At this moment, all he could feel was tight, hot friction, made hotter by the swift, excited pants of Gemma’s breath puffing lightly against his collarbone.She did something with her wrist, a twist on the upstroke that corkscrewed around the sensitive head of his cock, and he had to muffle a shout against the rigid tendons of his arm.
It had been a long time since he’d felt anyone else’s hand on him, he thought in a daze.That had to be the reason he was so close to spending from nothing more than a kiss and a quick fumble.
And they did need to be quick, he knew; at any moment, someone could notice their absence from the gathering and come searching for them.His heartbeat quickened along with the animalistic snarl of his breath.
Hal closed his eyes and imagined what they’d see, this person who came looking for them.He pictured the darkness of Gemma’s wavy hair bent to his chest, the locked cage of his shoulders and arms, taut with effort.The quick, sure motions of Gemma’s arm and hand as she pulled and rubbed and ruthlessly worked him toward the most explosive spend he could remember.
Biting down on a hoarse shout, Hal clenched his teeth and tore himself free of Gemma.He grabbed his cock and angled his hips to spill in the dirt between their feet, shuddering through the last aftershocks and using a punishing grip to wring out the final drops of pleasure and a relief he felt to his very bones.
“Well,” he rasped, “that could’ve lasted longer.”Hal toyed with the notion of feeling embarrassed by how quick off the mark he’d been, but when he mustered the strength to open his eyes, any chance of embarrassment fled.
Because there was Gemma, leaning indolently against the side of the stall.Her half-lidded gaze was slumbrous with heated fascination as she took in every motion Hal made.Her gorgeous chest rose and fell, and she held his gaze as she lifted her hand—the hand that had caressed him so perfectly—to her lips.The delicate kitten lick of her tongue at the sticky remnants of his spend sent another quaking aftershock through Hal’s loins.
“I take it back,” he growled, reaching for her.“No man alive could resist going off like a top, with you in his arms.”
She laughed, warm and low and delighted, just before their lips met and clung in a soft kiss.A goodbye kiss, Hal realized with regret.They’d been lucky so far, but they had to get back to the party.
Gemma rustled her disarranged clothes back into place and Hal tucked himself away and did up his laces.But when she gave him one last smile and turned to go back inside, Hal caught her arm without quite meaning to.
“Can’t keep your hands off me?”she murmured with a saucy grin that made him want to devour her in a single bite.
“Can’t.”He reeled her in, bent to inhale the warm, spicy scent of her where it was strongest, at the tender junction of her neck and shoulder.“Won’t.Don’t want to.”
Gemma went pliant for a precious instant, but quickly rallied enough to push lightly at his shoulders.He let her go at once, but his hands immediately flexed with the ache of missing her body, soft and supple and vibrant beneath his touch.
What the hell was wrong with him?He had to pull himself together.
“Gemma?Are you out here?”Lucy’s voice, calling from the door of the Five Mile.
“I have to go,” Gemma whispered, and Hal found some consolation in the fact that she looked as conflicted as he felt.With a darted glance at her sister, Gemma pushed Hal behind the propped open door of the barn, out of Lucy’s view.She grabbed his hand and brought it to her lips for a kiss in the center of his hard, callused palm.Then she dropped his hand and walked out of the barn.
Hal curled his fingers over the white-hot imprint of her lips, as if he could keep the kiss safe and take it out later to marvel at it.
“I’m here, Lucy,” Gemma called, lifting her skirts to cross the muddy courtyard.“I only needed a moment.It’s so crowded in there!”
“Come inside, Mama is asking for you,” Lucy urged, and Gemma hurried her steps, vanishing into the inn without a backward glance.Somehow, it sent a pang through Hal’s chest that pierced like the point of a knife.
He needed to get used to the sight of Gemma walking away from him, he mused, wandering back to Beeswax’s stall to give her an apologetic pat.Gemma was always going to leave.
She’d said from the start that she would.Nothing had changed.
Nothing had changed—except that Hal was in grave danger of completely losing his head over this woman.
ChapterEleven
Satiny skin over smooth hardness, the thrill of taking him in hand and making him gasp.The saw of his ragged breaths in her ear and the earthy, musky, pine-forest scent of him so thick in the air around her she could almost taste it.Taste him.And then she did taste him, when he released his passion right in front of her, showing her everything, every bit of agonizing pleasure right there on his face and in the lines of his big, work-hardened body…and he’d tasted like nothing she’d ever known.Salty-sharp and undeniable andGemma woke herself moaning, the tips of two fingers in her mouth.
Cheeks burning, she sat straight up in bed, relieved and disoriented to find herself alone.Sunlight slanted in through the threadbare curtains at the wrong angle for morning, and for a panicked moment she thought she’d overslept and left all the chores to Lucy and Bess.But in the next breath, she remembered it was laundry day, and she’d been up at four to help Bess start the interminable process of bleaching, washing, wringing and drying the inn’s bed linens.
She couldn't let Bess do it all on her own; for one thing, Bess had enough to do getting the kitchen ready to serve meals to the steady stream of customers that was slowly increasing, day by day, as word of Five Mile House’s new management spread.Gemma had to help with the bed linens because it was her idea to wash them weekly.
One of the chores Bess had let slide as the inn fell into disrepair, the weekly washing was the first major innovation Gemma had managed to instate for the inn, other than importing suitable furnishings from Kissington Manor.If they wanted to attract respectable, wealthy overnight guests, the sheets had to be spotlessly clean, crisp and inviting.
And that meant, as it turned out, a grueling amount of work that had taken nearly the entire day and every ounce of Gemma’s strength.She’d sent Bess back up to her kitchen once she got the hang of it, and the physical labor had been taxing enough to keep her mind focused on nothing but the mountain of laundry in front of her.
She’d finished in time to take a short nap before the evening rush of dinner and drinking customers, and she’d assumed she would fall into bed as unconscious as a stone for the short hour she’d allotted herself…however, clearly her traitorous mind had taken the first opportunity to relive that tryst with Hal in the stables.
It was hardly the first time she’d seen a man’s penis.An all-too-common jape amongst her group of London friends was for a fellow in his cups to whisk out his willy and wave it about like a flag.As though expecting cheers from an adoring crowd, bless.
