“Say what you want, Robert, but this is a whim. We’ll pretend you never said these things.”
“I can’t pretend I don’t feel this.” He got to his feet and pulled her up and into his arms, capturing her mouth in a kiss more bold and urgent than he’d ever allowed himself to show her.
When she moaned, he felt the first flare of satisfaction.
17
Audrey was swept up in the urgency of his kiss, heard a gasp at the door, and then heard it shut, but that all seemed distant and unimportant.
Against her mouth, Robert whispered, “Do these feelings mean nothing to you? Are you trying to deny that we’re drawn to each other?”
“I—I—” She could barely think, barely remember to breathe. Her head whirled with the passion that made her throw her arms around his neck and hold on as if she depended on him to even stand.
Then the room seemed to spin as Robert lifted her off her feet and set her on the edge of the table, bending over her until she was flat on her back. He stood between her thighs, only their garments separating them. He kissed his way down her neck and to the edge of her bodice, his tongue dipping between her breasts. She didn’t know she could feel such passion and desire, for her husband had never even tried to fan those flames.
And then she felt Robert’s hands moving beneath her skirts, trailing up her calf that was only covered by the sheerest stocking. It made her squirm, but it didn’t tickle, not exactly. And her squirm made her rub her hips against his, and hegroaned. She knew what he wanted, what a man wanted to do with his … hips.
His hands moved higher, both of them now lifting her knees, spreading her thighs, placing her feet on the table for support. For a wild moment, she wondered if he would try to take her right on the table. Would she be able to stop him—did shewantto stop him?
Her skirts and petticoats fell around her hips, and his big hands rested on her knees.
“Robert …” Her voice was a whisper, and she couldn’t think of any other words.
He began to caress the inside of her thighs across the fabric of her drawers, sliding ever closer, an inch at a time, to the intimate depths of her. She felt … hot and aching and desperate for something she had no name for, had never known she could even want.
And still his hand kept moving, until her breathing was ragged gasps and her legs trembled. Those magical fingers met in the center, the most private part of her. Nothing had ever felt so sinful, so wondrous. And then he slid his finger inside the slit of her drawers and felt the wetness of her.
She clamped her hand over her mouth to smother what might have been a scream.
She felt him looming above her, his fingers still teasing and circling and probing inside her. His hair brushed her chin, his tongue slid down the short length of her cleavage. When he put his free hand in her corset and pulled down, she felt her right breast spill free from restraint. And then his mouth was there, drawing her nipple into its hot recesses, licking her?—
And she came apart inside in a tiny explosion that rocked her into a shuddering, seething mass of heat and pleasure. With a groan, she felt the satisfaction move through her, turning all her muscles into useless tissue. Robert’s hot breath fanned hernipple again before he kissed it, and it made her tremble with another arrow of scorching pleasure.
He slowly straightened, and she felt his hands slide back up her thighs, pulling her layers of skirts up and over. Her feet seemed to fall bonelessly to the floor. He took both her hands to pull her upright.
She’d lost the capacity for speech, not knowing whether to be embarrassed or grateful for an experience her own husband had never even tried to give her on their wedding night.
Or she could be angry.
Robert didn’t do this just to pleasure her, to give her a gift.
“That wasn’t fair,” she whispered through clenched teeth.
He drew in a sharp breath. “What are you talking about? I wanted to make you feel good, to show you what we can share forever.”
“No, you wanted to get your own way, tocontrolme.”
“I did not?—”
“You used my body against me, knowing I couldn’t even begin to understand what you were doing.”
“You were married once.”
“And you surely guessed from all I told you that Martin was not a man who cared to show me any kindness once he had what he wanted—and no pleasure either.”
“I didn’t know,” he said quietly.
“Maybe not. But this was still badly done of you. I don’t want another man who thinks he can control me—or abandon me in some drafty castle.”
