The words would not emerge.
She would not give him what he wanted. She owed herself that much, did she not?
His wicked tongue slid over her once more. “If you do not tell me, I will stop, and you need to come badly, don’t you, darling? Despise me all you like, but your body still knows it is mine.”
He was right. Now that he had brought her pleasure twice, she should have been sated. Instead, she was voracious. She wanted him inside her. And she did not care what she owed herself. Did not care about her pride. Her body was a traitor and so was her heart, and both of them were humming with the need for him.
“Yes,” she bit out. “I want your tongue. I want your cock. Give me both. Make me come.”
“Fuck,” he growled, and then his tongue was in her, his fingers biting into her rump with almost painful determination. He licked her so thoroughly, she thought she might swoon. Then he turned his attention to her pearl, making love to her with his mouth as his fingers dipped into her channel once more. As he sucked, he worked deep. So deep. Deeper than she had imagined he could be.
The pleasure was excruciating. She could do nothing to stay the next wave of release as it crashed on her, decimating her. Bliss exploded. Or mayhap she did. She came so hard that her vision was peppered with little black stars.
The ripples of her spend were still rolling through her when he was on her. His hand was between them, his motions jerky as he parted his dressing robe and gripped his cock. Her hands settled on his broad shoulders. He thrust inside her to the hilt. The slick slide of him within her passage had her gasping.
It felt so right.
So good.
Like everything she had been waiting for. Like everything she should never have and all she had ever wanted. He was inside her. Moving. Thrusting in and out as she clutched at him. He was not making love to her with the gentleness he had shown before, what seemed a lifetime ago now. But so much had been different then. She had been different, and so, too, had he.
Regardless, she did not want gentle. She wanted his ferocity. She wanted him intense and fierce and making love to her with such intensity, she was slipping across the rug and he was chasing her, ramming into her again and again. She was so wet with desire and so awash in pleasure that it did not take her long to reach her crisis again. She clamped on him as a fresh release thundered through her.
And then he was following her into oblivion, thrusting one last time before collapsing against her, sealing his lips with hers as he filled her with the hot spurt of his seed.
Chapter 11
Last night, I dreamt I was back at Farnsworth Hall. It was summer, the sun golden and warm in the sky, and we were swimming together in the lake. My heart was overflowing with love, and the way he was looking at me—the way he always looked at me then. As if I were a miracle placed before him. The dream was so real, I reached for him. But I woke in the darkness of the night, hand outstretched toward nothing, and realized I was on the other side of the ocean, and he, or mayhap rather the man I thought he was, is forever lost to me. Our time at Farnsworth Hall haunts me. It was what shall forever be the best time of my life. Even knowing what came after, I would live those enchanted days again just for the way it felt to be in his arms.
~from the journal of Lady Julianna Somerset, 1883
Sidney woke from the same dream which had been inexplicably haunting him ever since Julianna had left for America. The dream where they were together, back in that charmed summer, walking on the path around the lake. But in the dream, just as they reached his grandmother’s roses, he turned to find himself alone. Julianna was gone.
He jolted awake, this time no different than any of the others.
Except that this morning, he woke to a thumping toe. And he woke to regret.
He had lost control last night.
And he could not blame his recklessness on drink, because he had not bloody well consumed a drop of the stuff. He could only blame it upon her and the way she made him feel. She brought out the beast in him, a beast he had been doing his utmost to leash ever since her return.
A losing battle, as it turned out. He had fucked her all over the goddamn Axminster, until the backs of her thighs and her delectable bottom had gone pink.
He rose from bed, scrubbing a hand over his face.Damnation, he felt more haggard this morning than on days when he had given the bottle a black eye the night before. Likely because after she had fled to her chamber following the aftermath of their mad passion, he had been unable to sleep. Between his aching toe and his smarting pride, he had done more pacing, then had lain awake in his empty bed, taunted by the thought of Julianna so near and yet so far away.
On a growl of self-disgust, he threw on his dressing gown and stalked to the bell pull, ringing for Grove. Thankfully, his trusted valet appeared before Sidney could carry on with the task of castigating himself for much longer.
“A panacea, my lord?” Grove queried.
Hell.What did everyone think of him?
He scowled. “Do I look as if I have spent the evening drowning in whisky and wine, Grove?”
Grove raised a brow, his silence speaking volumes.
“I did not,” he snapped. “No panacea today.”
“Of course.” Grove was magnanimous as ever.
