“I will marry you, Rowan,” she said, opening her eyes to look at him evenly as she said the words. “I will marry you.”
He grinned, and the look made him so handsome that she could not resist anymore. She closed the distance between them in a few steps and wrapped her arms around him. She lifted to him as he lowered to her, and their mouths crashed together in a passionate kiss unlike any they’d ever shared.
Yes, in this kiss there was the desire that had pulsed between them from the first night she’d encountered him lounging in the parlor, but there was also something more. She felt a connection when their mouths met, when their tongues tangled. A promise that made her feel complete where she’d never known she wasn’t whole. A sense of belonging that warmed her from head to toe.
She parted from him just enough to whisper, “Will you…touch me?”
His eyes went wide. “You don’t care about the scandal?”
She shook her head. “Let it come.”
His mouth found hers again, and he backed her away from his work, to a darker corner of the room, where a settee was hidden beneath a tarp. He broke from her just long enough to pull the cover aside and then he lowered her onto the cushions. She settled back, watching him, her body already twitching with the pleasure she knew he could give her. Now it was going to be so complete. So real. So perfect.
“I want to do this slowly,” he said with a frown as he began to hitch up her skirt. “And with far fewer clothes, but just like last time, that is not possible.”
She blushed as her skirt came up over her knees and his hands brushed her thighs. “Can you…can you not have me this way?”
He swallowed hard. “Have you?” he repeated, his voice cracking.
She nodded. “Please?”
He leaned down, his weight covering her, and he kissed her. She lifted into him and felt the full length of him against her, including the hard thrust of him pressing to her stomach. She knew a little about what happened next, and that steely length both frightened and intrigued her.
“If you want this, I suppose it can’t hurt. You’ve agreed to be my wife,” he murmured, she thought more to himself than to her. “And God, but it’s too much temptation to deny.” He touched her face gently, tracing the line of her cheek. “Let me ready you.”
“How?” she whispered.
He smiled, and it was wolfish. “Like before.”
She gasped as his mouth moved to her throat, to the scooped neckline of her gown, down lower to press kisses over her stomach, her hip, and finally he dropped to his knees and positioned himself just as he’d been a week before: worshipping between her thighs. Her body quaked with the memory. With the reality as he spread her sex open and began to lick her.
She lifted against him. She knew what to expect this time, and she wanted it. Needed it. Needed that slick and heated and powerful release that would make her world a starburst of pleasure.
He eased her toward it, stroking her full length, teasing her clitoris, making her body tremble with need. But instead of letting her find release, as he had last time, when she was on the edge, ready to explode, he pulled away. She whimpered as he stood, but the whimper turned to a gasp as he unfastened the placard on his trouser front and let it drop.
She sat up slightly to stare. This was what the fuss was about. This thick, hard mass of erect flesh that now moved at her like a divining rod to water. She reached out, fascinated at how very different their bodies were, and stroked her finger across his length.
He sucked in a breath, and she jerked her hand away. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he choked out. “Just keep touching me.”
She lifted her gaze, saw the tension coiled in every muscle of his body. She’d created that. She had power, just as he did.
And in that moment, she wanted to use her power. She caught him in her hand, reveling in the soft and hard dichotomy of this thing. That some used for wrong, but that could also make her feel so very right.
She stroked him with her palm and he gripped his fists at his sides, his neck straining.
“You’ll put it in me,” she said softly.
“Yes.” His tone was strangled.
“Will it hurt?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, at first. If I’ve done my job right, then not too much.”
“Will you do it now?” she asked, rubbing her thumb across the swollen head, wondering at the drop of liquid that escaped the tip.
“Jesus, but you test a man,” he murmured, and he moved back over her, his mouth hungry against hers. She sank into him, her arms around his neck, smelling his skin and his hair and his body that she wanted so very desperately.
