She gripped her hands into his hair with a gasp and he watched her look around as he began to inch her skirts up bit by bit.
“Silas,” she whispered, then whimpered as he brushed his lips against her stocking-clad knee. God, even through silk, she was impossibly sweet.
“Yes?” he whispered, even as he dragged his tongue up the inside of her thigh and pushed her gown higher. He could almost scent her desire now, feel the tremble of her.
“Anyone could come around the corner,” she gasped. “Anyone could see.”
He smiled up at her as he handed her the bunched skirt of her dress to get it out of his way. “Let them. Let them watch you shatter around my tongue. Or better yet, listen to them dance and drone on about whatever foolishness pleases them while you scratch at the walls as you come.”
“Fuck,” she breathed, that one word so sweet a surrender.
He smiled as she widened her stance, granting him further access to her body. He took it, stoking her soft flesh with his palms and fingers, then brushing her bare sex with his thumbs. He peeled her open and she jolted, one hand coming back to his hair. He paused, wondering if she’d push him away or pull him in. She hesitated, perhaps debating that decision herself, then she tugged him closer.
Permission fully granted, he licked her length once, then twice. The taste of her was maddening, sweet and earthy and rich with desire. He swept his tongue over the tender flesh, just playing for a moment. Not too long, though. Game or not, he doubted she’d like being tormented for too long out in the open. Later he could do more. Later he could torment and torture and play until she was screeching and twisting.
For now, he wanted to make her come in a shocking, heated, instant burst. So he focused his attention on her clitoris. He smoothed the sheath aside, exposing the slickness of it beneath. When he just darted his tongue across her, she bucked against him. A demand for more. For now, he obeyed that command. This was for her, after all.
He swirled his tongue over her again and again, increasing the pressure and setting the rhythm as she began to ride his mouth in earnest. He matched her, stroking and stroking as her wetness increased, as her moans grew louder and joined the sound of the party around the corner of the terrace.
People came outside as he licked her. He heard the door open and voices become clearer. They were talking about the roads, something so benign, and she removed her hand from his hair and covered her mouth so they wouldn’t hear her.
He began to suck, strong and steady, and the muffled sound of her drove him on, pulling him toward the inevitable moment when she would fall and he would revel in the clench of her, the burst of her, the waves of her.
She gasped out his name on a harsh whisper and did just that. He pinned her hips against the wall with both hands and sucked harder, drawing out her orgasm, forcing her to ride every single gorgeous ripple of it as she wriggled against him, breath sharp and body trembling.
Only when she went weak, leaning against him for support, did he lift his head from between her legs. She widened her stance a little more, giving him a place to push into, to take her. It was a temptation, the idea that he could have her in the fading glow of her pleasure, still feel the shutter of her release massage his cock until he spent between them.
Instead he rose up, smoothing her skirt back down and straightening her carefully before he leaned in and let her taste herself on his lips.
“This was for you, Arabella,” he whispered. “Just for you.”
She stared up at him and then cleared her throat. “Well, what if I want that for me?” she asked, cupping him through his trousers and sending shockwaves of pleasure up his cock from her touch.
“You can have it later,” he said. “If you’re very good. Now why don’t we go back in and enjoy the rest of the party?”
He offered his arm with all the politeness and propriety his father had tried to scream into him over the years and she took it. The intruders on the terrace had gone back inside while she writhed in pleasure, so they weren’t seen as they stepped back into the fuller light.
She looked up at him and snorted out a laugh. “Oh dear, I’ve mussed you,” she said, and then reached up to smooth his hair back into place. “Not perfect, but I doubt anyone will notice.”
“You’ll notice,” he said. “And you’ll know why.” He stepped forward and opened the terrace door. “After you, Miss Comerford.”
She shook her head as she re-entered the ballroom. He moved her directly onto the dance floor and as the orchestra began to play a waltz, he drew her to his chest and spun her into the crowd of dancers.
She smiled up at him, her face bright with remnants of her pleasure and also just true enjoyment. She was achingly beautiful in that moment, genuinely perfect in every way. And he realized that he was truly coming to care for her. Perhaps more than just care, even though that made no sense and could have no good end. He would leave. She had made it clear she only wanted an affair.
To long for more was folly.
“They’re all watching us, you know,” she said softly.
He looked around and shrugged even as he turned her. “I’m sure. You are in great demand, after all. I’m sure it irritates them to no end that a bastard no one is the man with you in his arms.”
“They’re watching us because they want to know how I tamed such a wild thing,” she said. “How I made you dance with me like a very proper gentleman.”
“That’s because they don’t know what I was doing on the terrace a moment ago,” he said. “They wouldn’t think I was a gentleman then.”
She tilted her head. “Perhaps, despite your best efforts, you are both, Silas. A dashing rogue, yes. But also a little bit of a reluctant gentleman.”
He stared at her as the music ended and the other couples took their bows. She’d said something so seemingly benign and it felt like it cracked him open a fraction. Let some light into places that had always been as dark as the corner where he pleasured her.
