“I will sleep on the floor.”
Catherine met John’s eye and she felt that thrum of connection flow between them again.
She looked down at the uninviting wooden floorboards.
“No.” She stood and began to untie her dress. Her fingers shook as she worked herself free of the laces. “The room is small, but the bed is big enough for us both. We can just pretend the other isn’t there.”
As if that would be possible,she thought, her pulse quickening.
She removed her dress, determined not to look at him, but also determined not to sleep in her stays. She removed everything until she was just in her chemise. Still not looking at him, she moved to the bed, pulled back the coverlet, and lay down. With her head on the pillow, she closed her eyes.
She heard John moving around the room and taking off the rest of his clothing, the little that he still had on. He blew out the candles. After a few more seconds, she felt his weight settle next to her on the bed. They lay there in silence and she was sure he must be able to hear her heart beating. She could hear—no, she could feel—his breathing. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to bring him closer to her. Unbidden, the night in the Tremberley gardens flashed through her mind. His lips on hers.God, you’re perfect.And yet she remained with her back turned towards him, every moment its own separate eternity, unable to move an inch.
Then, to her surprise, he spoke.
“I am sorry about what I said. In the carriage.”
His voice was low and unguarded and that, with his weight beside her in the bed, sent her pulse quickening even more. She was powerless—she couldn’t help opening her eyes and turning to him. Dim moonlight poured in through the window, illuminating his face. His chest was bare. He was so beautiful that she froze, for a moment, in pure awe.
And then she remembered her anger. What he had called her.
“You do realize that you called me a whore yesterday and a frigid spinster today?”
“I didn’t sayfrigid.”
“Do you think I’m a spinster whore? Or a whore spinster? I can’t work out which one.”
“Stop saying the word whore.”
“Why?”
Up close, it was easy to study his mouth. He looked pained.
He reached over the small distance that separated them in the bed and took her hand in his own. “I wanted to suck the ink off your fingertips today.”
She should have been speechless but she wasn’t. Instead, a wildness came over her, as she imagined that night so long ago, how he had touched her, and how many times she had thought of it in darkened little bedchambers much like this one.
“I would have let you.” She felt her smile curving into her pillow, not knowing what possessed her, and yet she didn’t know how to lie to him in this moment. She couldn’t be more guarded, not with him so close.
John took her hand and, slowly, raised her fingers to his mouth. Her hands were dirty again, of course, because she had continued her work after luncheon. She held her breath, unsure if he was going to do it, feeling both unwilling and unable to inhale.
And then his mouth closed over her middle finger, his tongue laving the tip. He nibbled and sucked, as if he was starving. The feeling did terrible things to her core. She could feel moisture pooling between her legs.
When she couldn’t take the feeling in silence anymore, she let out a shaky breath, half-whimper and half-gasp. As if that had been what he was waiting for, he pulled her towards him, crushing her to his body.
And then he was kissing her and there was no restraint in the tangle of their mouths. The past dissolved as he pressed his body over hers. She opened her mouth to him and he fed hungrily on her. She ran her hands through his hair and he groaned, grinding into her, only her light chemise and his breeches between them.
Over her chemise, he cupped her breast roughly and then placed his mouth to her, sucking her nipples, already taut from her arousal, through the thin fabric. She let out a moan that, even to her own ears, sounded particularly abandoned. He teased her nipples with his tongue until the fabric of her chemise was completely soaked and she could feel, between her legs, more slickness, too much—she would never be able to hide it and she wasn’t even sure that she wanted to.
His body felt just right, as if his touch unlocked some part of her, some capacity for extreme pleasure that she had difficulty believing in when she wasn’t with him. She remembered this feeling from that night at Tremberley, but she had told herself that she had only imagined it. Now, in his arms again, she had to admit to herself how real it was.
His hands found her arse and he pulled her towards him, even harder now, and she felt his cock, hard and large, through his breeches. When she writhed against him, needing more of that feeling, she heard his sudden intake of breath. Whether it was shock or arousal, she was too gone to care.
He seemed to agree with her because he pushed her chemise above her hips. With him above her, his cock, still in his breeches, rubbed against her entrance. The friction was so good that she couldn’t bear the sensation without an outlet—she cried out and he answered her, pressing his face into her neck, murmuring her name like he was in agony.
“Do you enjoy that?” he asked, his mouth on her ear.
She let out a sound that was somewhere between an assent and a sob.
