“Yes.” The admission was torn from her. “You told meHyperionwas your favorite Keats poem.”
“It still is.”
“Saturn is fallen,” she quoted, “am I too to fall?”
“You have read it at last.” His thumb brushed over her lower lip. “Am I to leave this haven of my rest?”
Yes, she had read the poem. It had been her way of getting to know him, and his mind, better. And of course he would have the entire poem memorized, know the very next verse. Just as he would know the specifics of that day better than she did, down to the color of her dress. To do so wasShelbourne. There was no other way to describe it.
“You were decidedly uninterested in me,” she recalled. “You had come to fetch a book, straight from riding, only to find an intruder within.”
“Why did you readHyperion?” he countered, ignoring her observations.
“Because it was your favorite.” Once again, she was revealing too much.
“Did you enjoy it?” Stroke went his thumb, leaving a trail of fire behind.
She enjoyed his touch on her.Curse him.
Julianna resisted the urge to bite her lip. “I still likeBright Starbetter.”
“Hmm. You would.”
She wondered what he meant by that. “I have never preferred epic poems.”
“And I have always preferred you. Because I am a stupid sod.”
“If you preferred me, then why did you—”
“No more talking, Julianna,” he interrupted. “You wanted me to remain here, and now you must pay the forfeit.”
His thumb left her, replaced by his mouth.
* * *
Yes,Sidneywasa stupid sod.
The stupidest of the stupid sods.
More stupid, even, than Past Sidney.
Because he had heeded Julianna’s request and come to the library in the first place. Because he had not departed in haste as he had told himself he must. Because he had lingered. Touched her. Been tempted by her. Recited fuckingpoetry.
And most certainly because he was giving in to all his base urges and kissing her now.
Especially because he did not want to stop.
She opened for him on a heady wisp of sound. It was the sound of surrender, carnal and raw and erotic as hell. His cock was rigid as marble. Had been since the moment he had given in to his weakness and touched her lips. They were soft and warm and lush. And he had not been able to keep himself from imagining what it would feel like for his cock to be there, gliding between them. For her to take him down her throat.
Lust, he told himself as he kissed her harder. That was all this was. He felt nothing for her. Julianna’s actions had chased any tender feelings from him. She had cured him of the plague of fancying himself in love with her, but not of the scourge of desiring her.
He plundered her mouth with his tongue, and she kissed him back, arms locked around his neck, luscious body pressed to him from hip to chest. Hunger pounded through him. Ravenous. He had to have more of her.
He wanted to fuck her on the floor of the library as he should have done the first night she had reappeared in his life. Or bent over a chair. A divan. Anything. He was that desperate to be inside her.
But somewhere within him, the faint strains of responsibility remained, reminding him he had already taken her like a common strumpet on the floor of his bedchamber on their wedding night. And after nearly knocking off his damned toenail. Regardless of what had passed between them over the years—hell even since her return to London—she was his wife now. The mother of his child. He owed Julianna more than a frantic shag in the library.
He broke the kiss, pressing his forehead to hers so they remained connected, their ragged breaths mingling, lips near.
