“Ohindeed,” he muttered, offering her his hand to help her rise.
“You are…I did not think…forgive me,” she said, sputtering in her effort to form words as her eyes remained glued upon him.
Unfortunately, her stare had the opposite consequence from what he wished, and it made more desire pulse through him. He had not been intimate with a woman in so long, he could not recall precisely when it had been. At some point after Pippa’s marriage to George Shaw, he had realized that no amount of willing female flesh would ever fill the gaping hole inside him, and he had lost interest in bedding anyone. Instead, he had thrown his restlessness into exercising.
Now, his lack of release was coming back to haunt him. He did not fool himself, however, that his reaction would have been so strong with another. Pippa had always affected him in a way no other woman ever had, before or since.
“I am the one who should be apologizing,” he forced out. “My valet will look after my shoes. You are my wife. You should not be fretting over something so trivial.”
And also forgive me for my rampant cock.
But he did not dare say that aloud. No need to draw further attention upon his inability to control himself.
She took his hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Instead of moving away and releasing his hand, however, she remained near. That intoxicating blend of bergamot and rose with a tinge of lily invaded his senses. Her fingers tightened on his as her chin tipped up.
His control was gone.
Disappeared.
Nonexistent.
Had he ever possessed any when it came to her? Likely not.
He lowered his head, pressed his lips to hers. Everything else ceased to exist. The breakfast on the sideboard, his determination he would proceed slowly with her, the possibility they may be intruded upon by servants, the food he had dropped on the floor…gone. None of it mattered.
All that did matter was this kiss.
This woman.
Hiswoman at last, just as she always should have been. Just as she had always been meant to be.
It was that sentiment, that fervor which overtook him. His arms went around her, hauling her closer. Until they were pressed together, breast to chest, hip to hip. Or rather, because of the height difference between them, his hips to her belly, his cock against the stiff boning of her corset.
Her lips were silken seduction. Warm and responsive. Her hands were on his shoulders, not pushing him away but drawing him closer still. Her mouth opened, deepening the kiss. His tongue dipped inside.
She made an exquisite noise of need, and then her lips moved against his with greater intensity. The kiss was carnal and raw, an acknowledgment of the deep desire which had always raged between them. Fires too long kept banked and under control.
Now they were surging, wild and hot and hungry.
His hands on the small of her back drew her nearer yet. He could not have enough of her. Beneath his touch, she was even more delicate and small than he had imagined. She had no need of a corset, that much was certain. She required some time in the country, the release of her stress and worries, Mrs. Dryden’s excellent cooking.
He missed the curves of her youth. Missed the carefree lady she had been. He vowed he would restore her to herself. He would chase all the fears, the shadows, the demons. No one would hurt her. He had waited five long years to have her, and now that she was finally his wife, he would do anything to protect her. To heal her. To undo all the damage George Shaw had wrought with his lies and manipulations.
He kissed her harder, with all the frenzy he had spent years tamping down. Kissed her as he had longed to do last night. Her fingers slipped from his shoulders and into his hair, tangling and tugging. He liked her this way, ferocious, taking what she wanted, claiming him every bit as surely as he claimed her.
Together, they whirled. Blindly, he moved them toward the table. The part of his mind that was still capable of rational thought recognized he could not have his way with her here. But he could sate himself a bit. Still, not on the sideboard, which had been crowded with food and serving dishes.
He sucked on her tongue as he used the fullness of her skirts to knock chairs out of the way, and then swept an arm blindly behind her bustle to clear away the place setting and silverware. Porcelain clinked. He did not care if it broke. A second sweep to make certain there was nothing but the table linen, and then he lifted her onto the table, never once removing his mouth from hers.
She made another low sound and her hands traveled from his hair to his neck cloth, tugging open the knot. Her fingers journeyed over his neck as if greedy, then slipped across his jaw to cup his face. Her tongue writhed against his, and she caught his lower lip in her teeth for a nip that had him groaning.
His ballocks were drawn tight. Need thundered through him. But this was not the place to consummate their marriage. For heaven’s sake, there were better places, better times, than the breakfast table following the day of their wedding.
Trying to contain the furious need to possess her, he tore his lips from hers and kissed along her jaw, down to her throat. There, he found the secret place he remembered drove her to distraction, that delicate patch of skin beneath her left ear. She shivered in his arms, but he knew it was not from cold. Rather, it was from the raging fever of desire, the same one threatening to turn him to flame.
“Pippa,” he whispered against her neck, into her ear. “Sunshine.”
He had not intended to call her by the sobriquet he had invented for her years ago when he had first seen her, illuminated by the Oxfordshire summer sun. Her last reaction to his inadvertent use of the endearment had not been positive. He stilled, expecting her retreat, her withdrawal from him. Instead, she threaded her fingers through his hair once more and tipped her head back, her eyes falling closed.
