“How is this?” he asked softly, such tenderness and caring in his voice.
“Yes,” was all she could bite out. Then, belatedly realizing she hadn’t provided the correct response for his question, she added, “Lovely.”
“Lovely, hmm?” He kissed her cheek, and she could feel his lips curved in a smile. “I’ll have to do better, then.”
She wasn’t sure he could. Miranda opened her mouth to tell him so, but in that next instant, he shifted, leveraging himself over her again as he withdrew from her almost entirely, only to sink within her again. This time, she savored the sensation, the slippery glide of his cock through her wetness. He pressed deep, even farther or so it seemed, not stopping until she was pinned to the bed, his body perfectly aligned with hers.
The cords of his throat were taut, his movements careful and slow, and it seemed as if his tight grasp on his control was almost too much. She understood, because the pleasure was so intense that she felt as if she might break apart at any moment. As if pieces of her would fly into the very stars above.
This was…
This was good. Wondrous. Better than good. It was everything she had never known she had been missing.
Indeed, words failed to describe what she felt as Rhys moved in and out of her, eliciting her gasps and moans and cries, wringing bliss from her until she was sure she couldn’t bear it. Until the noises hatching from her throat sounded more as if they belonged to an animal than a refined lady. She wrapped her legs around Rhys, matching his rhythm. Her nails raked downhis back as she met him thrust for thrust, and then everything within her seized and she was coming again, contracting on him in uncontrollable spasms as a gush of wetness sluiced from her.
He pushed into her again, grunting, gritting his teeth, his jaw clenched. And then his movements quickened, his cock hastily sliding from her, his touch leaving her as he grasped himself in a tight hold. One stroke, and he threw his head back, a strangled cry of sheer erotic elation echoing off the chamber walls as he spilled on her belly and inner thigh.
He collapsed at her side, pulling her against him, and she burrowed her face in his chest, inhaling deeply of his scent, not minding the stickiness of his seed cooling on her heated flesh. Her heart pounded hard as she wrapped her arms around him in return, holding him close.
CHAPTER 10
Rhys woke to a hard, aching cock and a disappointingly empty bed.
Miranda was gone.
The place where she’d fallen asleep in his arms was cool to the touch, which meant she had left for her own room long before he had arisen. And it was the devil of a thing, that discovery. Not just because he was always the first to leave a lover’s bed—clinging women were tedious, and maudlin sentiments more so—but because he realized, as he absently swept his hand over the slight indentation on her pillow, that he hadn’t wanted her to go.
He had reached for her and met with emptiness. And it was damned unnerving, the way that emptiness had left him feeling—as he imagined he would if he were missing a part of himself.
He wanted more from her than just one night.
He wanted more from her, quite possibly, than he had ever wanted from another woman.
No.
What the bloody hell was he thinking? Likely, it was his randy prick guiding him, he reassured himself as he lay back in the bed that still smelled faintly of sexual congress and her sweetscent. He would take himself in hand, and then he would begin his morning, facing this first full day of the house party and whatever it brought with his customary sangfroid.
He had bedded Miranda. He wanted to bed her again. It was a normal, usual red-blooded response. That was it. That wasall.
Closing his eyes, Rhys reached beneath the sheet and grasped his rigid length. He thought about Miranda holding her delicious breasts together for him and begging him to fuck her. Of thrusting his cock between her full, bountiful breasts while she plumped them up for him. Would he spend on her breasts?
Damn it all, he was harder than hard, a bead of mettle seeping from his tip. With his thumb, he slicked it over his crown, remembering what she had tasted like, how she had writhed and moaned when he had tongued her pussy. And then he had his answer. Miranda would ask him to take her mouth, and he would have no choice but to give her what she wanted. She would part her berry-pink lips, and he would guide his erection over her waiting tongue. She would suck him so good, so hard, moaning around his cock, and…
“Fuck,” he muttered, spilling into his sheets like a randy lad.
For a moment, he lay there, his breathing ragged, as he returned to the world and the still-dismaying absence of Miranda. And…he wasn’t satisfied.
He wanted her here, but not just so he could persuade her to let him show her the joys of morning bedchamber romps. Not just so he could have his release. But because he wanted to see what she looked like, sleepy-eyed and with rumpled hair. He wanted to watch her while she slept. To kiss her awake. To hold her close to him as the sun rose. He wanted her naked and curled trustingly against him.
What a bloody idiot.
Wincing, Rhys tossed back the bedclothes and stalked to a pitcher and basin, performing some cursory ablutions beforeringing for a bath. He needed a thorough soak this morning. Perhaps that would prove the restorative he required. A necessary return to sanity.
But not even submerging himself in hot, pleasant-scented water, which ordinarily cured whatever ailed him, sufficed. He washed and abandoned his still-warm bath in favor of dressing and receiving a quick morning shave from his valet Lavenue, whose presence rendered a trip next door to Miranda impossible. Venturing into her territory during the daylight hours was likely inadvisable anyway, given her stern devotion to keeping the household ignorant of their affair.
With a sigh, he deemed himself suitably respectable and descended to the tawdry whirl awaiting him downstairs. Before he broke his fast, however, there was a matter of supreme importance requiring not just his attention, but that of his fellow founders of the club. To that end, Rhys arranged for a meeting between the four of them in a private salon.
Unfortunately, only three of them were in attendance.
