“I couldn’t agree more.” He moved, sliding in and out of her slowly, building that pleasant ache rolling through her body higher and higher.
She screamed. Tried to. But he kissed the sound into silence, kissed the heady pulse of need coursing through her body into a maelstrom of feeling. No him or her. No thought. Just hands andhearts and lips. Just him and her and them as his smooth, slow strokes became fast and hard.
“Harder,” she breathed, breaking free of his hold to clutch at his back. “Harder.” She knew not why she said it. Just that she needed it. She’d spent years never saying what she wanted, what she needed—him—and in this moment, with all reticence gone, all silence obliterated, she’d say what she wanted and damn the consequences.
She cried his name as her body broke apart, every muscle an unforgiving bolt of electricity as he obeyed her command, thrusting harder into her as she lifted to meet the rocking of his hips. The flame jumped from her body to his, and she watched every fire-flickering shadow that caressed his clenching muscles, watched every plane of his face, the fluttering of his eyelids as his jaw went slack, body rigid. When he collapsed atop her, he kissed her everywhere—soft, gentle things with dancing whimpers of her name,A-mel-ia,against her ear with a breath of pleased, satiated surrender.
She hugged him tight. Her fingers trailed down his spine, and her hands sank into the depths of his hair and her palms smoothed over the muscled rounds of his backside, caressing every bit of him he’d denied her earlier with her hands manacled above her head.
Denied her? He’d given her everything she wanted, and when he rolled to the side, she followed him, curling up against his chest like a kitten seeking warmth, exploring now the crisp hair scattered over his chest, the tight muscle of his shoulders, the ropey sinew of his neck, and the temptation of his abdomen. His jaw, she kissed until he laughed.
And she kissed him, and he laughed, until they fell asleep.
Drew woke from blank darkness and into a dream. Amelia’s soft body curved into his, the bed around them warm, the quilt cocooning them. His arms around her tight. Did he hate fate? This felt like it.Shefelt like fate. And hate came nowhere near describing what he felt.
Hell. What a disaster.
Because he felt not dread or fear or even the cold, analytical greed of a man intent on getting exactly what he wanted. He felt a change, a shift, as if he’d stepped out of a land of winter and into a clime where summer reigned. And Amelia was its queen, the very sun that warmed his bones, eternal and necessary.
Hell.
He should not have slept with her. He should, at the very least, have done something to prevent a pregnancy. He eased away from her and slung his feet to the floor. He pulled the covers up around her shoulders as he stood, then he donned his clothes and headed for the door. What had he been thinking? To possibly impregnate his employee. No. Not his employee for long. Soon, his wife.
With the slowest of motions, he opened the door, prepared to slip out, got stuck in the doorframe as surely as if there had been a giant spiderweb blocking the way. A quick look over his shoulder provided him with a glimpse of her curls and her nose peeking out from under the quilt.
Was he supposed to think that adorable? He did, entirely unable to look at her, that sight, without wanting to peck a kiss to her little nose. And why not? It was their arrangement, wasn’t it? Every kiss, every touch, every caress, every time he took her—a means of keeping her by his side always. Where she should be.
His feet took him back to the bed’s edge, and he leaned over, kissed her nose. Her eyes crinkled as if she smiled in her sleep, and that smile somehow tugged the shirt right off over his head, pulled his trousers down until they lay discarded on the floor, and then he crawled back into the bed, gathering her into his arms, and holding her tight.
She shifted, groaned a tiny groan, and murmured, “Drew?”
He kissed her forehead. “Shh. Sleep, Melia-mine, sleep.”
She cuddled close and did as he bade. And so did he.
Nineteen
Amelia tried to concentrate on the sample book before her. Drew insisted they needed new livery for the footmen at the London location. He’d ordered her to choose several and offer them to him to make the final choice. Then she was to move onto furniture to outfit the residences. Everything elegant and fashionable as much to show respect to their employees as to appease the high standards of their clientele.
But she did not currently care for livery and furniture, because Drew had removed his glasses and was biting on the end of one earpiece, twirling the spectacles as he looked over a budget. The flash of straight, white teeth, the lock of hair hanging uncharacteristically across his forehead as he leaned over the ledger. A sight that had tempted her on more than one occasion. This time, however, she knew the feel and taste of the lips that tugged that earpiece. Why didn’t he nibble on her lips instead?
A question she’d asked herself often in the last four days they’d spent in the study, preparing for their return to Manchester. When he’d proposed a day or two of work over breaking their fast, she’d scoffed. They’d been over this.Holidays existed for enjoyment. But then… she’d remembered how much she’d enjoyed it when he’d bent her over the desk, and she’d allowed herself to hope it would happen again.
It had not. Four days she’d waited to be ravished on his desk, her desk, the nearby collection of chairs and settees, the rug before the roaring fire in the hearth, against a row of bookshelves—anywhere! And four days she’d been disappointed.
Not at night, however. At night, he came to her room and used every bit of his body and his willpower to give her pleasure.
She yawned, and a particularly jaunty coat blurred on the page before her as she slumped her chin into her hand, her elbow propped at a gentle angle on the desktop. She preferred nights to days. The days reminded her too much of what was to come. Not that she disliked working with him. She did. Having a purpose, a partner… it would be perfection. If she could cross to his desk now and then, set those tortured spectacles aside, and join him in his chair, kiss him until his desire for her swept away every number in his ledgers. She wanted both the companionable partnership and the passionate embrace.
But once they returned to England, this, the study, would be her life. And why? Because, quite clearly, it’s how he wanted it. He seemed intent on preventing any crossover between bedroom and study, keeping day and night strictly separate. He even addressed her differently in each place. Amelia in the bedchamber and no name at all in this room. Here, he evaded entirely the question of who she was—Amelia his lover or Mrs. Dart his secretary.
She did not feel so split. She saw easily in the icy Lord Andrew the passionate Drew who kissed her to sleep each night. Not so, he. It was as if he’d locked Amelia up in a nighttime bed, refusing to let her into the daylight, yet he dared not unearth Mrs. Dart from her Manchester mausoleum.
Every time she crept closer to him, he erected some new wall to contain her.
She did not wish to be contained. She wanted all of him all the time, and she did not wish to cordon any even small bit of herself off from him.
She wanted to…
