When she moved to return to her seat, his arms went up around her.
“Stay here. Just for a minute.”
She sank into him and felt his body respond to hers. He pressed his face into her hair, breathing her in, and she closed her eyes.
When she opened them, her face was level with his neck, and she admired the line where his smooth skin started to stubble.
Catherine knew he was worried and anxious, but she couldn’t stop herself from what she did next. She pressed her lips to the place just above his collar.
When she kissed him, he sighed, relaxing his body, and so she traced her tongue along the length of his collar. He let out a low groan and she felt him growing hard beneath her.
“I said I wouldn’t kiss you,” he said, his voice coming out strange.
“You did,” she said, laying another kiss along his jawline. “But I didn’t say I couldn’t kiss you.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Catherine kissed him, teasing his lips with her own, coaxing his mouth open. When she edged her tongue over his bottom lip, he reached to cup her face.
She pulled back. “Excuse me, Your Grace, but I believe we had an agreement.”
He looked up at her, his eyes clouded, and then, realizing what she meant, he laughed.
“Very well,” he said, returning his hands to the coach seat. “I’ll let you have your way with me.”
“Hmm,” she said, shocked by her own boldness, but possessed by a desire that seemed larger than herself. “Now I have to figure out what to do with you.”
Catherine repositioned herself on his lap so that she was straddling him underneath her skirts. She could feel his hardness between her legs and the sensation made her gasp. He felt so good. And the memory of the other night in the inn was still fresh. Searing.
“Don’t,” he said, panting now.
“What?” she said, moving a little, so that her core rocked against him, and he let out a stifled moan.
“That.”
“But you seem to like it,” she said, pressing her lips to his, and replicating that delicious movement. She felt her deepest muscles seize with the rhythm and she almost let out a mewl of pleasure but bit it back. She repeated the motion, drawing him into a long kiss, feeling that she might burst from the dual sensations. Breaking their kiss, she said, “So why would I stop?”
He seemed to have no response for that. He just looked up at her. In that gaze, in his slightly agape mouth, she saw his pure desire for her. She had known that desire was there but she had never seen its extent before. Now, when he looked at her without responding—or, rather, not saying anything in words—he conveyed more to her than he ever had before.
“I don’t want you to stop,” he said finally. “I want you. All of the time. You can’t know how much.”
She bent down and took his mouth in another kiss, trying to put all of her own desire into it, and he seemed to understand, responding in kind.
Balancing her arms on his shoulders, she continued to press herself against his firm length, and his breath started coming hard and fast.
“Catherine. My God.”
He took one of his hands off the bench and placed it on her arse, directing her movement, up and down. Even though it technically broke their pact, the sensation felt so good that she couldn’t admonish him.
Catherine felt her muscles winding tighter every time he pressed her to him. She felt the pleasure within her become sharper, more concentrated, and the pressure kept building, both sweet and somehow torturous.
“Please,” she said to him, even though she wasn’t sure what she was asking him to do, and she dug her fingernails into his shoulder. “Please.”
John, however, seemed to know exactly what she meant. He gave her a smile and then reached for her skirts, pushing them back until he exposed the tops of her stockings.
He brought his hand to the cluster of curls between her legs and, with an exploratory touch, entered her slightly with his fingers. When he discovered how wet she was, he looked up at her.
“So wet,” he said, bringing those same fingers to his mouth. “So sweet.”
