She let out a cry as he leaned into her, unfastening his trousers as he ground little circles against her bare sex. His cock came free and they sighed together.
“Hurry,” she murmured, her fingers digging into his jacket.
“Your wish is my command,” he responded as he adjusted his position and gently thrust, sliding into her as deeply as he could.
They both moaned together and she immediately began to rock, forcing him to thrust in time to her shaking body.
He kissed her as he took her, lost in her softness, her heat, her unrestrained passion. He’d never known anyone like this woman and he’d never know anyone who came close to her again once she had departed his life.
It was why he felt so driven to have her, despite all the very good reasons to stay away. Despite the knowledge that it wouldn’t last, just as no connection ever lasted. Right now he had her. Right now he would celebrate that fact by driving hard into her, sliding his hand between her legs where she was slick, stroking her clitoris with his thumb.
She jolted at the caress, her eyes going wide and her cries louder and sweeter in the warmth of the stable. Her body fluttered around him in sweet release, massaging his cock, milking him until the pleasure crested and he was forced to withdraw from her heaven and spend his pleasure with a roaring cry of her name.
“You judge Celia,” Rosalinde panted a few breaths later as she smoothed her skirts back down and watched him fasten his trousers. “But you are willing to take advantage of my vulnerability.”
He froze at the accusation and slowly lifted his gaze to her face. Sunlight streamed through a window in the loft above and hit her so that she looked almost angelic, but she held herself like a warrior. An interesting dichotomy if he’d ever seen one.
“Is that what you are? Vulnerable?” he asked.
She laughed, and in that sound he heard her rawness, a pain she had never before revealed to him. “We are women under the control of men, Gray,” she said. “Of course I am vulnerable.”
She said nothing else, but walked out of the stable without so much as a backward glance.
He thought of chasing after her, but didn’t. Why? Because the look on her face had been too genuine. If he followed her, this connection to her would no longer be a mere twist of fate, plucked from the ether. No, if he pursued her, if he pushed her, if he really grew to know the weakness and pain and emotion that she hid deep in her soul…
That would make this real. He didn’t want real.
And yet he couldn’t stop thinking of what she’d said before she walked away. He returned to his horse with her words haunting him.
We are women under the control of men.
She’d meant under his control, she supposed. That Celia was in some ways under his brother’s control. That Rosalinde had once been under her husband’s control.
But he thought she’d also been referring to someone else—her grandfather. She and Celia were under his control and he held the cards to their future in a way Gray didn’t fully understand.
But maybe it was time to change that. Maybe it was time to start finding out more about these sisters and the man who held the key to all they did and said.
Rosalinde sat in the chair by the window, staring out at the rolling hills of the estate far below. In the distance, she saw a rider. Gray. She knew it was him. She was beginning to know the way his body moved far too well.
She sighed. Her plan had not been to make love to him when she went to the stable. She’d wanted to confront him about his interference. To try to convince him that he was wrong about her family. Instead she had ended up consumed by pleasure.
She was a selfish girl, just as her grandfather had always accused her.
The door to the chamber opened and she glanced over to watch Celia come inside. Her sister shut the door and looked at her, concern written on her face.
“There you are,” Celia said, moving toward her. “You were gone so early this morning, and when you weren’t at breakfast I worried.”
Rosalinde smiled sadly. Celia wouldn’t beworriedif she knew the truth. “I-I thought of taking a ride around the grounds but decided against it.”
Celia sat down on the chair across from her and examined her carefully. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Wrong?”
Celia nodded. “I have eyes in my head, Rosalinde, there is no reason to deny the truth. Since your arrival here you have beenodd.”
Rosalinde tensed. Leave it to her sister to notice even the slightest of changes in her mood. “Odd? How so?”
“You are distracted, for one. I catch you staring off into the heavens so many times each day. And troubled. You are the one of the two of us who smiles and I have barely seen that expression since you came to the country. I can’t help but be concerned by this change.”
