He stiffened, pulling back. He might have found the strength to stop her, but she moved her hands around to grip his flanks, taking him even deeper. She sucked him harder. Faster. Milking him with her lips and tongue. Giving him no quarter.
Pressure gathered at the base of his spine. The sensations were too intense. He couldn’t hold back. It was right there. Pleasure so intense nothing could have made him stop.
He gripped the back of her head, holding her to him as he came deep in her throat with a fierce roar of pleasure.Jesus. God. Yes. Wave after wave pulsed through him.
She kept her mouth around him until she’d wrung every drop from him.
But then it was over. Passion fled as quickly as it had arrived, leaving him as cold and empty as the room suddenly felt.
Her hands dropped from his backside. The icy shock of air hit him as she let him slide from the warm, wet embrace of her mouth. The enormity of what he’d done pounded through him unrelentingly. He felt ill. So ashamed he didn’t even want to look at her. Honor? He had none.
He’d let her play the whore for him, giving proof to every bad thought she’d ever had about him.
He’d driven the only woman who’d ever tried to care for him to her knees, making her believe that was all he wanted from her. Any chance they might have had by his coming back was gone.
But the truth was far more bitter than that. Knowledge sank like a stone in his gut. It wasn’t until he’d sunk to the lowest depths of depravity that Lachlan acknowledged the truth:I love her.
The sentiment he’d always denied, that he’d belittled others for succumbing to, crystallized in sharp awareness from the mass of confusing emotions that had been tormenting him from the first.
This hunger. This craving. This fierce intensity of emotion. This need to protect her. This overwhelming desire to make her happy.
This misery.
It wasn’t just lust; it never had been. He loved her and had been fighting it from the start because it scared him to hell that she would never be able to love him back.
Now, he’d guaranteed it.
He looked down into her eyes, seeing the horror that mirrored his own. And worse, he saw the stark hurt and hollow disappointment.
He held her gaze, his heart burning a hole in his chest. He’d never hated anything as much as he did himself at that moment, seeing what he’d done to her. “I’ll do it,” he said stonily.
Even knowing it would cost him everything, he could not refuse her. He owed her that much.
My God, what had she done? Shame flooded Bella’s cheeks.
She’d known that she was losing him. That he wouldn’t change his mind. So panicked and desperate, she’d resorted to the one weapon she’d vowed never to use. She’d used her body, the skills forged at the hand of her husband’s cruelty, to bend him to her will. She’d taken something that could have been beautiful and turned it into something shameful. She’d used his desire for her to get what she wanted.
She’d acted the whore.
Worse, he hadn’t stopped her. How could he have let her do that? She’d thought…
She’d thought what they had was special. But it wasn’t different at all. He was just like every other man. Lust was all he wanted from her. All she’d done was prove it.
He wouldn’t even look at her. She didn’t blame him. His agreement was cold comfort. She’d done what she needed to do for her daughter, but had sullied what was between them in the process.
The stoniness of his expression matched his tone. “Gather your things and meet me here in an hour.”
“But—” Her hands twisted in knots. She should say something. But what? There was nothing she could say that would take away what had just happened.
He stood there stiffly, either not sensing or ignoring her distress. “You’ll have to hurry if we are to leave before the gate is closed for the night. Find an excuse for your absence if you can. Anything to delay them.” He looked at the ships crowding the room, seeming to speak his thoughts aloud. “We’ll have to ride. Alone, I won’t be able to sail fast enough to outrun my cousin.”
Her eyes shot to his. “You think the king will send someone after us?”
He shrugged. “He might. He will guess where we are headed and won’t be happy with either of us for disobeying him.”
She bit her lip. Not for the first time, her conscience warred with her motherly instincts. She had to ensure her daughter was safe, but she knew what this was costing him. “Lachlan, I’m sorry. I wish there was another way—”
“Go,” he cut her off; the time for apologies had passed. She’d forced him into this rogue mission and would have to bear the consequences. “There isn’t much time.”
