A shudder went through him. “Like that?”
Hard, he meant; roughly, without delicacy or tenderness. She managed to nod. It had been four years since she’d had complete satisfaction. Only he had done that for her. She felt feral and wild with dammed-up desire.
He gripped her hand, hiking her skirts higher. His wicked fingers slipped out of her body and caught her knee, pulling it up around his hip. She almost lost her balance before he cupped his hands under her bottom, pulled her up onto her toes, and thrust into her.
“Oh God,” she whimpered. He withdrew, and slid his hand back down her thigh to settle on her aching sex before he thrust home hard once again, pinning her against the wall behind her.
She let go of her skirt and put her hands on him, on hot, firm flesh, on muscles that tensed and flexed, and all the while he worked himself deeper into her body as his fingers sent her spiraling into a hard, abrupt climax.
She made an inarticulate noise of release. He bent his head, sucking at the skin at the side of her neck, then pulled back and lifted her, carrying her as if she were just a slip of a girl, to the chaise, where he set her down.
“That makes a good beginning,” he said, his color high.
“What?” She could barely hear him over the pounding of her heart.
He laid her back and deftly rolled her skirts up around her waist. He hadn’t climaxed, she realized with a jolt, as he spread her legs apart, each off the side of the chaise, leaving her fully bared. “Now,” he said in an ominous voice, “we reach the lovemaking.”
Later, Evangeline would almost believe lightning must have struck her that day. Richard opened her bodice and applied himself to her breasts until she writhed. He didn’t seem bothered by her clothing, or his lack of it, but worked his way steadily under it until every inch of her skin felt alive with nerves. The backs of herkneestingled. But every time she felt a climax approaching, he would shift and change, tormenting some new part of her body until she was ready to weep from frustration.
“Please,” she begged at last. Her hair was down in a tangle around her face, her dress was falling off, and she was behaving like the most sinful wanton alive, and all she wanted was for him to hold her down and give her the release she craved.
“Over,” he said, breathing hard. “On your knees.”
Shaking, she turned over onto her hands and knees. His hands settled on her hips. “Look up,” he said, his voice guttural and raspy.
Evangeline peered up through the disarray of her hair and realized that with the stormy sky outside so dark, they were reflected in the window of the conservatory. She was a dim shapeon the chaise, her fine green dress hanging off her, but he was clearer, golden skin and lightning blue gaze, watching her.
He thrust into her. Evangeline gasped, her hands fisting on the cushions and her spine bowing. He pulled back, then drove home. She moaned. He slipped one hand beneath her, between her legs, and stroked her there as he began moving, slow and hard. She felt him take a firm grip on the folds of her dress, bunched up around her waist, and increase the tempo of his thrusts.
He didn’t stop until she came apart, gasping and sobbing. Her elbows gave way and she collapsed onto her face. He moved twice more, then froze, pulling her dress so tightly she dimly heard the fabric rip, and then she felt him come, shuddering and whispering frantically in a foreign tongue.
A moment later he shifted his weight. With a soft thump, he collapsed onto his back on the floor beside the chaise where she still sprawled, on her face, legs spread wide, hair everywhere, feeling better than she ever had in her life.
“That,” he said between gulping breaths, “was incredible.”
She laughed, pulling herself to the edge of the chaise to peer down at him. “Your English is faulty,” she murmured. “The correct word is incendiary.”
Eyes closed, he smiled. “It was both. I am bereft of all languages at the moment.”
God above, he was beautiful, stretched out naked on her floor. She reached down and trailed her fingers down his chest, through the golden-brown hair, and after a moment he put his hand over hers. Not to stop her exploration, but to simply press her palm to his breast, where she could feel the rapid thump of his heart.
She could so easily grow accustomed to this.
It was a dangerous thought.
Evangeline sat up, clutching her ruined clothing to her chest. “Come,” she told him.
He opened his eyes but didn’t move. “Where?”
She stood, and smiled down at him, holding out her hand. “With me.”
Chapter 11
Feeling blissfully relaxed, Richard let her lead him out of the conservatory and down a path lined with paving stones. The rain has eased to a thin drizzle, not that he would have noticed if it were still pouring down. He would have let her lead him anywhere at that moment; if she’d demanded he sign over all his worldly property and take a vow of poverty, he would have done it. All that mattered was that she was here, still barely clothed, holding his hand.
He’d thrown his shirt back on, but left behind everything else—at her suggestion. She glanced mischievously over her shoulder, her dark eyes shining and her hair trailing in tousled locks down her back. “Guess what it is,” she said as she led him, fingers loosely woven through his, toward a round stone building with high windows.
“A... folly?” He had to search for the name. Clemency had admired one on the grounds of the too-rustic home he had not taken—and thank God for that.
