“I believe desire has raised its head again.” She sat up, giggling at her own ribald double entendre. She rested her bottom on his thighs and watched the continuing transformation with fascination. “It is a wonder you did not kill me the first time.” She gently poked at him. He swelled more.
She came up and kissed him, deeply, almost savagely. He set her back to where she sat again and took her hand. He closed it around the base of his cock.
“Just like with the cue,” she said happily. “Should I handle the other end more gently?”
He told her what to do.
* * *
Clara thought she would never know such pleasure. Even the revelations earlier in the night did not compare. It went on and on, tantalizing her to a release that remained just out of reach.
She hovered over him on hands and knees. His mouth tortured her breasts while the tip of his cock prodded the end of her passage. The satisfaction of absorbing him remained just out of reach, becoming a merciless tease.
Finally she could not stand it. She gave up the one pleasure for the other. She angled back and took him into herself. Nothing had ever felt so good.
Relief did not last long. She moved her hips so she felt him better. She rose, then pressed down to create more sensations.
“Yes. Like that,” he said. “To the end, if you want.”
It surprised her that he accepted such passivity. She moved this way and that, exploring the sensations, finding the press of his fullness that made her gasp. She made sure she gasped again and again, taking pleasure greedily, fiercely, until she grew desperate. He helped then, grasping her hips and rocking up into her. She cried out with joy at every bruising thrust they shared, until that incredible ecstasy brought its profound relief.
Chapter Eighteen
Adam waited impatiently while his manservant brushed at his frock coat. He had risen later than he intended, and this house servant had taken twice as long as his usual valet to do these duties. Since even now the man’s hand shook while he wielded the brush, it was apparent that attending to His Grace had probably been nerve-wracking for the fellow.
He swallowed the impulse to tell him to get on with it and suffered the final efforts. Finally done, he took his leave and went below to the morning room.
No one else was there. He ate some breakfast, then asked the attending footman if Lady Clara had come down yet.
“She arrived some time ago, Your Grace. Almost an hour, I would say. She broke her fast, then went outside.”
How like Clara to decide to tour the garden on her own. He went out to the terrace and looked for her.
He could not see her. He peered, waiting for her to emerge from behind a shrubbery or one of the gentle swells of the landscape. Finally a movement caught his eye up on the little hill at the back. Clara stood between two trees on its crest, looking down from that prospect. She did not seem to see him. While he watched, she turned and disappeared.
She had descended the other side. The gardens ended there. At least the formal ones did. Nothing much could be found where she headed, except a little wilderness.
He waited for her to realize that and reappear. Only she didn’t.
Cursing her stubbornness, he set off after her. Had he not told her to wait for him? Had he not commanded that she stay in the garden? He strode on. His rancor grew more than it had a right to, but he could not help it. He did not want her straying into that damned wilderness. He sure as hell did not want to have to go in after her.
At the top of the low hill he looked down on the gentle slope toward the trees and brush. This rustic patch was no more than a quarter mile square, but it lacked many clear paths. He could navigate it blindfolded, since he had played here as a boy. A stranger, however, could get turned around.
Cursing again, and thinking that instead of caressing her round, pretty bottom he should have better smacked it less playfully, he went down the slope and entered the trees. He paused to spy for that hydrangea-hued dress she was wearing. When he did not see her, he called her name.
“I am over here,” she called back. “By a little pool.”
Shewouldhave found her waythere. Hell and damnation.
* * *
Clara watched the water bubble at one end of the pool. It must be a spring. She rested on her big rock and admired the little clearing. She thought it one of the loveliest places she had seen in years.
She heard Stratton coming. He thrashed closer while she debated removing her shoes and sticking her feet in the water. Then he was there with her. She felt him to her left while those bubbles fascinated her.
“Isn’t this beautiful?” she asked. “So peaceful and serene. It must be perfect in summer.”
“Come with me, Clara.”
