The dam broke. His mouth claimed hers, hungry, insistent, all restraint shattered. She clung to him, trembling as weeks of tension ignited into fire. His hands were rough at her waist, sliding up her back. He pulled her against the hard plane of his chest. Her shawl slipped. It was forgotten as it fell to the cobbles,acquiring stains where the pump had splashed water. Winston’s lips moved to Adeline’s throat, trailing fire. She gasped his name, half protest, half plea.
He lifted her by draping his arms around her waist. She rose above him, eyes wide for a moment before her head descended to his in a flurry of kisses. He bore her across the yard, towards the stables. Kicking the door shut with his heel, he climbed the stairs that led to the hayloft. Adeline looked up from her devotion to Winston’s lips, face, and neck, realizing where she was.
“This is a stable!” she whispered, scandalized.
“It is. No better place for animal acts,” Winston growled.
“It is wicked!”
“So are we.”
He reached the top, and before he had even stepped into the loft, he tossed Adeline bodily ahead of him. She had time for a startled yell before she dropped deeply into a pile of hay. It was soft and warm, enveloping her as Winston slowly lowered himself to her. His weight atop her pressed her down further. She clung to him, hands gripping his back, wanting his hard, Herculean body connected to hers.
The feel of steely muscle against her soft, yielding flesh was exciting, but the gasp that came from him was intoxicating.She lifted her head to kiss him, running her fingers through his hair. Then the pressure from his loins made itself known. The material of her nightdress seemed no resistance to that unfettered might.
His hands were urgent upon her, never resting, sampling and exploring. Her body yielded before him. She felt herself unravel beneath his touch, her pulse pounding, her breath breaking into moans she could not contain. Her hands found the bound opening of his dressing gown, pushing aside the thick, rich, brocaded fabric. For a moment, she rested her palms against his broad chest, marveling at the feel of his highly developed pectorals.
Then, as the dressing gown loosened with the grinding movements of their bodies, she traced the outline of those pectoral muscles and continued downward. She mapped each rib, letting her nail run over one after the other. He flinched, gasps coming from him, his muscles clenching. She kissed his mouth as his lips quirked into a smile, and she realized with a kind of delicious, drunken delight that he was ticklish.
Clawing her hands, she flexed her fingers on either side of him, and his body went into a spasm. He laughed and cried out at the same time. Adeline laughed, pursuing him as he flew up from her, pulling him back down.
“Do not do that,” he gasped.
“Make me stop, Your Grace,” she whispered.
Winston shook his head. “No.Winston. I do not want to hear my title in your mouth.”
“Winston,” she said, tasting the name.
It felt gloriously intimate to use his first name. A shudder ran through her as the use of it was accompanied by the feel of his manhood pressing against her. The dressing gown was open, falling from his shoulders, splayed out across both of them like a blanket. He was naked beneath, though she couldn’t see him. She didn’t need to.
I cannot…we cannot go so far. We are unmarried. I might become pregnant!
Her concerns flew through her mind like birds startled from their roosts.
“We cannot…” she began.
“I know,” Winston replied. “Don’t worry. Let me show you what I had in mind.”
Adeline had time to frown and open her mouth, but no words came out. The only sound she made was a rising, whimpering squeak as Winston pushed up her nightdress to the waist. Her stomach was exposed as well as her legs and her most intimate area. She clutched at the hay as though to hurl it over herself as a covering.
Winston lowered his head, kissing her stomach softly. He traced a path with his tongue down to her bellybutton. Then beyond to her navel. Then beyond. By that time, Adeline was lost to reason. Lost to place and time. The universe contracted to a bower in the warm hay, which had now attained body heat. Time stood still. People ceased to exist except for the two of them. She closed her eyes and arched her back as Winston’s tongue touched her where she did not dream of ever being touched.
At last, shuddering, she broke. The world dissolved into sensation. Adeline’s writhing hands had burrowed into the hay, casting it aside until she lay on ancient, bare boards. A volcanic sensation erupted within her, sending molten pleasure to the tips of her toes, outward from the center. Then her limbs became liquid, and silence fell, broken only by their ragged breaths. Adeline knew that everything had changed and yet nothing could change. He was still Winston Burgess, Duke of Greystone, bound to duty, and she was only the governess, bound to her lie. But her body ached for him.
Chapter Fifteen
Adeline awoke in a haze of warmth, her breath unsteady. Her body felt new to her. It tingled with the remnants of the night before. Memories of the night’s dreams swam up from the depths of her mind. She tasted the lurid, fevered visions of Winston. His hands upon her. His mouth claimed hers with unrestrained ferocity. A ferocity that had undone her. It was not the kind of dream she might once have felt ashamed of, but something that left her flushed and restless. Her limbs felt languid against the sheets. She lay there for a moment longer, staring at the ceiling. The afterglow of passion still smoldered within her as well as the aching certainty that it could not last.
It is not Adeline Warren that Winston touched, but the woman I pretend to be.
A name borrowed. Story rehearsed and a life built on falsehoods. The sweetness of their encounter curdled into sadness as she rose. She dressed slowly, her fingers clumsy at her laces, as though every tie bound her tighter to the inevitability of loss. However many days remained in her masquerade, she knewthey were numbered. The longer she stayed, the worse the blow would be when the truth surfaced.
And all I do is make the inevitable harder. Harder on myself but more importantly on all of them.
Her mind turned to Cordelia. The Dowager Duchess, had a keen eye and commanding presence, but so far, she had overlooked Adeline’s falsehoods. She would not forgive deceit. To be cast out by Cordelia would be one thing but to be dragged in irons before the constables, accused by her own father of crimes she had not committed? That would be ruinous. From that, her relationships could never recover. The Duke? She could not fathom what he would think of her. Louisa? She would be heartbroken. Adeline could not countenance doing that to her. But how could she avoid it?
Oh, why did that fire have to break out. I was content at Briarwood. None knew I existed, and we were far from everyone.
