Della let out a guttural sigh, and Andrew’s mouth slipped away suddenly. He slid down her body again, his left hand still stroking her skin. His right hand pushed up her chemise, and he shifted her right leg, creating space for himself between her thighs while ensuring her fragile left hip remained still.
“Andrew,” she gasped. She couldn’t help it. All of her natural capacity for words went out the window. All she could see, hear, and feelwas him. All she could think was his name. All she could do was tug on his hair.
Della felt his breath against her core, and she let out another rib-heaving sigh. His wet, hot tongue stroked her skin and she finally gave into that compulsion to move. She shifted her hips forward, seeking more of that contact, and a stab of pain ripped through her body. That damned left hip. She must have done something, hissed or winced or tensed. Andrew stopped for a moment, and as if he knew exactly what she needed, his right hand came to rest on her left hipbone. The strong pressure eased the pain, and she tried another roll of movement. He held her steady, even as she rutted against him, and that rush of pain faded to a dull roar.
Andrew gripped her hip tighter as he sucked on her skin. His tongue speared in and out of her body, his left hand rising back up to knead her breast. Della felt a mounting pressure, increasing with each stroke of his tongue. Losing herself in the moment and being swept away in pleasure was something Della had never done before. As if realizing that fact, she decided she wasn’t savoring the experience enough. Her eyes flew open and her fingers tightened in his hair. Her other hand wrapped around the wrist he still held against her hip.
He paused for a moment, withdrawing his tongue and teasing her with his fingers instead. Their eyes connected as he looked up, and Della nearly gasped at the raw need in his gaze.
“You are perfect, Della.” He licked the corners of his lips, and she watched him lower his head between her thighs again. “So fucking perfect,” she felt him whisper against her skin. After one long, slow lick, he returned with renewed vigor.
Della gasped. She moaned. She lost all sense of control over her own body. With each point of contact and every roll of her hips, she inched closer to a peak she’d never before reached. She heard her heartbeat in her ears and the sounds Andrew made. She was almost certain he was still mumbling, rambling words she couldn’t hear, butshe felt the press of them against her wet skin.
He sucked on a spot at the apex of her core that he’d previously only glanced over, and Della groaned his name. He did it again, long, steady streams of pressure on the center of her pleasure. She tugged on his hair again, and he moaned. They were lost in a sensitive awareness of each other, of themselves. Della had never felt such pure, white-hot ecstasy in her life.
Andrew moved. His right hand dug further into the skin of her hipbone. His left hand pressed into the skin of her thigh, right by his head. Della thought she might have bruises there shaped like his fingertips. She certainly wouldn’t mind.
All it took was one more swirl of his tongue, and she went over that peak she’d so been anticipating. Her eyes slammed shut again, flashes lighting up behind her eyelids. She transcended her body for a moment, sparks shooting down her spinal cord until she was made of nothing but numbness and tingling.
When she regained her faculties, Andrew was right there. His hands had fallen away from their stalwart grip on her, and Della missed it already. He’d rested his head on her torso, his chin digging into her skin just above where he’d previously held her hip. That damned hip. She ran her fingers through his hair again, just because she could. He stared up at her from his perch near her waist, and he looked almost shy. His wide eyes were soft and longing, and the touch that had been bruising was now achingly gentle.
“Stay with me,” she whispered. He could take that to mean whatever he liked. For the night or forever, she meant either or both.
He softened even further, and he rearranged her chemise as he stood. Della took that as a silent but polite refusal, even as she noted the hard length pressed against the trousers he still wore. He walked around to the other side of the bed and pulled back the coverlet. He climbed over toward her, enveloping her in the warmth of his arms in one swift motion. She shifted her hips to allow him to fully pull theblankets over her, and Della let out a contented sigh as her head found the solid block of his chest. After the numbness and tingling faded, they’d left her with a soul-deep exhaustion. Her eyes fluttered closed and her hand rested under his half-buttoned shirt, just above his heart.
