“I have an obligation to fulfil.”
“Is that so?” Without warning, he picked her up, carrying her through to the drawing room and depositing her on the low sofa there. As she lay back, catching her breath, he closed the curtains and returned to kneel before her.
“Next time,” he said with a dark smile, pushing her skirts up to her waist, “I will not wait the week.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard.” His finger found her slick centre, and his lips curved into a satisfied smile. “If you want me, Caroline, you can have me. Whenever you want, no matter what your body is doing.”
She rolled her hips against his fingers, urging him inside. He needed little convincing. “Don’t you mind the mess?”
“I’ll bathe you before and after.” His mouth followed his finger, and she bit her lip at the hot lick. “Have sheets put down.”
“I pity the servants who have to wash them.”
He nipped the skin at her thigh. “I pay my staff well.”
There was too much about this conversation to disturb her—the assumption that in a month, this arrangement would be continuing, his arrogant assurance that they would be doing this act in his home, that she would even consent to him touching her then—but she couldn’t focus on them when his busy hands were wreaking such havoc across her body.
And his tongue.
He knelt before her, one hand cupping the pale flesh of her bare thigh, fingers sinking into her skin, his other hand working her. He was everywhere at once, and her head spun with need. Her heart kicked as he drew her into his mouth and sucked.
“Yes,” she gasped. “There.”
He barely so much as paused to breathe, or so it seemed to her, as though he was somehow as hungry as her. As though he needed to see her fall apart as much as she needed to do the falling.
His fingers plunged into her one last time, hitting right where she needed, and she shattered so completely, she became mindless. His name was on her tongue—she had been calling it, begging and cajoling and gasping, whispering it in the throes of her climax as though their joining meant something more than pure pleasure.
If he suspected the turmoil of her mind, he never said so, merely rising up her body to press a kiss against her mouth, letting her taste herself on his lips. “There,” he said, fingers curling around the hinge of her jaw. “Is that better, love?”
Frighteningly so. Internally shaken, she forced a teasing, indulgent smile to her lips and nodded at his breeches. “For me, perhaps, but not for you.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“On the contrary.” She was losing control, and this was the only way she could think to regain it. “Allow me.” With a low, wicked laugh, she urged him onto a seat and sank to her kneesbefore him. He was already erect, and it was easy to unbutton the fall of his trousers and take him into her mouth. Deep. He groaned, thrusting reflexively, and sank his hand into her hair. Not to guide her movements, but to hold her there as he rocked into her.
Perhaps he had thought he could go without, for whatever misguided reason, but this proved otherwise.
She should not have delighted in it.
She opened her mouth, relaxed her throat, and let him use her as he would. Her submission was a sign of her trust in him, and she knew he understood it even as it aroused him. In his everyday life, he was the usual indolent lord, but when it came to pleasure, he preferred to hold the reins. And she liked the way he found his pleasure in her, the sensation gratifying in its own right. She loved the way her eyes watered, the way he praised her even as he demanded more from her.
Her own pleasure built again, and she reached down her body to her core, touching herself as he guided her head down on him, pushing himself to the very back of her throat, filling her so she couldn’t breathe.
“I love seeing you like this,” he said, easing free. “Do it again.”
She obliged, taking him as deep as she could. On her knees before him, rubbing frantically, wanting to find completion before he did. As though sensing it was a competition, he gave a gritty laugh and loosened her hair from its pins, wrapping it around his fist as he moved her up and down.
Tears streamed down her face, her nose stung, and she was so lost to pleasure she could have drowned in it.
Her climax hit with almost terrifying intensity. It was impossible to moan around him, but she tried, shuddering and gasping, her body another beast entirely, out of her control.
He thickened in her mouth as he slowed, giving her time to breathe and recover. Distantly, she knew that he was close,throbbing and needy. But he waited until she dropped her hands from herself, and then he nodded from his position on the sofa.
“Hands behind your back, Caro.”
She obeyed, locking her fingers around her other wrist.
