“Not punishment.” She traced his lower lip with her tongue. “I think I’ll have the whole of you, now.
“Are you ready for me?”
“Do you have to ask?”
He raised himself up on his elbow as he slid a hand up her thigh. Then, he buried his finger in the soft tangle of curls. She was more than ready. She was completely wet. As he let his fingers play, she clasped him to her breast. He suckled as he stroked.
“Too much,” she breathed.
He wasn’t deceived.
She had found some satisfaction, but she hadn’t fully relaxed. Not yet. But—he slid his palm against her mound—she would. And when she did,thenhe would enter her.
She made deep, needy sounds entirely without sensibility. Each time his fingers slipped inside her breath hitched higher.
“Yes.” He bit lightly on her nipple. “Yes.”
“What are you—? I already—! Ican’t.”
“Let go,” he commanded, holding her arse firmly while rocking his hand.
She arched against him with a gasping whimper and then she broke into a shiver that quaked through every limb.
“What the devil?” She murmured. “Twice?”
He smiled into the darkness, vowing to test that limit, too—in the future. For now, he positioned himself above her opening. As he slid inside her welcoming body, her languid limbs suggested she’d lost sense.
No matter.
He grasped her by the thighs and moved her ashewished. And soon enough she found the rhythm. He found, not just pleasure, but quintessential pleasure. Pure, blissful need—thrusting upward as she rode him.
He was just aware enough to withdraw in time.
He crushed her to him, holding her tight as waves of pleasure passed out of his body. She rested her face in his neck. Over and over, she whispered, “Godric.”
As their heavy breath mingled, he doubted he’d ever have enough.
“Hera,” he sighed.
And one day soon,mydarling.
ChapterNine
Hera awoke with an unfamiliar lightness of spirit, as if she were a child anticipating a special treat. Still possessed of the starry-eyed afterglow of the prior night, she decided a fall from society could hold some advantages, after all. Significant doors had closed to her, but others stood wide open.
And, through one of them, she’d found pleasure like she’d never known.
She’d made up her mind to raise her daughter among people of a more open mind.
Artists, perhaps. Poets. Thinkers out of the ordinary way. People who were more concerned with discovery than with the binding of free souls for the benefit of a few.
Free souls.
She liked that idea...
Only, Hurtheven was a duke—the very definition of a world battened down with rules and expectations and hierarchy, the world of conventional society. The unwelcome thought was a sharp reminder to keep a firm rein.
The fancies of a free future she’d been spinning could never include him.
