Tasteher. Her head spun, but she knew she could not turn him down now. And at the thought of his tongue, which had teased hers so delightfully, being in her most precious place made her tighten. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes. Please.”
“Thank the Lord.” He kissed her inner knee. Then down, alternating legs as he marked her inner thighs with hot, wet kisses. She throbbed, she ached, she writhed, and he looked at her with unmistakable male pride. A little smugness.
She gripped the sheets in her fists. “Now.”
The first press of his tongue was a relief. A supplication. The next made her cry out in shock. The heat, pressing heat, such pleasure. With one hand on her stomach holding her down, and the other wrapped around a leg, keeping her open for him, he assaulted her senses. After so long wanting, the flare of pleasure almost overwhelmed her. She slid a hand into his hair, hips moving helplessly against him as she sought the bliss she had found with him the last time.
“That’s right.” He bit her inner thigh, and she gasped again, the sounds too loud in the softly lit room. “Take what you need from me. Use your words, Evelyn. Tell me what you like. What you want.” The tip of hisfinger teased her entrance. “Or can you not form full sentences?” She felt his lips curve against her folds.
“Don’t stop.”
“Don’t worry, my darling. I have no intention of stopping. Not yet.” He pushed that single finger inside her, holding her down as her back arched. This was what women ruined themselves over—and heavens, wasn’t it worth it? This pleasure, this connection, this sensation. So much more than anything else her life could provide.
The heat inside her built, just as before.
She clenched around his finger, needing something more, a hollowness inside her she could not account for.
His tongue flicked lazily across the bud she had discovered the last time, and his finger crooked against her inner walls.
She fell apart. Wholly and completely, losing herself to the flood of pleasure, aware of nothing but his hands and mouth and the taste of his name on her lips.
This time, she did not concern herself with being quiet. This pleasure was not illicit.
After, she found Charles beside her, one hand still between her legs, the other pressing tender kisses to her cheeks. She twisted in his arms, meeting his mouth with hers. She tasted herself on his lips, and there was something so primal in that knowledge that she let out a tiny noise of shock and arousal.
“I love you,” Charles said, drawing back and looking at her. “Long ago, I told you that this ought to be the sort of thing that you should experience with your husband.” His smile gentled. “And now you are.”
“You and your honour.” For a strange reason, she felt like weeping, the pressure of emotion in her chest too much for her to bear. “I never intended to hold out for a husband, Charles. I asked you because I wanted you. Yes, because I wanted to know everything, but I asked you—you—because I loved you too much to lose you before having something to take with me.”
He rolled over her, eyes glittering in the near dark. “Say that again.”
“Say what?”
“That you love me.”
“My darling,” she said, reaching up a hand to cup his cheek. “How can someone so astute be so blind?”
“I know you love me, and I have done little enough over the years to deserve it. But to be in love with me—that is a different thing entirely, Pidge, and you know it.”
She had the absurd desire to laugh, though it came out more like a sob. “I have been in love with you longer than I ever knew what love meant. What did you think? That I was merelyfondof you? Would I have given you my heart and my body so freely if that were the case? I was a spinster, and content to be so. You are what compelled me to matrimony. Because how could I turn down a chance to share a life with you, if you wanted it too?” And he had done—he must have done, or he would never have gone to all this effort for her alone. Lady Rosamund would have been the sensible, dutiful choice. He had thrown that over for her.Her.
“Evelyn,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. When he lowered his face to hers, she felt tears on his cheek. His arousal pressed against her leg, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him, holding him tightly against her.
The last time they had been here, his erection nudging her entrance, she had thought the words and not uttered them, and they had been interrupted before she could have him.
“I love you,” she said, determined that she would not stay silent this time. “I love you, Charles Hardinge.”
Now, he shoved inside her with a decisive thrust. He was far larger than his fingers had been, but although the stretch almost burned, there was no pain. Nothing but a stab of pleasure so intense, she moaned. He did the same, braced against her, hands shaking a little as they cupped her face.
“How—how is that?” he asked.
“Good. Wonderful.” She slid a hand down his side, at the wiry muscle, the slight jut of his hipbones. He was all hardness to her softness. She liked the way it felt, the press of his weight. The feeling of him thick and hard inside her. So deep. “Keep going,” she whispered.
He shuddered and flexed his hips, his movements tentative at first. The second thrust felt almost as good as the first; the third, even better. She canted her hips, encouraging him deeper, following primal instinct. His hands were everywhere—her breasts, her face, her stomach, her legs, squeezing her waist as though he could not help himself. As though it took everything within himself to keep his pace. Again and again, he pushed into her, until time ceased to have meaning. All she knew was she never wanted this to end.
And, by the way he touched her, whispering praise against her skin, neither did he.
This transcended anything she thought she could experience. And not just from the pleasure of it, but the intimacy of his skin against hers, his mouth against hers, the joining that brought them so irrevocably together—not just of bodies, but of hearts, of souls.
