Georgie swallowed, suddenly overcome by nerves. She hadn’t seen this part of him the last time.
His eyes glowed. “Touch me.”
She’d wanted to do this ever since she’d felt him through his breeches in the submarine. Gently, she wrapped her hand around him and gasped as he pulsedunder her palm. He was shockingly warm, his skin soft with a layer of rigid muscle beneath. She stroked experimentally, and he groaned and arched up into her hand. “Do you like this?” she teased.
“Yes!”
“I love this sleepy, sulky look you get,” she said. “It must be whenever you’re thinking ofthis. It makes me all hot and muddled.”
She bent and put her mouth on him. He hissed a breath between his teeth, as he’d done when she’d touched his wound with the brandy, but feminine instinct told her this was in pleasure, not pain. She flicked her tongue. Her senses reeled at the incredible feel of him, his taste. He filled her senses. There was only him, only delight.
“That’s enough,” Benedict groaned. “No doubt a courtly swain would let you have your wicked way with him all night, but a scoundrel like myself can only take so much.” In a lightning move, he reversed their positions so she lay beneath him on the bed. He sent her an insolent pirate’s leer, once again her beloved prisoner from Newgate. “Now, I have you in my clutches, Mrs. Wylde.” He curled her hair around his fist and dragged it to his nose. “I know you, wife. I know your scent. The way you move. You’re mine.”
Georgie shivered.
“Let’s see how much torture you can stand.” He stroked her, from her throat, down the center of her body between her breasts, and back up. “I love your body’s reaction to me. Your skin flushes, your nipples tighten to little peaks.” He brushed his fingers over them to underscore his point, and Georgie gasped at the sensation. Jolts of lightning shot through her. He chuckled. “Your breath is coming in pants, Mrs. Wylde. Should I infer that you like this?”
Georgie arched up into his touch, and he took pityon her and cupped her breasts. She moaned. His hands molded to the contours of her skin like water, a perfect fit. He leaned over and paused with his mouth suspended over her, one taut peak inches from his mouth. At the last moment he made a detour and traced the soft underside curve of her breast with his tongue instead.
“I surrender!” Georgie panted. “You win. Stop teasing.”
His chuckle vibrated against her skin. She caught his hair and pulled him up to her breast, and he captured one nipple in his mouth. She let out a ragged sigh.
“I suspect you like this too,” he whispered, and his hand slid down her stomach and over the springy hair below. He stroked between her legs, found the telltale slippery wetness, and groaned. “I want to be inside you.”
“Yes!” Georgie gasped. “Now.”
“Now,” he echoed hoarsely.
He lowered himself over her, and she felt his hand at her inner thigh, guiding himself to her. He took her mouth at the same moment he slid into her, one sure, deep thrust, and he caught her soft moan of pleasure on his tongue. It was a shock, a revelation, a miraculous filling and stretching. He stilled, fully inside her, and looked deep into her eyes. Georgie felt the connection right down to her soul.
He was buried deep, hard and hot. And then he started to move, and she arched her back and caught the rhythm. Soon, she was trembling, lost in that dark, wicked place where there were no words, only sensations. He increased the pace, deeper, harder, until she was straining for more, gasping his name. She hovered on the peak of agony for what seemed like forever, and then she hurtled over the edge, and it was like Guy Fawkes and his gunpowder again—only this was her own personal detonation. Blistering. Earth-shattering. All-consuming.
He let out a soul-deep groan, and his entire body wentrigid over hers. Instead of pulling out of her, she felt him pulsing deep within her in his own blissful release. He collapsed onto her chest, then rolled them both to the side and lay breathing hard, great gusts of his chest, as her own heart hammered and pleasure liquefied her limbs.
“Say it again,” she panted. “What you said at Woolwich.”
He stroked her hair away from her temple. “What? That I love you? Yes.” He pressed a kiss to the end of her nose. “My love. My life. Stay with me. Always.”
“Always,” she breathed.
Chapter 44.
She awoke in his arms, with the light of morning hardening on the wall, and sat up in a flurry of sheets. The clock on the mantel showed almost eight o’clock.
“Oh, goodness, I have to go home and tell Mother we’re engaged before she hears it from somebody else. Admiral Cockburn’s wife will make it the talk of the town by lunchtime.”
Benedict’s sleepy chuckle warmed her heart. “Would you like me to come with you? We could speak to her together.”
Georgie shook her head. “No, it’s all right. I’ll talk to her on my own first. You can come over for tea this afternoon. She should be over the shock by then.”
He tugged her back into his arms and kissed her thoroughly. “All right.” He left the bed and strode, unashamedly naked, over to a mahogany dressing chest, giving Georgie a wonderful view of his long back and firm buttocks. He opened the doors to reveal three sliding drawers below a space for hanging garments and selected aclean shirt for her to wear. It was too big, but it smelled of him.
Georgie grimaced as she pulled on the grimy breeches from the previous day. She couldn’t wait to have a bath. She padded over to join him and a forest-green garment caught her attention. “Is that your uniform?”
He stroked the jacket’s sleeve affectionately. “Yes. The Rifles.”
“Why isn’t it red, like the rest of the army?”
