Page 70 of The Lady’s Sweet Revenge

“Yes. I’ll not make it to the evening. I need you now. No one comes out here but us. My staff is busy and my mother abhors the outdoors. We will be alone.”

He kissed her again. This time his need shifted to something deeper.

Opening her eyes after his kiss she looked into his chocolate gaze and wished he would be the man who wanted her for the rest of his life. But he’d already asked—or tried to—and she’d turned him down. How was she to communicate that his offer would be better received now?

She let out a breath heavy with disappointment. She’d known the earl had only proposed that first day out of obligation. For he’d not known her at all. Definitely not enough to warrant sharing his life with her.

Maybe he wouldn’t ever offer again. She’d not met a man more dead set against marriage. Even her horde of bachelor brothers did not detest the institution as ardently as Lord Breckenridge. Though she did wonder if he protested a bit too much. Could it be that the man was doing his best to convince himself it was something he didn’t want because he saw it as something unattainable under the conditions he’d mentioned?

He’d said he only wanted to marry a woman who wanted him, not a title or what he could give her. And definitely not because they were forced to marry because of society’s dictates. But she did not want him for material things. She genuinely liked spending time with him. Perhaps without meaning to they had inadvertently met the criteria of an agreeable match.

Interesting. And she may have thought more on it if the man had not leaned closer and kissed her again. This time instead of a single, soft press of his lips against hers he consumed her mouth, thrusting his tongue inside to spar with hers.

She didn’t realize he had pulled her onto his lap until they broke for air and she realized she was pressed up against him. A place she liked extremely well, but would have enjoyed better without their clothes in the way.

“I wasn’t sure if you would want this today,” she said. When he’d only wanted to hold her last night, she’d wondered if he’d tired of her already, but she realized that they both needed something deeper the night before, after such a trying day.

He kissed the edge of her jaw with a smile on his lips. “I imagine I will want this every day until you shoo me away.”

She was the one to lean in this time. Placing her palms against his cheeks she held him so she might kiss him as deeply as she wished. Kissing, however, didn’t seem like enough.

It was absurd to think that she had only kissed him for the first time days before when now it seemed like it was her sole reason for living. Or perhaps it was what they’d done in his bed. How could she want something so intensely she’d gone years without?

The answer didn’t matter for as she moaned and shifted restlessly on his lap she knew what she wanted and didn’t care about the reason why or that it was too much.

She felt his cock pressing against her leg and it pushed another wave of heat and need through the core of her body.

“I need you,” she said, unsure if she should have admitted to such a thing, but not caring about that either if it got her what she wanted sooner.

He looked around in a daze as if surprised to find them outside in the garden. She did the same, realizing that they would likely have to wait until that night to meet in his room and quench their desires. It seemed too long to wait.

He must have seen her need, for he reached low and slid his hand under her skirts. His warm fingers heated her skin as they slid up to the place she wanted him to touch.

When he did, he groaned.

“So wet,” he said more to himself and she felt his cock lurch against her as if it were of its own mind to free itself from his breeches.

When his fingers delved into her, she gasped and settled against the exquisite invasion. “Yes.”

He continued to touch her both inside and outside her body until she felt that spinning she’d felt the night before.

“Yes,” she said again or maybe for the hundredth time, she couldn’t be sure.

And then his thumb pressed more firmly against that spot and her body jolted and throbbed as the air left her body and didn’t return for some time later.

She gasped against him as her body sagged in release, but she felt him still hard against her. When she was able to open her eyes and the world came back into focus, she slid back and reached for him, touching him through the fabric.

He grunted as if in pain and pulled her hand away.

“I just need a moment.”

“A moment to finish?” she asked wondering what she might do to help him as he’d helped her.

“No. For it to go away.”

“Why would you wish it to go away?”

“Because it will be some time until I can do anything to relieve it.”