Whatever fantasy she had ever built in her mind, the reality had just lived up to it and gone even further. She had been his and she had claimed him as hers. It was more than just pleasure, there was something more wild and powerful and achingly beautiful to it than that.
It remained me be seen, however, if there would be anything more to it than this heated night and the uncommon passions they had shared.
CHAPTER5
It had been a long time since an encounter had made Silas breathless. Oh, there was always release, he never missed it and he worked hard so his partners didn’t leave without it either. But encounters were forgettable, meaningless most of the time. And every time in the last few years, especially. He didn’t entangle himself very easily.
After all, he knew how much one could lose when one did so.
But here, with this remarkable woman lying in his arms, her dark hair down around his chest, her lush body tucked up close to him, it was hard not to feel like something very unique had just happened.
“Why were you watching me with Simone that night?” he asked.
She started a little, as if she hadn’t expected him to question her about anything. There was a little triumph in that, for Arabella didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would be easily surprised. Her armor was her knowing sensuality.
“It was the beginning of a road for me,” she said after a moment’s consideration.
He wrinkled his brow at the answer that didn’t quite seem like one. “Ah, so you’re saying it was early in your career?”
She shifted and those beautiful dark blue eyes moved away from his. “Yes,” she said slowly.
He hesitated. There was part of him that felt the she was holding something back from him. But then again, women in the trade often had to do that. They didn’t tell all because the secrets were both their greatest risk and their biggest currency. She didn’t owe him the truth, so why did he want it so much?
She seemed to sense that and now she did look up at him again. “I-I didn’t mean to spy on you with her.”
“Did it embarrass you to see us?” he asked, arching a brow. “You don’t seem the kind of woman who would be.”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t then. I’m not now. What you did that night, what we just did, it’s as natural as breathing. To want is to be human. To fuck is to be alive.” She sat up a little, her hands tracing his chest gently. “I know why that night stuck with me, why I couldn’t stop thinking about you. But I was surprised when you told me you remembered me, too. Why?”
There was a flash of a moment when he considered telling her the truth. When he pondered blurting out that he didn’t know why. That she had captivated him that night and tonight and he feared she might continue doing so. That he had thought of her both at his most aroused and also at his most broken.
But he didn’t say any of that. He reverted to the rakish rogue that had served him well his entire life.
“Do you think,” he began, dragging her a little closer and lifting up to kiss her neck gently, “that it’s every day a man looks up on the edge of coming and sees a gorgeous stranger watching him from the shadows?” He kissed lower, nibbling along the lovely line of her to her collarbone. “Hands fisted at her sides, pupils dilated with desire she can’t hide?”
She shivered as a response and he moved down her chest and latched onto her nipple. He licked her there, as she began to twitch against him most prettily. “It made the entire experience so much more intense.”
He continued to lick lower, pushing her back. He reached what remained of the splash of his earlier release on her belly and began to slowly rub the evidence of his pleasure into her skin. She moaned. “Did you touch yourself after?”
She jerked under his fingers and whispered, “Yes.” He brushed the roughness of his stubble against her thigh and then licked back to the sweet wetness of her pussy. She lifted into him and whispered, “And many times afterward thinking about it…and you.”
He sucked her clitoris and she obliged him by starting to shake almost immediately. No wonder this woman was sought after, that men tracked her all through the hells like he’d seen them do tonight. He was certain they did the same in opera halls and ballrooms. She was a revelation, a sunburst of desire and pleasure and surrender that could wrap a man up and make him feel warm when he came in from the cold.
He sucked her harder and she came in long waves against him, her gasps and cries gorgeous in his ears. When she went weak, he looked up from between her legs and met her dark eyes.
“Do you want to do this for a while?”
She blinked. “Are you asking to be my protector?”
Protector. There was a loaded word for a man like him. Protectors in the sense she meant were rich and often titled and had a great deal to offer a lady who surrendered her favors. He didn’t have nothing, but it still might not be enough in comparison to the dukes or marquesses or princes she could have claimed.
And protector in the other sense? He’d never been able to protect anyone he ever cared for. And he hadn’t ever been protected by those who should. So what did he know of that sacred duty?
She sat up a little at his hesitation. “Or perhaps, Mr. Windham, you’re just talking about being my lover.”
He tried to read her, tried to determine if her little smile was real or false. He couldn’t. She was too good at keeping the truth from her eyes.
“That might be better,” he said softly. “I might not be here for long enough to take on any larger role than that.”
