“Yes and no.” Taking her hands, he put them both on his left shoulder. “The pain was momentary. A light rub is actually good for it.”
Tentative, she softly kneaded his skin, examining him for any signs of distress. Julius tipped his head back and rested it on the chair. He sighed, his face relaxing.
She increased the pressure the tiniest bit. “How did you hurt your shoulder?”
“In prison.” He rested his palms on her thighs. “Being tied in one position for too long can cause permanent damage. I don’t have quite the same range of motion in my left arm as I do my right.”
If she could find every last one of his gaolers and hold hot pokers to their feet, she would. With the heel of her hands, she skimmed along his collar bone. The strong column of his throat was exposed, and she couldn’t help but lean forward and take a little nibble.
His chest vibrated beneath hers. She slid her hands from his shoulders, down his ribs, and to the buttons of his falls.
He gripped her wrists. “Before we go any further, I need to tell you something.”
“All right.” Her palms grew damp. He sounded unusually serious.
“Lord Hanford knows you are Mr. Wilson.” His jaw hardened. “He will most likely expose your identity in his response toThe Times.”
Amanda opened her mouth. Closed it. She hadn’t been expecting that. By tomorrow, everyone could be gossiping about her. Sneering as they said her name. She waited for the panic to come.
And waited. Aside from a slight queasiness in her stomach, the news didn’t affect her overmuch. She wouldn’t see the sneers. She wouldn’t be attending any public event to suffer the cut direct.
All those letters others had written to support her stance, those would stop. And that hurt. She tipped up her chin. “I am sorry that my notoriety will hurt the cause for reform. The laws need to be changed. And I may have just set that movement back.”
“You did your best.” Julius squeezed her leg. “There are plenty of others who can take up the mantle.”
Yes, it would be someone else’s cause now. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. It was better this way. Liz didn’t need a sister whose shame was constantly paraded through the papers of London.
And Julius didn’t need a morose lover. She’d spent too many years dispirited, hollow. She wasn’t going to let such a minor thing as her name in the papers bring her low again. She rubbed a hand over the front of his trousers. “Anything else you’d like to discuss?”
He shook his head, his eyes glazing over.
“Good.” She pushed his trousers and smallclothes down his hips and gave his hard length a stroke. “Because I, for one, am through talking.”
Standing, she let her night rail fall from her hips to the floor and stepped out from the cotton puddle. Her toes curled into the pile carpet. Julius sat before her, legs spread wide, elbows resting on the arms of the chair. Hints of red glittered in his brown hair. His sinewy chest gleamed golden from the firelight. And from the careless sprawl of his trousers, his length rose proudly, ruddy and majestic.
He looked like a dissolute king on his throne, and she didn’t know which royal bit of him to worship first.
She swiped her night dress off the floor and folded it into a neat rectangle. Placing it as his feet, she knelt upon it, her shoulders brushing the insides of his knees.
Julius shifted.
The tension rolled off of him in waves, and Amanda’s heart tripped with anticipation. Running her hands up his thighs, she felt every inch of his muscle beneath the wool. The power that he held so contained. A power he never used against her.
Amanda dug her fingers into the bunched fabric at his hips. Other men had taken. Her dignity. Her permission. But not the joy that could be found between a man and woman. Julius had shown her that it could still exist, had breathed that part of her into life.
She wasn’t broken.
Her hands tingled. Amanda may have been on her knees before Julius, but she felt tall enough to touch the heavens.
Shuffling closer, she circled his navel with her index finger. She traced the fine hairs that arrowed down, down …
Julius sucked in a sharp breath. Taking pity, she trailed her finger down the base of his length and up to the crown. She fisted him, and slowly pumped up and down. His skin was so soft, so warm, but underneath he was as hard as stone.
Julius released his breath on a groan. He stared at the ceiling. “That feels so good.”
“What feels better?” She added her second hand at his base, and gripped him tighter as she eased up to his head. “This? Or when you slide inside of me?”
“I’ll not be comparing the pleasures of your body. Everything about you feels good.” He lifted his head and stared into her eyes.
