“Oh God, Charlotte.” He pulled away before he completely lost control. Her chest heaved, her collarbone rose and fell just inches from his lips. He bent forward, dragging his tongue along the edge of her dress. Her fingers dug into his shoulders and her head fell back.
“Please,” she whispered, though he doubted she knew what she was begging for.
With one hand on her back, supporting her, he brought the other forward, cupped his hand around her breast and squeezed. She gasped.
He ran his thumb across the silk and felt her nipple harden beneath his touch. If he hadn’t already been stiff, that slight movement would have done it. He leaned forward, his lips grazing across her skin, his tongue along her neckline, catching under the edge of the lace. She gasped again, and he squeezed her breast.
“More,” she whispered.
He was happy to oblige. He hooked his fingers into the silk, tugging down until her breasts sprang free. He kneaded them in his hands, relishing how she moaned until he could no longer resist, and he leaned forward, capturing her nipple in his mouth, suckling gently, grazing his teeth across them.
Her breath hitched. Her chest stopped its expanding and contracting. He pulled away to see her eyes closed, her mouth gaping.
“Charlotte, breathe.”
Her eyes flew open, her gaze locked on his, and she nodded, dragging in a breath. “I never knew,” she whispered. “Is it always like this?”
Thiswas not even the best of it, but he could already categorically say that no, it was not always like this. Never had he been with a woman whose moans wrapped around his heart and pulled the way Charlotte’s moans did. Never had the feel of a woman’s skin beneath his lips caused his insides to shiver. Never had such a relatively chaste encounter made him want, desperately, to take a woman and never let go.
John hooked an arm under her legs and transferred her to the opposite bench.
Her face fell. “We’re not stopping?”
They should. He should. “Not if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t.” She shook her head vigorously.
“What do you want, Charlotte?” he asked, knowing her answer could mean the ending and beginning of so many things. Knowing that what happened next could fundamentally change his life.
“I want everything.”
There were many reasons everything was a bad, bad idea, and for those, he would not have her the way he wanted. But for this unexplainable pull between them, he would give her what he could.
So he dropped to his knees on the carriage floor.
***
John was as early as he could be without raising stares. He’d paced in his rooms for a good half hour, checking his pocket watch every few minutes, until the hands showed fifteen minutes before the time stated on the invitation.
Now he was here, just him and his hostess in her drawing room making light conversation, waiting for Charlotte.
“Is it normally as wet as this in April?” he asked. “I don’t remember it being so, but then I’ve spent the past four years abroad.”
Lady Braddon shook her head. “The weather is quite uncommon. My gardener is delighted, but I’ve heard the grooms are grumbling.”
“That I can quite understand. I love my horse, but I must confess that the odor of wet hair is one that I could do without.”
“Do you ride often?” she asked. “My husband is hosting a hunt in September. You’re welcome to join us.”
A week ago, John had had every intention of being on a ship back to Boston by then. Now he wasn’t sure that would be the case, and he wasn’t at all sorry. A few days at his host’s country estate might even be welcome, assuming that Charlotte was with him. “I’ll have to check my diary, but that sounds delightful.”
Lady Braddon beamed. “And how are you finding London after such a long absence?”
Over his hostess’s shoulder, he saw Charlotte enter the room and his heart thudded. Saying good-bye to her the night before had been near impossible when all he’d wanted to do was take her upstairs.
His dreams had been vivid, lustful, and when he’d woken, it was the memory of the taste of her that urged him to satisfy himself, but no true satisfaction came. And it wouldn’t, not until he could have her for more than a few minutes in the back of a carriage.
By the flush of her cheeks as her gaze locked with his and the way she bit her bottom lip in a maddeningly innocent manner, her mind was likewise distracted.
