“Selina, I’m going to—” he grunted. “I don’t want to make you…”
She ignored his pleas, working him all the harder, and it was too much. It was everything. With a cry in the quiet, he came, his entire body rocking with pleasure. She took every drop of him, continuing to swirl her tongue around the exquisitely sensitive tip of his cock and drawing the intense sensation out further, even long after he’d been drained dry.
Only when he went limp in the chair did she let his cock from her lips with a wet pop and smile up at him. “That was…delicious,” she whispered, and that same cock twitched with the wickedness of this remarkable woman.
“Thatwas outrageous,” he corrected. “I am no monk, but I’ve never come that hard before.”
Triumph crossed her face. “Very good, then I suppose I win a prize.” She pushed to her feet and walked to the basin across the room. She washed her hands and then looked at herself in the mirror where he’d been straightening his cravat earlier. She fiddled with herself, smoothed the fresh wrinkles in her gown.
“I won the prize, darlin’,” he drawled as he got to his feet, testing his shaky legs to make sure he wouldn’t fall over.
She grinned at him in the reflection of the mirror. “Why, Mr. Huntington!”
He cleared his throat as he tucked his cock away and straightened his own clothing. “Why did you talk to Barber about your brother?”
She froze for a beat and then faced him. “I didn’t exactly,” she said softly. “I saw him in the garden and we walked together for a while. The topic came up somewhat naturally. After all, Nicholas is something we share in common.”
“I suppose,” Derrick said, but wasn’t certain of that explanation.
“I met Nicholas when I was eleven.” Her expression was faraway. “He was sixteen and had only just found out that he was one of Roseford’s bastards.”
“Did the previous Roseford introduce you?” Derrick asked, clinging to this moment of vulnerability like a lifeline. She offered him so few of those—she was always on guard.
“No.” Her laugh was brittle. “Certainly not. He didn’t give a damn about any of us. My stepfather told me who Nicholas was, actually. Probably to hurt me.”
Derrick wrinkled his brow, for her pain was just at the surface. Pain and anger. At her father, at her stepfather. And he began to understand, at least a little, why she had said she’d been on her own for most of her life.
“Why would he want to hurt you?” Derrick asked.
Her gaze darted to him, and for a moment wild terror lived in every flicker of her face. He could read it like a book. She’d said too much, revealed too much, everything was dangerous. She would do anything to escape.
“Why does anyone do anything?” she said, her tone back to breezy and without a care. She moved away from the mirror and past him to the fire, where she stared into the flames. “The point is that I later created a situation where I could meet Nicholas. I don’t know what I expected, but he was…he was so kind to me. Like I was his true sister, not just half-blood. He has meant the world to me ever since. And I thank you for saving him. For saving the part of me that would have died with him.”
Derrick let out a shaky breath and moved to her. He caught her shoulder and turned her back toward him. She stared up at him with those hypnotically blue eyes boring into his very soul, and for a wild moment he wished they could stay in this room together forever. Just the two of them. No one else.
“Your brother is the bravest man I’ve had the pleasure of knowing,” he said, his voice low and rough with emotion that always came when he thought of the war and those who had been lost and changed by it. “It was my honor to do even the slightest bit in keeping him alive.”
Her lower lip trembled, and he thought she might talk to him more about herself, about her brother, about the truth that he could see now lived just below her surface. But then she cleared all of that from her expression and instead laughed as she reached up to touch his cravat.
“It looks like I ruined this with my ardor,” she said, and it was apparent all other subjects were now closed.
He tried not to be hurt by that fact and instead smiled down at her as she started to untie the mess of a knot he had created. “I would not allow you to accept the blame for that. I am a notoriously bad cravat tier.”
She smoothed the long swatch of fabric, then lifted up on her toes as she began to rewrap it around his neck. “You could have allowed me to take the blame. I never would have known the difference,” she said softly.
He looked down at her with a laugh. “But that would have been a lie.”
Her brow wrinkled partly in concentration, but he also saw that this subject troubled her. “And you’ve never told one of those in your life?”
He tensed, thinking about his upbringing. His stern parents, obsessed with honor and reputation. To the point they would select reputation over their own son, taking his grandfather’s side when a choice was demanded. “I was raised not to do so. But I’m certain I have.”
She smoothed the cravat gently and then her gaze darted from his. “There you are, Mr. Huntington. Fine as can be.”
He pivoted to the mirror and found she had tied him the perfect knot. Even his valet long ago had not done such a superb job. “Fine as can be,” he repeated.
There was a jingle of a bell in the distance, and she looked up at him with a smile. “And there is the bell to call us all to supper. We must go.”
“May I…” He hesitated. “May I escort you, Selina?” He held out his elbow as he asked.
