What he saw, to his great shock and deepest awe and gratitude…was her love forhim. Juliana Shelley, who was worth ten of him, fifty of him…loved him. Despite his past. Despite his mistakes. Despite everything he’d ever done. She loved him. In this moment, she was his, truly his.
“Why did you come here, Ellis?” she asked, her voice shaking.
He stroked his thumbs along her cheekbones, tracing the scar his actions had left behind. Ones he had been forgiven for, even if he hadn’t earned it. He had to earn it. And he would…soon.
“I came here because you have become the center of my world,” he whispered. “And I can’t resist you, no matter how I try. No matter how I know I should.”
“Then don’t,” she murmured back, and dropped her lips to his.
When she kissed him, he was lost. Except no, that was wrong. They’d both confessed to each other that they were lost. But together they were found. He could see a life stretching out ahead of them. A happy life filled with adventure and atonement and joy and pleasure.
But it was a life he couldn’t have.
And with his heart breaking, he tilted her head and kissed her more deeply. This was the last time he would ever make love to her. He knew that in his heart. And he was going to savor every moment. He was going to make sure she did the same.
He stood, gathering her into his arms as he did so, and she laughed against his lips as he carried her to her bed. He laid her out across the pillows, remembering the first time he’d done this. The last. Remembering every time he’d ever been so lucky as to touch her.
Then he stepped back and stripped out of his shirt, tossing it over his shoulder. He toed off his boots and removed his trousers. She stared at him, forever reverent when she looked at him like this. Forever anxious if the way she licked her lips was any indication.
He joined her on the bed, sliding one slipper from her foot and letting it fall to the floor. He massaged her foot, pressing a thumb into her arch, and she shivered as she whispered his name. Yet again he’d found some new place to explore, and soon he would not have that option anymore.
He pushed that maudlin thought aside and removed her other shoe, repeating the massaging action. He slid his hands over both her ankles, tugging gently to pull her closer on the bed. He let his fingers play over the fine bones there, memorizing even this tiny detail. He wanted every one.
Her calves were next, encased on white stockings with a blue filigree stitching through them. Could he steal these once he’d made her shake beneath him? Stuff them in his pocket? Touch that fine silky fabric any time he wanted to remember her? He could, but he wouldn’t. That would be torment.
When his hands curved behind her knees, she arched. “Ellis,” she moaned. He laughed, pushing her dress higher as he splayed his fingers across that sensitive place, let his thumbs crest over her knee bones.
She parted her legs and tugged at her dress, lifting it to bunch around her stomach. He groaned and leaned in to press a kiss to her inner thigh. She hissed out pleasure, her fingers coming down to dig into his hair, holding him in place there as she lifted against him to force what she wanted.
Not that she needed to. He had every intention of giving her just that. But first…
He pulled away from her hand and smiled up at the love of his life as she writhed in anticipation and scowled at him in accusation. He said nothing as he untied her garters, rolling her stockings down the same path he’d just traveled and traveling it back a second time. He caught the edge of her drawers and yanked those, bringing the delicate fabric down. She kicked them away, opening wider for him, giving him the prettiest glimpse of her slick sex.
He wanted to glide home in her. Deep as he could go. Come inside of her and mark her forever. He wasn’t going to do that, but oh, the temptation.
Instead, he settled between her legs, pushed her thighs farther and then licked her from the rosette of her bottom to the hard nub of her clitoris. She let out a gasp that all but echoed in the room and then blushed as she clapped a hand over her mouth.
He chuckled and went back to work. She tasted earthy and sweet, his favorite flavor in the world. He never wanted to forget it, so he took his time, teasing and tasting, nibbling and stroking. For a while, he didn’t focus on her clitoris, but every other inch of her. But at last her breath was rasping against her fingers and she was snaking her opposite hand between her legs to touch herself as he licked her.
“Always so demanding,” he grunted as he let his tongue join those seeking fingers. Together they stimulated her clitoris, and he loved it. Loved that she was taking what she wanted, demanding what she needed. Loving even more than he could give it to her. He pushed her fingers aside at last with his chin and then he sucked her.
She jolted and began to quake. He repeated the action, once, twice. Steady pressure, suction and a swirl of the tongue, and in a heady rush she came. He tormented her through her release, letting her muffled cries become a symphony as he took and took and took, gave and gave and gave until she pushed him away, her body twitching with powerful aftershocks.
Only then did he climb over her, covering her, reveling in the feel of her softness beneath his hardness. She wrapped her arms around his bare shoulders, drawing him into her kiss, provocative as she licked the remnants of her release from his mouth. He shifted against her and drove home as she cried out against him.
He kept his eyes open, watching her face as he took her. Her head was dipped back, cords of tendons visible along the delicate column as she writhed under his thrusts. He loved how her lower lips trembled, how her fingers pressed into his skin, how her hips lifted to grind against his own.
He increased his pace, loving the tight clench of her pussy around his hard cock. Loving how it sent fireworks of pleasure up his length to explode through his entire body. He was close, but he wanted to feel her grip him one last time in release. He nudged a hand between them, stimulating her clitoris with his fingers as he circled deeper and slower.
She gasped, her fingers digging into his forearms as her gaze met his. He held there, watching her, pouring all his love into her as she began to quake around him, gripping and releasing with a second orgasm. He held out as long as he could, reveling in the feel of her pleasure, but his seed was moving, his balls tight, and at last he pulled out of her with a grunt and came harder than he’d ever come before.
He collapsed down over her, pressing kisses to her mouth, her neck. He would never forget this moment. This last time they were one. The last time she was his.
Juliana reached for Ellis’s hand as they crept through Harcourt’s quiet halls. Something had changed between them, but she was trying not to face that. Trying not to recall the pain that had been mingled with his pleasure as he made love to her. Tried not to recall that as he helped her fix herself as they readied to come downstairs, he had been quiet. Not comfortably, but as if he were at peace with something terrible.
“Ellis,” she whispered.
He smiled at her. “So you never really told me where we’re looking for the code.”
