“Challenge accepted.” He flicked his tongue over her in a few more wicked circles, thrusting in and out, rubbing her inner walls in a way that made her toes curl into the bedclothes.
And then he withdrew, moving up her body as he rained kisses on her stomach, her breasts, her throat. He slicked his cock over her folds, the sound somehow more obscene than when he had suckled her pearl, and it made her even wetter. She hooked a leg around his hip, opening herself to him.
He took her mouth in a kiss that tasted of her own desire and a faint hint of roses, and she clung to him as he canted his hips, driving inside her with one swift movement. She was filled, so deliciously full of him, and the urge to keep him here, to wrap herself around him and never let go, was strong. But so was the need to seek more pleasure.
Her hips moved against his, one foot flat on the mattress so she could follow him as he found a rhythm. His pace increased, his cock gliding in and out of her slick passage. It was good, so good. She kissed him furiously, their hips slamming together, almost ready to spend.
But just as she was about to fall apart, he abruptly withdrew, his lips leaving hers as his rigid length slipped free.
“Rhys,” she protested.
“I know,” he murmured.
She wondered if he did, if he could possibly comprehend the violence of the need careening through her just now. But then it ceased to matter because his hands were on her, flipping her to her stomach, guiding her so that her knees were curled, her bottom in the air. He caressed her cheeks, lightly squeezing and massaging, and then he nudged her legs farther apart, one hand still on her rump as the other slipped to her opening, his fingers gliding into her, bringing her a measure of relief.
“You’re so pretty and perfect, your pussy pink and wet and ready for me.” His voice was a deep, decadent rasp. His fingerspumped in and out of her slickness, the pleasure almost too much to bear. “Tell me what you want, what you need.”
“You,” she managed, cheek pressed to the bedclothes, heart pounding, body entirely his to plunder. “I need you, Rhys.”
She was completely on display to him, utterly at his mercy, and nothing had ever felt more right. His fingers left her, quickly replaced by the blunt head of his cock pressing, stretching. He filled her with one flex of his hips, the sensation new and yet familiar all at once, so deep inside her that it was almost on the verge of pain. Agonizing in the very best way.
“I wish you could see how beautiful you look, taking my cock,” he ground out, his voice strained.
She moaned. There was no answer, no thought. There were no words left in her. There was only feeling, the building up of her need, growing more insistent with each thrust and withdrawal. He held her hips and shoved himself into her again and again, his ballocks slapping against her with each thrust. They were mindless and one.
She came again, just as he had wanted, crying out his name into the twisted bedclothes. He followed in the next few breaths, slipping from her body and covering her lower back in the hot spurt of his seed.
Miranda remained as she was, too sated to move despite her position, scarcely aware of Rhys leaving the bed and returning with a damp cloth that he used to clean her. Then he padded away, lowering the gas lamps before joining her in the bed again, pulling her so that their bodies were perfectly aligned.
“The tub,” she protested, nuzzling his chest and reveling in his protective warmth. “I should ring for the footmen to take it away.”
His lips grazed the top of her head. “They can take it away in the morning.”
How she wished the morning would never come. But it inevitably would.
“You can’t sleep in my bed,” she warned, already half asleep. “Green can’t find you here.”
“I know, kitten.” He stroked her back and pulled the covers over her, and she didn’t even protest his use of the sobriquet this time.
Because she was deliciously satisfied and in Rhys’s arms, the reassuring thrum of his heart against her ear. Her life had never, ever been as glorious as it was now, in this moment of quiet with him, the moonlight seeping in the far windows, all the world asleep.
CHAPTER 16
Had he ever been happier?
If he had, Rhys couldn’t recall.
He was presently ensconced in the inviting warmth of his bath, Miranda on his lap, his half-hard cock pressing against her luscious arse. His arms were wrapped around her waist, her head tucked against his chest, his chin resting atop her crown. He never wanted to move from this bath, from this moment. Never wanted her to leave his arms.
Obsessed.
Yes, he was that. Unapologetically so. Obsessed with her, desperate for her, hopeless for her. Miranda had entranced him. He had fallen beneath her spell, and he didn’t even give a damn about it. The days of the house party had passed in a haze of desire and contentedness that no amount of good-natured mocking on the part of his friends had dispelled.
“It’s a pity we must return to London tomorrow,” she said into the quiet of the bedchamber. “I’ve rather grown fond of it here at Wingfield Hall.”
He inhaled deeply, drinking in the scent of her damp hair and skin. “You’ve grown fond of this pile of stone, have you? Fonder than you are of me?”
Her dainty fingers were idly drawing patterns on his forearms. “You know what I meant.”
