There was something she should say, something she had meant to do, but her mind was empty of words, so instead she reached up to kiss him. At the same time, she stretched down to stroke his cock, which at some point he had completely freed from the constraint of his breeches, and he groaned.
“Are you sure?” he asked breathlessly.
She was already positioning him at the entrance to her welcoming sheath.
“Take me,” she said.
He filled her, sliding easily inside, and the passion she had thought spent began to build again. He moved and so did she, gripping him with hands and legs and body, feeling like she would never get close enough to this man. Whatever might happen tomorrow did not matter. Right now, there was no tomorrow, only this intimate, magical moment between the two of them.
He was a powerful man who could easily have taken her without care for her own pleasure, but he didn’t. He was no brute. He was patient, taking his time. A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. “Feels so good,” he groaned. “Perfect. I knew it would be. I don’t want it to stop.”
He was too sweet and suddenly she could not bear it. She did not want him to love her—that would be disastrous for them both.
“I do not give lessons in fucking,” she said crudely. “Only manners and etiquette.”
Instead of being hurt or insulted, he grinned. “I do not need lessons in fucking,” he growled, and thrust deeper, brushing against some spot inside that made her cry out with aching pleasure.
God, he was good. She wanted to laugh with joy, but just then her orgasm caught her and she was gasping and arching against him as he reached his own crescendo. For a time they lay, panting and wrung out. Her muscles seemed to have ceased to exist, and he was heavy on top of her. But she didn’t mind. She was sorry when he rolled to her side.
She could feel his gaze admiring her, on her face and her bare breasts. She turned to face him.
“I suspect you were no virgin,” she said drolly.
“You suspect right.” He looked up at her almost coyly through his dark lashes. “I have had my share of girls, me andRory both. He has had more, and Donal loves only one girl and he is true to her. But Penelope, I have never had anyone like you. You are...”
His voice trailed off as if he had thought better of his next words.
What had he been about to say? You are the love of my life? Stay with me forever? She knew he must not love her, and their time together was finite. Why did she long to hear those words from him? What was wrong with her that she would destroy her future and his for the sake of a vow no man had ever made to her?
His face turned serious, because he had guessed at some of what she was thinking.
“Don’t send me away, not yet,” he said. “We have more lessons. More time.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him there could be no more lessons, but instead she lifted her hand to touch his cheek, cupping the warm flesh and feeling his whiskers rasp against her palm.
“It cannot be more than a brief affair,” she said seriously. “Do you understand? Even so, I am risking—”
“Nothing,” he assured her. “I will not tell, and we will be careful. No one will know, Penelope.”
Wouldn’t they? There were so many ways in which this could go wrong, but she already knew she was going to do it. It was worth taking the gamble to be with him again, and as many times as they could manage, before it was over.
“I am a fool for agreeing,” she said, even as she stretched up to kiss him.
His mouth was warm with promises, and Penelope wanted to believe every one of them.
Chapter Sixteen
Callum arrived atJasmyne Street the next morning, his body still humming but his head clear. He should have been tired after last night—he had not reached home until early morning—but instead he was more alive than he had been since he’d arrived in London. He wanted to see Penelope again. Heneededto see her in a way that left him breathless.
Their time together had felt like something exceptional. Did she feel the same? Last night she had agreed to an affair, but this morning she might have changed her mind. He hoped not. If an affair was all she had to offer him then he would take it, but he admitted to himself that he wanted more. Deep in his secret heart, he wanted a great deal more.
“MacKenzie.”
Penelope’s voice sounded behind him in the sitting room, and he spun around, a smile he couldn’t hold in on his face.
She was not smiling. She was watching him with that careful caution he knew meant she did not want him to see what she was thinking. That, and the shadows under her eyes and the way in which her hair was drawn back in a severe style he had not seen before, did not bode well for any sort of future between them.
She was frowning as her gaze wandered over him. He looked down at himself and realized then that in his rush to get here, to see her again, he had dressed in a rush. Compared to last night’s splendor, he must look like a ragbag.
