Surrender.
His pulse pounded, fire raging through him. Finally,finally…
“Madelaine.”
That whisper was his voice. He hardly recognised it. For all the hunger thundering inside him, his voice was fragile.
He trembled, which dismayed him. But he used the hand on her shoulder to turn her to him. Her head was bowed, her breathing as shaky as his. The tulle of her dress clung to her curves, outlining her breasts as she took a sharp breath. Good. Yes. He’d look there and let lust shore him up, stiffen this shivering weakness inside him. He crooked a finger under her chin and made her look at him.
“I didn’t want this.” Her voice held despair. “I didn’t want this… I swore to myself that I couldn’t, wouldn’t, feel this way for a man. I swore it to my husband, to God…”
He dragged his gaze from her lips to meet her eyes. “You don’t need to feel guilty, Madelaine—God, I love your name; I love the way it sounds—you don’t need to feel guilty. Your husband, Alfred…didn’t you once tell me he was the most alive person you knew? Wouldn’t he wantyouto live?”
He couldn’t help the thumb he stroked up from her jaw to her lips. They were velvet. Perfect. Her breath stuttered at the touch and everything inside him tightened almost to pain.
“You are alive,” he murmured, stroking along her lower lip. “You are warm and alive; you don’t need to live in black forever, or be lonely, be alone… No one in heaven or on Earth would judge you for what your heart desires. Admit what you feel. Admit what webothfeel.”
She didn’t speak, but there was something pleading in her eyes when she raised them to him. She trembled as his thumb touched the damp inner skin of her lower lip, gently tugging it down as he lowered his mouth to hers.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you since I first saw you,” he breathed, the words warm, a secret between their mouths. “I’ve wantedyou.Over a year ago, at that saloon, and then again when I saw you next, and again at your house with that ink just here…” Hegrazed his mouth over that spot, her cupid’s bow. She let out a shaky gasp, and he caught it with the next pass of his mouth, brushing over her lips, so soft, so warm…
He groaned and kissed her fully, taking all the plumpness and sweetness and softness of her mouth. His hand slid to the nape of her neck, and he licked along the seam of her lips. She opened to him with a soft moan, letting his tongue touch hers. Lightly, lightly, and then deep and wild.
He lost all semblance of control. Didn’t care. Shucked it away as quickly as he shucked off his coat. Madelaine’s hands were on his chest, on the thin linen of his shirt sleeves as he crowded her backwards against the wall by the window. He kissed her jaw, her throat, his breathing ragged as he palmed her breast. The needy moan she gave made him dizzy. He pressed his hips against her, hard and aching.
“Sebastian…” she breathed.
“Yes, say it, say my name… You surely know I’m yours…”
He made no sense, had no thoughts exceptwantandmore. His hands slipped down her waist to cup her arse, and he picked her up, turning them, and put her on the desk, pushing her skirts to her waist so he could step close between her legs. Now his hardness was pressed against her core. She whimpered as he rocked against her.
“I need you; I want you so much.” His voice was a ragged whisper. “Let me have you here, now; let us be together, today, and tomorrow, and day after day after day…”
She moaned, head tipping back as he cupped her breast, roughly pulling the fabric down to expose her nipple. He bent his mouth to it, drawing another tortured moan from her.
“Please,” he said, desperate, swiping his thumb over her nipple as she writhed against him on the desk. “I’ll make it right. We’ll discuss it all afterwards. But I need you.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
His heart thumped. His hands went to the fall of his breeches, but she stopped him as he undid the first button, her hand hot and tight on his wrist.
“But Sebastian…wait…you need to know, before we…”
“What?” He kissed her jaw, her mouth, her throat, her breast.
“Sebastian… Oh God… Stop, wait, I have to tell you something.”
What? What? That she still loved her husband? He knew it already.
“Sebastian.” She took a breath. “I don’t know if I can have children.”
He blinked. All his blood was elsewhere, but his mind was still sound enough to be confused.
“I see.”
She looked equally confused by his reaction. Or, rather, his lack of reaction, as though she had been expecting something more dramatic.
“You need to know that, before we…” She made a vague motion with her hand.
