He clutched her bottom more tightly.
“Unhh.”
Her body came away from his and they were only joined at the groin. His cock could feel her tightness clenching over and over again as his hands felt the muscles of her buttocks squeezing.
And then he joined her in her climax. He had not known he was ready. He had been thinking only of her, of staying hard for her so she could have what she wanted. There had been no build for him. No sense of an inevitable pinnacle. No idea this was coming for him. Only for her.
She swept him up with her release, and for the first time in his life, he spent himself inside a woman. How right it should be inside her, the woman to whom he wanted to give everything.
He pulsed and pulsed and pulsed, his head off the floor, his abdominal muscles contracting. There was no need to bite back his scream. There was no scream in him, only the wordsI love you, I love you, I love you. But he stayed silent as she had commanded.
It was over. He kept his head up. She stayed sitting on him. He heard her panting. Her thighs quivered against him. He relaxed his grip on her bottom.
He willed her to lie down atop him. To collapse onto his chest so he could put his arms around her and hold her tightly. So he could feel her heart beating. So she could feel his. For them to lie there, together, with him still inside her and for her to give him permission to speak.
Come to me, Phoebe.
But she didn’t. She sat for a long time, her weight pressing down on him, his seed leaking out of her and onto him. His member softened and when she shifted slightly, it slid out of her. He allowed himself to keep his hands on her bottom, just barely cupping her cheeks, maintaining his contact with her. The sounds of her breath slowed and became quieter and quieter.
She got off of him.
Lie down next to me, Phoebe.
She didn’t. She must have stood, bending at the waist to keep her head from hitting the low ceiling of the priest’s hole.
“May I speak?” It was the creaky voice of a querulous, old man.
“No.” A rustle. “No. Never—”
“Phee—”
“AGAIN.” The last word was a shriek accompanied by steps, a shaft of light, the sound of the panel closing.
For a long time, he could not bring himself to move, despite the darkness. This hot, black hole suited the hell in which George Danforth found himself.
Twenty-Eight
George had put Alice on a ship at the end of July, ostensibly to tour the Continent for a year with their Aunt Dorothea, but really because Alice could not sit still. She had stayed awake for days after George had returned to London from the duke’s funeral. She had spent those nights writing even more voluminous letters to Phoebe, staggeringly long and rambling letters, explaining herself, justifying what she had done, begging for forgiveness or a letter back or a meeting.
“Something! Anything!” Alice had raved to George.
She had become more and more agitated as days went by with no response from Phoebe. Finally, fearing she might do herself an injury and remembering what his father had often had to do for his mother when she wouldn’t sleep, George had forced two glasses of wine into Alice, put her to bed and sat with her until she had stopped talking and her eyes had closed.
When she had risen the next day, she came to him in his study.
“I have to leave. I have to go. I can’t bear this. I can’t bear myself.”
George did not think Aunt Dorothea would be able to control Alice. Hell, he couldn’t control Alice. But he wanted Alice away from him.
Partly for her sake. His despair only reinforced her despair. The center of both their lives had fallen away. The person who had rooted the Danforths in some semblance of normalcy and kindness with her smiles and her small worries and her enthusiasm was gone.
Their light.
But George also selfishly wanted Alice gone for his own sake. Yes, he knew Phoebe didn’t want him around her. But at least she had allowed him to apologize and declare his intentions to her after the wild pig attack. And she had needed him in the darkness of the priest hole that day of her father’s funeral.
He would have no chance with Phoebe if Alice hung around like a stray dog, whining and demanding her apologies be accepted.
Damn Alice. What had possessed her to think having a tryst with Thornwick was a good idea? No, he shouldn’t curse his sister. Her plot had worked and the engagement had been broken off. He supposed he owed Alice thanks for that, even if what she had done had been bordering on madness.
