Her fingers moved and clasped his cravat. She tugged his face to hers.
Before he could gather his bearings, her mouth found his in a desperate hunger. He was much too weak of will to resist such an onslaught. Her tongue tasted of brandy and woman, and, by God, he gave back. Her kiss sang through his veins. His one hand found her breast. When her nipple hardened against his palm, his own kiss deepened, his tongue stroking her with an ache that would go unsatisfied. His arousal grew fierce against the flap of his buckskins. God, to throw her back, grind himself against the heat between her legs—
Thorne jerked his mouth from hers. “Lorelei. Darling.” The words came out strangled. He had to stop. She would never forgive him on the morrow.
Her hand slid down his chest to the front of his breeches. Damned if his hand didn’t close over hers to pull her touch away. But defending himself from her was not only ridiculous, but futile. Pressure, he needed pressure. His mind grasped thoughts of her fingers tightening around his cock. And the thoughts drove him wild. He shouldn’t. But he did—he squeezed her hand around him.
He dragged his other hand from her breast and freed the buttons straining on the flap of his breeches, then guided her hand back up over his bared skin. The sound escaping his throat was unhuman, animalistic. The contrast of her cool fingers on his hot flesh finished off any resolution of resistance. Pleasure pained him.
He thrust his tongue back in her mouth, drinking in the sweet, hot fire of her desire. His cock throbbed beneath her—their—fingers. He broke away to breathe, “Yes,” but only for a second, taking her mouth once more as his hips lifted in a rhythmic motion, matching time with the dance of his tongue. “Harder, darling. Squeeze harder.” Only he was the one squeezing his hand over hers, praying he didn’t bruise her fingers with his grip.
Touch. He needed to touch her. His other hand found the heat between her legs. Hot and so wet, she writhed beneath him. He parted the soft velvet folds, pressed his thumb against the nub at the crest, and treated her to that same primal dance. Her cries spilled into his mouth. He kept one hand over hers, massaging his arousal in a frenzy, his other pumping against her sex in relentless fervor.
Faster, harder, more desperate than he could have ever realized. God, he’d missed this. Missed her. He refused to let up. The urge to feel her climax against his lips came too late as she pulsed against his fingers. That was all it took for his seed to pour over their joined fingers. He stroked until he had nothing left, suckling her bottom lip, raining kisses over her jaw, her cheeks, her eyelids, before finally resting his forehead on hers.
Slowly, he rose and gazed down at her resting form. Dark lashes were stark against her pale skin, and so, so lovely his chest hurt. Her own rose and fell in a steady pattern. With the greatest of efforts, he forced his hand from her sex that still quivered with resistance. “I love you,” he whispered, kissing the corner of her lush mouth. “God, how I love you.”
A small feminine snore escaped her. His shoulders fell. Ah, well, she wouldn’t have believed him regardless. He hefted himself away from the bed.
“Don’t leave,” she mumbled.
He couldn’t have if someone held him at sword point. “It’s all right, darling. I’m going to draw the drapes. You’ll thank me when you’ve woken.”
He dampened a cloth and cleaned Lorelei’s hands, then pulled the covers up to her chin. After closing the drapes, he stirred the fire and kicked off his boots. Once stripped of his breeches, he crawled in next to her and brought her into his body, letting out a long breath that conformed in perfect unison with her already regulated rhythm.
Ten
B
rutally callous, relentless pounding woke Lorelei the next morning. It seemed to be coming from theinsideof her head. How was that possible? She tried to sit, only to fall quickly back in searing pain. Light streamed through a crease where the drapes did not quite meet. She blinked at the assault and covered her eyes with her forearm.
The groan that echoed through the chamber was her own. The door slung back, hitting the wall behind it. Through a squinted gaze, Lorelei made out Bethie’s stout form, full tea service in hand.
A waft of sweetened pastries breached the sensitivity of her senses. She dropped from the bed, scrambling for the chamber pot. A painful bout of retching ripped through her in an effort to empty the contents of an already empty stomach.
“His lordship insisted you eat,” Bethie said fiercely. “I have prepared a saline wash too. I imagine you have quite the achin’ head.”
If Lorelei could have spoken, she would have sacked her insolent, outspoken maid. Unfortunately, the need for the saline draught was most desperate. She held out her hand, in which a glass miraculously appeared. Still on her knees, Lorelei downed the concoction, very nearly choking in the process. “What. Is. This. Vile. Stuff?”
“A half ounce of fine salt, four ounces each of vinegar and water, and two ounces of brandy.”
Brandy?Lorelei leaned over the chamber pot again, stomach roiling. Yet surprisingly, nothing surged forth. Her constitution might survive after all. She rose slowly, testing her mettle. “I believe I may live. Open the curtains. Not completely, mind.” Lorelei crawled back up on the bed, willing the room to still. “What happened?”
Bethie set the chamber pot outside the door, then tugged on the bellpull. “The footman says you stumbled from the carriage—right into his arms. His lordship carried ye up and put ye to bed.”
“Put me—”
“Ye can jest imagine my surprise when I saw him waltzin’ from yer room this morning, pleased as a cat, satisfied with his cream—”
“Satisfied… with his…this morning?” Good heavens, what had she done? But as the heat stole over her body, snatches of erotic imagery crept through her memory. Her hand wrapped around velvet steel; her hips lifting, pressing against a skilled thumb; her lips swollen with deep soul-searing kisses. The answers were all too clear. A vague recollection of his weight settling beside her, embracing her within his safety—she glanced quickly at the pillow. A slight indentation appeared. She groaned.
Words of love.Words of love?Tears pricked her eyes. Apparently, she couldn’t distinguish fantasy from reality.
She blinked back the tears. Had anything changed? Nothing, except perhaps trust in her own judgment. Thorne still had Brandon sent to the middle of who-knew-where, hadn’t he? Another importantsomethingrefused to surface at her will. There was also the matter of another woman’s child. She hadn’t dreamt that. She rubbed her temples and tried to think. An impossible feat when one’s head threatened destruction of great magnitude.
Bethie bustled about, fussing with the tea and a small plate of toast. Lorelei accepted both from her maid’s outstretched hands.
Lorelei nibbled on the toast. “I think I must leave town.”
