She couldn’t breathe and struggled to find words. “Why not now?”
“Because the reason I don’t want to end things with you is nothing to do with them and everything to do withyou. I wantyou, Evie. I’m not ready for that to end. So I wonder if you’d like to renegotiate with me yet again?”
Her eyes went wide as a wash of relief swept over her. Here she had just realized she loved this man and he offered her something real. Not love, of course. He wouldn’t love her. Some part of her had to believe he still loved Florence, even if he was ready to let her go. It would, at least, take him time to get over that. And she could never again believe that a courtesan like her would have a long-term future with a man.
But that didn’t change the fact that what he wanted now was a real connection. To be with each other simply because they wanted to be. And she would take that.
Slowly she crossed to him and wound her arms around his neck. She loved the solid feel of him and the comforting heat of him as their bodies molded. “Will we negotiate like we did before?”
He bent his head and brushed his lips to hers. “You’ll always have the upper hand there. And I’m perfectly happy with that.”
The words ended then as the kiss deepened. He cupped her closer to his body, letting her feel his desire for her, building her own for him to a fever pitch. All her fears and worries about her heart vanished in that moment, replaced by drives and desires she better understood and knew she could control. With great difficulty, she parted her mouth from his.
“Sit on the settee, my lord,” she ordered.
He tilted his head as he continued to stare down at her. “I find I cannot deny you. Very well.”
He brushed her lips with his again and then released her to stride across to the settee. She watched him move with a shiver and then waved her hand as he took a proper position on one side of the couch.
“Oh no,” she said while she moved to the door and locked it. “Slouch. Sprawl. Give me a very nice place to perch.”
His green eyes brightened with sharp desire and he slowly did as she’d asked, sliding down a little, widening his legs so that he seemed to take over the entire seat.
“Is that what you want?” he asked, tracking her while she returned to him.
She nodded and bent over. She caged him in against the back of the settee and brought her mouth back to his without taking it. “Exactly what I want. With one very small adjustment.”
She dragged a hand down his body, over the muscular lines and angles of him and settled her hand against his fall front. She let out a low laugh to find him half-hard already. Perfect. She flicked the buttons open as she kissed him at last and folded the fabric down to reveal him.
“Thatis what I want,” she whispered against his mouth.
He caught her hips and drew her forward, bunching her skirt so she could straddle him with greater ease. “It’s yours.”
She shivered at that idea, which dragged her back to the feelings she’d been trying to forget. No, there was only this. The rest she had to school, control.
She settled over him, spreading her skirts down and around them as her bare body covered him beneath. He wasn’t inside yet, but he fitted very nicely between her thighs. When she rocked over him, half hard became fully hard.
“Oh, if this is mine…” she murmured, dragging her lips from his mouth to his jawline and nipping up to his ear. “Whatever shall I do with it?”
He arched a little and she gasped as he slid along her length. “You’re a creative woman. I think you’ll come up with something.”
“Only if you do your job right.”
He laughed against her neck and her heart soared. God, he made it easy. That had been part of the attraction from the beginning. Even when they were pretending the connection was all about revenge, he’d always made her smile. Always made her safe.
She reached between them, lifting a little, getting her hand under the bunched layers of her dress between them and aligned him to her body. He cupped her backside, looking up into her face and then he was sliding inside.
Both of them let out a shuddering sigh at the pleasure of his hard body sliding through her slick heat. God, it was like coming home, a pleasure unlike anything she’d felt in all her years of cultivating the response for herself and those she fucked.
He was just different. And she was going to enjoy every bloody minute of him.
CHAPTER19
The grip of Evelina’s body made the room blur and Vaughn’s legs shake within the first few thrusts. That was just how much she moved him and it took every ounce of his control to not simply spend like a green boy.
He rested his head back to watch her ride him, her eyes closed, her lips parted as she moaned softly with every thrust. There was something so gorgeous about her pure abandon. Something undeniable that dragged him out to sea where he didn’t care about drowning.
He would gladly drown to feel her grip around him in release.
