Page 30 of Only a Mistress Will Do

A shadow fell across the harp.

She looked up into Tris’s face, so full of love she burst into tears.

“Violet, love.” He raised her and gathered her into his arms. “Please don’t cry. That was the finest harp performance I have ever heard. I will treasure it in my heart forever.”

She cried harder. Why had the Fates set themselves against her? First her brother’s death, now the man she loved snatched from her and married to another. She tightened her grip on him. “It’s not fair. It’s simply not fair.”

“No, it’s not, my love,” he whispered, his warm mouth in her hair. “And we make choices to try and even the odds, although rarely do they turn out in our favor. We must find a way to go on.” Wrapping his arms around her, he cuddled her close against him.

“How?” she wailed.

“I don’t know, love. It’s a tangle, an impossible knot we cannot loosen.” His gentle voice held no sliver of hope. “We must savor our remaining moments together, etch them in our hearts and memories. Which reminds me.” He loosened his hold on her so he could look into her face. “I recognized the works you played on the harpsichord, but not the harp piece. What was that?”

“‘Minuet for Tristan and Isolde.’” She stared into his beloved face, her heart bursting with love. “I wrote it for you.”

Her gaze met his, love and desire crackling between them in a tense charge that threatened to explode them into a million pieces.

Then his lips were on hers and Violet dissolved, the music and the magic of him merging into one. She continued to cry, tears of joy now, as she molded her body to his.

He pushed his tongue through her lips, igniting even more heat between them.

She welcomed it, pulled him in greedily, demanding all of him.

With a groan he wrapped his hands around her head, cradling it, angling it so their mouths melded together perfectly.

As they were meant to be.

Determined not to let him go, she slid her arms around his neck. Somehow, she would make sure they could be together, no matter what.

With agonizing deliberation, he skimmed his hands down the length of her back, each inch he touched coming to life with a heat of its own. When he reached her buttocks, he cupped them and squeezed, pressing her against his granite-hard erection.

Dizzy, she moaned, surrendering to his will with an abandon she’d never suspected of herself. Her world had shrunk to the two of them. She’d never need anything more than this.

He scooped her into his arms, their lips still locked. When he broke the kiss it was to press her face to his chest as he strode from the room.

She rubbed against him like a cat, the scent of bergamot and citrus filling her head. The unique, comforting smell of him.

Then they were bounding up the stairs. He pushed open the door to her chamber and kicked it shut. Panting, he carried her to the bed and seized her mouth again. Bending her back onto the mattress, he kissed her long and thoroughly before leaving her lips to caress the tender flesh below.

Frantically, she arched her neck, baring the whole of it, hoping to tempt him into exploring all of her. The feel of his lips on her sensitive flesh sent chills down her arms, through her body to lodge low in her belly, an unusual ache deep inside.

The ache increased as he kissed and sucked her breasts where they spilled over her stays, then licked the deep cleft between.

“Ahhh.” Her moan emerged from the back of her throat. She was on fire. A spark had started a blaze in her that would not be quenched save one way.

Tris groaned in answer and lurched to his feet. He ripped his breeches open, then pushed her into the middle of the bed.

First cool air touched her thighs, then his big, hot body pressed her into the mattress.

“This is where we began,” she said, tugging at her stays until her breasts popped free.

“But so much better than then.” He wrapped his lips around her nipple.

Violet surged up into him, pressing her breasts into his mouth while she ground her lower body into his hips, seeking what she craved.

Licking first one, then the other breast, he surprised her anew when he blew gently on them. They cooled immediately, gooseflesh popping out all over her. Below he stroked his fingers through the gathering moisture, pressing one finger inside.

It burned, but she forgot it instantly. When he pumped the finger in and out, caressing her without and within, her channel began to pulse. Heat poured through her. She yearned to be skin to skin with him, but disrobing would take too long. She should have heeded Madame Vestry’s rules, but she hadn’t expected this to happen.