“Not everything, Vivi.” His hand shifted, gliding higher, moving above her garters and setting her alight. “We married each other.”
The sun was setting behind the castle walls, and they were comfortably enveloped in the cool shade of impending night. Birds chirped around them, and the scents of summer and Court were in the air. She wanted to bury her nose in his throat and inhale deeply, to lose herself in him.
But misgivings remained.
She searched his gaze, seeking answers and finding only more secrets and mysteries. For as many years as she had known Court, there remained so much she needed to learn.
“Was marrying each other the right thing to do?” she asked, rubbing her thumb slowly over his lower lip.
It was soft and full and so very warm.
He caught the pad of her thumb with his teeth, giving her a light nip. “It feels right, doesn’t it?”
As he asked the question, he moved his hand the rest of the way up her thigh, the only barrier between them the fine linen of her drawers. Drawers that were damp from wanting him. If he touched her there, he would make that embarrassing discovery for himself.
“It feels right now,” she admitted, “but it didn’t feel right all the time you were away from me.”
Time during which she had clung to those terrible words that had cut her like a knife.
A mistake.
“Nor for me,” he murmured, his lips grazing her as he spoke. “Do you know how many nights I dreamed of having you this close?”
Likely as many as she had.
“Every. Damned. Night,” he answered before she could utter a word.
“And yet, you continued on with your travels,” she couldn’t help but point out, for despite their proximity and the desire for him that made her so very vulnerable, the anguish of the last year remained, bitter and dark inside her heart.
Only time and Court proving himself to her would help her to heal.
“I had to distract myself.” The hand on her waist gave a gentle, reassuring squeeze, while his other remained on her outer thigh, tempting and tormenting at once. “But I realized that what I was seeking was what I had left in England. You, Vivi. You’re home to me. You’re all I ever wanted. All I’ll ever need.”
She released her hold on his handsome face and locked her arms around his neck instead. And then she kissed him. Kissed him slowly, deeply. Kissed him as she had longed to do all the days they had been apart—and so many days before them, too. Thought fled. Emotions fell away. Need supplanted all else. And she took what she wanted.
Took his low groan of surrender, took his tongue into her mouth, the taste of him—sweet like wine and forbidden like sin—so delicious. A lusty sound escaped her, born of her frustration and desire. Their tongues tangled, and then his hand was twisted in the hair at her nape and hairpins were falling, and he moved his other hand yet again, finding the split in her drawers with expert ease and wicked intent.
The first brush of his fingers over her seam made Vivi’s hips buck and sent an electric current of pure, unadulterated pleasure straight through her. Oh dear God, she had forgotten how wonderful it felt to be touched there by someone other than herself. Tenderly, with painstaking care, he parted her folds, his fingers finding the sensitive knot within and swirling over it.
The breath rushed from her lungs. She kissed him harder, thrusting against his touch. Urging him wordlessly to give her more. As if sensing her need, he increased his speed, his touch flying over her with expert precision, playing her with the ease of a virtuoso. That splendid feeling was building inside her already, spurred on by the lonely nights she had spent without him and her body’s undeniable reaction to him.
He was the first to break the kiss, relentlessly working her pearl, painting her with her own dew—so plentiful that her cheeks went hot with embarrassment. His lips were dark and glistening from her kisses, and his eyes had deepened to the mysterious shade of the ocean just after a storm.
“You’re so wet for me,” he murmured. “So hot and softer than silk. Just like I remembered.”
He said it as if her eagerness was not a bad thing, and gratitude soared through her with the pleasure. His fingers worked her in tiny, mind-addling circles. She tried to respond, but she was already about to break, so instead, she laid her head on his shoulder and buried her face in his throat as she had been longing to do, inhaling deeply of his familiar scent.
“Come for me, Vivi,” Court urged, his voice low and sinful and pure velvet. “Come on my fingers, sweetheart.”
He was relentless. Knowing. When he increased the pressure and found a place that sent desire shooting up her spine, she lost control completely. On a gusty moan, she fell apart, grinding herself against his fingers as her orgasm shattered her.
As she pressed her face into the side of his neck and whispered his name in awe, that was when the first, fat droplets of rain spattered on her head.
And then, the deluge began.
CHAPTER8
By the time Court shouldered his way into the haven of her chamber, Vivi’s teeth were chattering and the layers of her gown and undergarments were thoroughly sodden. She was dripping all over the Axminster, and she was sure she resembled nothing so much as a bedraggled cat who had fallen into a river.
