Page 67 of Dangerous

“More? More what, my little tormenting devil? I should like to hear you beg.”

Thrust.

“Please, Adam, please make me come.” The last word was almost a sob and it was like a match to a powder keg.

When his climax came it stunned him. Wave after wave of pleasure pounded him. He was a piece of helpless flotsam, battered and carried along on the relentless flow until he was wrecked and spent, cast up on passion’s shore.

His legs shook and he wrapped one arm under Mia’s bottom, yanked up his fallen breeches with the other, and brought her to the long wooden bench where he gently lowered her before dropping down beside her.

Mia nuzzled beside him, lifting his arm and draping it over her shoulders as she burrowed into his side.

“Thank you, Adam. That was quite nice,” she purred, a smile in her voice as she stifled a giant yawn.

He barely had enough energy left for a weak laugh. “You will be the death of me.”

* * *

Adam was to remember those words many times during the coming weeks.

Not even when he’d been five and twenty and married to Veronica—who’d been more sexually voracious than most men—had he engaged in so frequent, enjoyable, or exhausting amours. But whereas Veronica had been bent on seeking pleasure, Mia was bent on giving it. Adam could not get enough of his new wife and the feeling was mutual.

He smiled to himself as he left the gun room and mounted the stairs up to the main level of the house, thinking about their lovemaking that morning—which had made him late for his meeting with Kearns, his steward.

It had pained him to leave her in bed. Her tangled hair and swollen lips erotic proof he’d used her hard, but the invitation in her eyes telling him she was ready for more.

Adam had never had a lover so eager or generous—or so openly joyous. She had no qualms about approaching him anytime or anywhere. He thought back to their last game of chess, which had ended—once again—with her supremely trouncing him. He had been forced to retaliate by bending her over the large desk in the library.

He could no longer see a chessboard without getting an erection.

She was so skilled at arousing him, he should have been embarrassed. Like a trained dog, he knew that whenever the words my lord came out of her wicked mouth she was either imagining their last coupling or planning the next. He paused in the hallway to adjust himself, meeting the startled eyes of one of his footmen as he did so.

None of the servants could be unaware of what was taking place in their master’s chamber every night and morning. And in several other parts of the castle and grounds any other time of day. Adam didn’t care.

He entered the smaller of the castle’s two sitting rooms, pausing for a moment to take in the scene before him: three dark heads, one sandy blond, and a flame-red one bent over something on the table. Jessica, Catherine, Eva, Melissa, and Mia were so enraptured by whatever they were looking at, they didn’t notice his entrance.

Adam cleared his throat.

Five pairs of eyes swept up toward him.

“Papa, look what Mia brought.” His eldest daughter gestured to the item of interest.

Adam walked to the table and tilted his head. It was a fashion magazine, apparently in French.

“Hmm.” He looked at his wife with raised brows. “Do you have connections that run the Channel for you, my lady?”

Mia smiled but didn’t answer.

“Mia says we may have new frocks, Papa,” Eva said.

Adam eyed the dress she was currently wearing, a disaster, and felt a pained expression forming as he studied his middle child. Eva was, as always, an utter mess. She flushed under his critical examination, the mulish expression he knew so well forming on her face.

Mia caught his eye and gave a minute shake of her head.

Adam sighed and clamped his mouth shut. Mia didn’t need to speak; he could see the plea in her face and he’d heard all her arguments before. As recently as two days ago, in fact, when she’d come to his study to plead Eva’s case after a particularly unhappy clash between Adam and his daughter that morning in the stables.

Adam had been thrilled by her sudden appearance in his study and the interruption of his bill paying—until he’d learned the topic she had come to pursue yet again.

“You must not chide Eva so, Adam. She is a little careless of her apparel and she is perhaps sometimes a bit of a hoyden . . .”