She pressed her lips to his, feeling the groan of strain that lifted in his throat. He would try to resist her, but he could not. She knew that now, and she was not so noble as to ignore it. She was seeing, hearing, and feeling things she’d never felt before, and in her heart she knew it didn’t have to end badly, whatever his fears might be. This could be good for both of them.
“What is it you want from me?” he asked.
“I want you to touch me.”
His breathing grew ragged. He kissed her, cradling the back of her head and holding her mouth to his. Amelia slung her arms around his neck, delighting in this savage side of Graham that only she had begun to witness.
Graham could have all the control if he needed to, she decided—at least he could right here, right now. He could ravish her. He could take the reins and give her what she was asking for on his terms. If he needed to lead, he could lead. He had her unreservedly.
She pressed her breasts into his chest, needy for friction and contact. Something about him made her want to be consumed. She playfully nipped at his bottom lip.
“Touch me, Graham,” she begged.
He pressed his forehead to hers. “You’ll be the death of me.”
“We’re alive right now, aren’t we? Embrace it.”
He snarled a curse under his breath. “You want me to defile you?”
Amelia scoffed. “Don’t utter such nonsense. You could never defile me. You care too much for me.”
“Yes,” he said with a smoky voice, his gaze searching hers.
“I want you to touch me.”
He held her stare, and closed the carriage curtains. He pulled her close, his hand gliding under her ruffled hem. Amelia parted her thighs. His hand reached her bare thigh, and the tips of his fingers startled her as they grazed her. She was slippery with need, a fact he discovered when he slipped two fingers along the seam of her sex.
“Bloody hell, Amelia.”
This wasn’t as glorious as when he’d put his mouth on her, but it was equally scintillating in that it was so public here in the carriage yet still so discreet. He swirled his finger around the hood of her sex, that sensitive bead sending shards of pleasure through her belly. She squirmed against his light touch, needing more, and moaned into his mouth. He wasn’t kissing her any longer, his focus entirely dedicated to his ministrations between her legs.
He spread her open, courting the entrance to her body, teasing the delicate flesh with probing fingers until he slipped one inside. The intrusion was at first strange, such a foreign sensation that she couldn’t describe how it made her feel. He pressed in, and she rode the palm of his hand, her breath catching as he caught her lips again, taking in her desperate sounds. She got used to the feeling quickly, eagerly chasing that stroking finger with her body when Graham added a second, and her walls had to stretch to accommodate it. That feeling offullness rocked her senses. Everything became heightened as the implications of innocence and purity became strikingly clear.
Her virginity—that elusive, invisible stigma that had determined her value as a young woman—had always been a specter she could dismiss. But now she understood. To her body this was all new, not just the sensations and wonderful burst of pleasure, but the claiming. Graham, the first man to touch her so intimately, was marking her deeply. Everything faded to just the two of them. Him, stroking her to life, and her, basking in the magnitude of this moment. For the rest of her days, a part of her would belong to Graham. That should alarm her, but it didn’t. This was Graham, and there was no better man to entrust her body to. He’d even hold her heart for safekeeping if she asked him to.
Somewhere along this nightmarish journey, their common goals had smoothed the edges of their animosity, revealing something else, though she’d been slow to see it for what it was: comradery, dare she think it friendship, trust, and now this.
This substance she dared not name. She wasn’t qualified to identify it. She wasn’t willing to, either. She just wanted to live inside this moment, in this bubble of safe pleasure with him.
Her hips moved with his hand of their own will, that shimmering summit of rapture glowing brighter as she neared it. He held her mouth captive, his unyielding fingers wringing the most indecent sounds from her body, and she loved every second of it. But like most good things, it must reach its eventual zenith and end.
She cried into their kiss, breaking away only to draw a full breath. Her head floated in the clouds and her body sank into weighted bliss. He pulled his hand out from under her skirts, his other hand still cupping the back of her head like she might flee if he let go.
Amelia never wanted him to let go.
Their gazes touched again. He wiped his fingers with his handkerchief and tucked it away. Amelia swallowed, her brilliant flush of ecstasy fading to one of anxious anticipation.
He didn’t have the look of a man enslaved by passion. He looked resigned.
He knocked on the roof once more. “Alston House.”
“Aye!” Clyde called back.
Perhaps she was the one who couldn’t let go.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Graham changed outof his evening attire. There was no point wearing it now. His thoughts were churning with the events of their carriage ride, the things he’d revealed to her and what she shared in return.
