He blinked, for until she said those words it was like he’d been under a spell. Now he looked around. The chamber was dark since her servant hadn’t come to prepare it, but not so dark that he couldn’t see the bed. Her bed. Where she intended to…
He should leave. He knew that in his throbbing heart. But he didn’t. He simply walked forward and began to stir the embers and add logs to the flames. He heard her close the door behind him as he did so, heard her turn the key in the lock to ensure that no one would interrupt them.
As the light lifted in the room, he turned and found her still at the door, watching him through a hooded gaze. But he knew her, and he could see that despite all the confidence she was portraying in this moment, she was nervous. Her hands shook just a little. Her gaze darted over him like she wasn’t certain where to look.
And that somehow gave him some strength. He moved toward her, giving in to what was going to happen. He pushed her back against the door gently and ducked his head to kiss her once more. She lifted against him immediately, his name passing from her lips as she opened to him. He drove his tongue into her mouth, this time letting the heat wash over him. This time really accepting that this was happening.
He’d pictured this moment so many times. He’d dreamed about it. But it was so much better as a reality than a fantasy. His body was on fire as he drove his fingers into her hair, forcing the pins that held her style to clatter on the floor around them. He’d never touched her hair before and it was soft as silk. When it fell around them, that scent of lemon and vanilla filled his nostrils and made him even harder with desire than he had been a moment before.
He pushed into her out of instinct, rocking his hips to hers, and she tilted her head back with a gasp of pleasure.
“My God,” she grunted as he glided his mouth to her throat. “I can already feel how big you are.”
He smiled against her skin. He might not know much, but he recognized that was a compliment. Right now he couldn’t think of anything except fitting himself inside of her. Of doing what he’d fantasized about for years as he lay in his bed alone. How many times had he come thinking about this woman beneath him? Around him? He wasn’t sure he’d last a minute once fantasy became reality.
She placed her hands on his chest and pushed, backing him away. “Take off your clothes,” she breathed. “I want to see you.”
He hesitated a moment, then nodded. He shoved out of his jacket and tossed it aside, then began to work on the buttons of his waistcoat as she just stood there, watching, her eyes intently focused. His fingers felt too thick, too clumsy as he tried to free himself.
At last she chuckled. “Perhaps undressing you is better after all,” she whispered, and stepped back into his space.
She looked up at him even as she pushed his hands away and began to unfasten his waistcoat. Her fingers pressed against him through the fabric as she glided it away and then went to work unknotting and uncoiling his cravat. Slowly, she peeled away all the layers of clothes, all the protection he kept between himself and exposure.
Rather a metaphor for their relationship. She was the only one who’d ever truly seen him for who he was. Even the rest of his friends, the duke club that had accepted him like a brother, didn’t know as much as she did. Now she stripped his shirt open and pushed it aside to leave him naked from the waist up.
He expected her to go to work on his trousers, but as she dropped his shirt to the floor, she merely stared at what she had revealed. Her mouth was slightly open and her eyes were wide as she reverently reached out and touched his chest.
“My God,” she hissed as her fingers touched his hot skin. “How do you keep so…muscular?”
He looked down, watching her fingers trace the hard slopes and valleys along his chest and stomach. He knew he looked different from other men of his rank. Most of them didn’t avoid Society or work their own land.
He did when it was required. He liked it, truth be told. It felt real. It didn’t require words.
“Work,” he signed simply.
She stared up into his face, and then a slow smile curled her lips. “Of course,” she murmured. “You are so very unique, my love.”
He might have responded, for her words hit him right in the stomach, but she didn’t allow it. She leaned forward to brush her lips against his chest and all thoughts emptied from his mind as hard, heavy, wild sensation rushed through him. She was licking him. His chest, swirling her tongue around a nipple while her hands dragged lower, down his stomach, and then along the front of his trousers to trace the length of his swollen cock.
She made a sound in her throat, one of pleasure and approval, and he swore he grew hard enough to drive a nail. She continued to stroke as she licked lower, lower, and then her mouth met her fingers as she dropped to her knees in front of him. She looked up to meet his gaze as she unfastened his trousers and they fell around his feet.
She was eye to eye with his cock and heat flooded his cheeks. Embarrassment at being so physically exposed, excitement at having her hands on him, her mouth on him, it all washed over him in waves. His mind was spinning, thoughts attacking him from all angles.
And then she lifted up on her knees a fraction and drew him between her lips. He almost buckled as sensation shot up his cock and flowed through his entire shaking body. He’d taken himself in hand before, of course. Almost always it was to forbidden fantasies of the very woman who now stroked her mouth over him.
But that had never been like this. She worked him slowly, her gaze holding his as she took him into her throat and back out again, as she gripped the root of his staff and gently worked her hand in time.
His hand came down. He meant to push her away to make the powerful sensation less, but somehow his fingers tangled in her hair instead and he held there, feeling her head bob back and forth against his palm as she took him and took him and took him.
He felt his seed moving, the telltale ache that grew and blossomed and told him he was going to come. But he didn’t want to do it like this.
Somehow he found the strength to thrust her away, to yank her to her feet and kiss her again, this time rough as he backed her toward her bed. She was still fully clothed, and his fingers fumbled along the back of her dress, tugging at buttons, popping a few to scatter across the floor until he tugged the gown forward and left her standing in only her chemise.
He drew in a few long breaths as he stepped away from her. He wanted to look at her. Heneededto look at her. After all, this was likely the only time he would see her like this. He wanted to savor every moment so he’d never forget a one.
She didn’t move to force his hand. She simply stood before him, her white silk chemise clinging to full breasts, to a slender waist, to the swell of her hips. It was short, so he got a full glimpse of long, lean legs swathed in rather sheer stockings.
He shuddered, filled with as much need and pleasure as he had been when she sucked him. Looking at her was that good. And he wanted more.
