“Nothing about you displeases me,” he said, and it sounded like the truth. “When we make love, there’s no one else on my mind. How could there be?”
Yet he could not love her. He had no more love to give another woman.
Wasn’t she foolish to want more when she had him?
He couldn’t stay away, yet every time he was with her, she pulled a little more from him. As if he were a knitted garment, and she was unraveling him bit by bit, wrapping him around her finger. The only way to silence her, and ease himself, was to love her, long and hard, until she was too damned tired to question him.
Either bed was suddenly too far away. In one smooth move, he sat and pulled her onto his lap, dove beneath the mound of skirts and petticoats to find the slit in her pantaloons.
She made a sound, a soft little gasp that aroused him further.
He swore, half to himself, half to her, need rising without his conscious volition. She was there; he wanted her, as elemental as day and night. He wondered if she knew how damn helpless he was around her, how much he thought of her, how easily she could arouse him. She smiled, and he wanted her. She frowned, and he wanted her. Whatever emotion she was feeling, whatever she was wearing, whatever she was doing, he wanted her.
“Montgomery,” she murmured in that sensual Scots accent of hers. She might have been fussing at him, but he found it seductive as sin itself.
“Open your legs,” he said, wondering if she would.
She widened her legs just the smallest bit, so his fingers could play there.
They were a pair, cautiously circling each other, besotted by desire, desperate to mate. He’d never felt this way about any woman, wasn’t certain what to call it, then uncaring as she made another sound at the back of her throat.
If someone entered her sitting room, they wouldn’t see his fingers stroking her wetness, teasing that soft and delicate opening.
She moaned, such a demure little sound it might have been from any cause, not his finger stroking her, then entering her a moment later.
He was so hard he hurt.
“Are you thinking of the Queen?” he asked, his voice rough.
Her eyes fluttered shut. “No.”
“Bad Veronica,” he said, and pulled his hands away.
Her eyes opened, and she blinked a few times. “I’ll try,” she said, her voice thick.
He returned his fingers to her, gently touched each swollen fold, then placed both hands on her thighs to lift her.
“Widen your legs.”
She did, and he unfastened his trousers, slid home in one long, smooth movement.
Veronica gasped.
“Don’t move,” he said, leaning his head against the back of the chair, lost in the feel of her.
How the hell could he think of another woman? Hell, he could barely hold on to any thought at the moment.
She leaned forward, at precisely the perfect angle, as if she’d done this before and knew how to drive him insane.
“You feel so damn good,” he said, his voice a rasp. “Don’t move.” God, please don’t move.
She sat erect, in that same posture, her hands folded on her lap. He was inside her, buried to the hilt, her heat and tightness threatening to end this interlude before its time.
He moved her hair away from the nape of her neck, trailed his fingers over her skin to her collar, properly buttoned. He smoothed his hands down her bodice, feeling the fabric over her cinched waist, his thumbs running back up each seam as if to test the propriety of her attire. His right hand flicked at a fold of her skirt, his left was at her hip to keep her in place.
Her dress covered his legs and most of the chair. He pressed down on the mass of the fabric between her back and his open trousers, his fingers dancing up her clothed spine.
Her breath was fast, her lids half-shut, a becoming flush turning her cheeks rose. She’d caught at her bottom lip with her teeth. Because of his position, he couldn’t reach her mouth. He surged up just once, to punish her for making him want to kiss her.
