Page 113 of Aurelia

Roland responded to her silent demand immediately, stroking harder, faster, touching something inside her that caused a deeper pleasure to build and build and—

Aurelia groaned as the orgasm swept through her body, clinging to Roland, her fingers digging into the muscles of his back. Raw, animalistic noises escaped, no matter how hard she tried to hold them back.

Roland, who’d stopped moving while the most powerful contractions seized her body, suddenly growled and resumed his thrusting, each stroke so powerful the settee gave an alarming squeak.

“Aurelia,” he gasped, his hips drumming until he finally rammed himself painfully deep.

Aurelia felt his erection swell and spasm inside her. And then she felt the warm wash of his seed. Some part of her mind—a part not caught up in the sensual bliss of the moment—shrieked about pregnancy and children.

But as his big, heavy body lowered over hers, crushing her into the cushions of the settee, Aurelia could not bring herself to care. Instead, she slid her limp arms around his damp, heaving shoulders and held him close.

Aurelia could have laid there forever, regardless of how difficult it was to breathe, but all too soon she felt awareness seep back into his relaxed body, and he slowly lifted himself off her and smiled down at her, his expression languid and smug and… speculative.

“Why are you smiling like that?” she asked, suspicion prickling her skin.

“I am wondering how long it will take me to persuade you to be my wife… Lady Aurelia.”

Chapter 25

While Aurelia was still too stunned to speak Roland palmed one of her heavy breasts, gently squeezing. Christ! Her skin was like silk and her tit was as soft as whipped cream. He teased her nipple until it was hard and was pondering contorting his body on the tiny bloody settee so he could take it into his mouth when she finally spoke.

“How long have you known who I am, my lord?”

She was back to my lording him; that was not good.

Roland reluctantly released her breast. “Since coming back from the trip I took in July.”

“How?”

“I was at White’s and overheard some men talking about the Earl of Addiscombe’s daughter marrying Paul Needham. One of the men recalled meeting Addiscombe’s oldest daughter during her Season—a Lady Aurelia—and asked whether she was the one who’d married Viscount Needham. Your name is unusual and I knew you were from Hampshire, so I put it all together.”

Her lips parted in shock. “You have known all this time! Why didn’t you say something?”

He shrugged. “What should I have said?”

She gave an exasperated huff and shifted on the couch in such a way that gave him more room, but also pulled her delectable breast farther away.

“I do not understand you,” she accused.

Roland laughed. “Lord. I’m the easiest man in the world to understand,” he protested, eyeing her breast, and dying to suck it. Something told him that would not go over well just now.

“Why do you suddenly want to marry me—because I’m a peer’s daughter?”

“I do not care who your father is, Aurelia—he could be a stone mason or an itinerant tinker—it is you I want. And my desire is not sudden; I have wanted you for months.”

“You have a strange way of showing it.”

“I was trying to be less selfish.” He gestured to them and the room around them. “You see how that turned out.” When she didn’t laugh or even smile, he sighed. “You are too young for me—too talented and with too much life ahead of you. Too… good for me, in short. I have been nothing but self-indulgent for years. If I were a better man, I would have stepped aside and left you for Talbot.” He scowled. “But the mere thought of him even looking at you—” Roland bared his teeth. “Well, suffice it to say it makes me quite irritable.” And violent, but he decided to keep that to himself.

Aurelia stared up at him, uncertainty in her gaze. “Then why did you leave me six weeks ago without scarcely a word? And right after that night in the library, when we—” she bit her lip.

Roland sighed. “There is something you need to hear—something unpleasant.”

She swallowed and nodded.

“Six weeks ago I received an anonymous letter that claimed my… wife had been spotted.”

Her eyes bulged. “What? But—I thought she died from the panther—oh. I am sorry. You mean your first wife.”