. “She was horrified by the prospect of a woman who loses the ‘weakness’ of her sex. Can you fathom it? She claimed all the wrongs which have been done women have already been addressed and that allowing women to vote will do us more harm than benefit.”
The Duchess of Longleigh spoke up then. “Shall I infer she, too, retained her anonymity as she attacked her own sex?”
“She signed her letter asA Woman,” Lady Jo confirmed grimly.
“She should have signed it asA Woman Who Has Abandoned Her Own,” Julianna added fervently.
“Indeed she should have,” Lady Jo agreed.
“Although I dare say you are being kinder thanA Womandeserves, Lady Julianna,” Callie added. “In my opinion, something such asA Woman with the Brain of a Trout.”