She heard the steady beat there, and it almost matched hers. It was strong and secure. Constant, just like him. Della thought he might be saying something. She felt his breath disrupting single strands of the hair at the crown of her head, she thought that air carried words she couldn’t hear.
Andrew would tell her in the morning, she hoped.
Just before she had to leave.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Della awoke inthe pitch dark of night. The act of waking up in the middle of the night wasn’t unusual for her. The pain and stiffness she dealt with on a daily basis meant that she often had to interrupt her sleep to stand up and stretch. On particularly bad nights, she’d have to pace several laps about the room.
She’d turned away from Andrew in her sleep, but his legs were still tangled with hers. She could still feel the heat of him against her back, and she so desperately wanted to remain where she was, her pain be damned. She couldn’t, though, and she knew it. It was a sense of foreboding, like an opposite reaction to the sixth sense she’d always had about him. She was leaving at first light, but something about this felt more urgent.
Della stood up, loosening her limbs and rocking back and forth on her toes to pull her muscles back into place. She hoped her joints didn’t make some awful, inhuman sound loud enough to wake Andrew. She didn’t know what she’d say. She didn’t think she’d be able to give the thoughts swimming in her head a voice. It was easier to let them drown her.
She pressed a hand to the center of her chest. Though the beat of her heart was strong and steady, all of the buoyant hope she felt just hours ago had turned to heavy dread.
A horrible thought flashed through her mind, bright and vivid andunavoidable. This was going to end, and it was going to hurt. This couldn’t last forever, no matter how much she wanted it to. Andrew had never offered such a thing, and she wouldn’t dare assume. But she could picture it, him with her forever. He’d be there by her side, loyal and caring and maybe even loving. He’d feel obligated to stay with her, because no one else had, and because he was that uniquely kind. And he’d grow to resent her and their quiet life in Scotland. He’d miss London and his mother and everything he’d worked so hard for.
Della could see it so clearly in her mind’s eye. She’d be happy, and he’d lose himself in caring for her. Just as her mother had. Andrew wouldn’t become so frigid and heartless, and he wouldn’t abandon her or send her away. He’d stay and silently resent her, letting her be the source of his unhappiness as they lived out the rest of their days.
She thought of how her mother had looked at her just last night. The disdain in her gaze, the way she was only ever callous with people, how she valued wealth over all else. All of that was Della’s fault, and she couldn’t bear to harm Andrew the same way.
On her bare feet, Della took slow steps across the room. The farther she led herself from the bed, the easier she could breathe. Her pace quickened as her thoughts did, and she found herself chewing on her thumbnail. It was an old nervous habit, and she hadn’t done it in years. She looked at Andrew’s sleeping form. He lay on his stomach, sprawled over his half of the bed and part of hers. One of his hands was splayed out over the mattress, as if reaching for her.
Della stopped in her tracks.
She couldn’t do this. That was why she’d woken up, it wasn’t about her pain at all. It was a protective instinct. For them both, it seemed. Della cursed her own affection for him. It had gotten her in trouble again, even so many years after the first time. She should’ve stopped this before she was in too deep, before she was standing at the foot of the bed watching his back rise and fall as he breathed. That rhythm of his subtle movement was soothing, and Della’s chestclenched with a fierce desire to protect the peace she saw in him.
He’d done so much for her. He’d tried to fix everything, and he’d stood with her to fight the most difficult battles she’d ever fought. She couldn’t ask him to leave everything to be with her. He was so bloody selfless, he’d probably volunteer to stick around Kinloss just to keep fixing things for her. Della wouldn’t let him. She couldn’t.
Della paced another lap. She chewed on more of her fingernails. Eventually, she came to a decision. She walked one more turn about the room, just to be sure.
She could offer them a way forward, but it had to be his choice to take it. Della wouldn’t allow her heart to be something else he had to fix. She had to be something he wanted. There was almost no way he would want a forever-ill Scottish baroness who had a penchant for getting herself into incredible messes, not truly. He might want to help her, but he wouldn’t want to keep her.
