Holy Hestia… she’dseen.
She’d seen the kiss, and chaste though it had been, there’d been nothing brotherly about it.
“Mrs.Collins!”Sybil stepped after her.
But Apollo caught her wrist, chained her in place.“Later.If you corner her now, you’ll just be nervous and give the game away.The letter first.”
She broke the wax seal and unfolded the paper and read.
And then her heart stopped.
She dropped the paper as if it were a spider, backed away from it as if it were trying to bite her.
“What is it?”Apollo knelt and picked it up, read.“Shit.”He pulled her inside and up the stairs, then locked them in her bedchamber.“Your brother is on his way here.”
She nodded and dropped onto the edge of her bed.
“He has news he does not trust to mail.”Apollo folded the paper and set it on a nearby desk.“We only have a few days at most before he arrives.”
She fell backward on the mattress, her spine lost and useless.
“I have to leave,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Right now.”
“Yes.”
The mattress dipped, and she looked toward the end of it.He had one knee on it, and was adding the other, crawling over her.
“I have to leave.”His gaze was roaming over her face as if he were gathering up every inch of her, as if it might disappear if he looked away.
“I know.”
His hands in her hair, his forehead resting against hers, his eyes squeezed shut.Something was coiled within him, mercilessly tight.Then he kissed her.And in the kiss—hot and aching—he set three words he didn’t have to say out loud for her to hear.
One last time.
Yes, one last time of their tongues tangling.One last time reveling in the long strength of his back beneath her fingertips.One last foray into the jungle of his thick hair.One last good grind against the muscle of his thigh.
A sigh as he did away with her bodice.
A moan as he ripped off her skirts.
Fumbling and frantic, she ripped off his clothes.
And then they were naked and bare before one another.
One last time.
Each moment lasted forever.
Each moment was too short.
She lay beneath him, letting him trace the heat of the sun across every inch of her skin with tongue and palm.She straddled him to remember the indentations and swells that crafted the muscles of his torso.She tasted the long length of his shaft, working him into a sweat with her tongue and lips and teeth.
She knew when he’d had enough because his muscles rippled and he sat partway up, gripping the hair at her nape, tugging her chin into the air.He scooted out from under her, toward the headboard where he propped himself, dragging her along.She came willingly, on eager hands and knees, and straddled his waist, lowered herself on top of him, taking his shaft fully into her as she cupped his jaw and kissed him, kissed him, kissed him.She needed as many last kisses as she could gather up.
