He drew up one of her knees and wrapped her fingers around it, holding her skirts up and baring the auburn curls that shielded her sex. He moved deliberately between her thighs.
She made a tiny, plaintive whimper, her hips arching up into nothing, and then his mouth was there, licking up into her, his hands clamped on her thighs and spreading her wide. She was wet—Jesus God, she was so hot and wet. He could taste her arousal, feel it where his thumbs stroked the insides of her thighs, and everything shimmered out of existence except the feel of her body and the raw and begging sounds she made as he licked and sucked.
He circled her entrance with his thumb, then eased his first two fingers inside of her. Christ—the tight clench of her body, the squeeze of her channel around his fingers—his head spun. His cock throbbed, a desperate rush of blood he could feel in his belly, in the soles of his feet. He worked her clitoris with his tongue and felt her thighs tremble, her body close to release.
He wanted it. He wanted her to come on his fingers and on his mouth and on his prick. God, he wanted that last so badly he felt almost dazed.
But he wantedhermore. He wanted her to be his—not just her body, but every part of her—her mind, her heart. He wanted to make her shatter around him not once but every day, a thousand thousand times, wanted to hear her voice go to pieces on his name for the rest of his natural life.
He would wait for her, for that. He had to.
He brought his free hand to her nipple, a slick caress, and that was enough. She gasped as she came, her body clenching around his fingers, an endless heady pleasure.
When her shudders stopped, she caught his arm and pulled him up her body, her legs locking around his waist. His cock slid against her slick folds—a sensation so intense, so intoxicating that he lost his breath. His vision went gray, then white, and something clicked in his brain like a latch sliding shut.
His. She was his. He would not go wrong in this.
He drew back, coming onto his knees and lifting her with him. He brought her hand to his length, a frantic gasp ofwill youandplease, and then her fingers were around him, sliding against his erection. He groaned in helpless pleasure and thrust into the circle of her fingers, every part of his body taut and delirious with need.
Her face was flushed. Her lips were parted. Her hand was on him and her bodice was down, and his climax came upon him in a mad rush, his seed spilling on her bared breasts in time to the frantic beat of his heart.
As soon as he could manage it, he gathered her up into his arms. Her head fit neatly under his chin, their bodies interlocking as though they had been made for this moment, for this singular place and time. He stroked the nape of her neck, savoring the fine softness of her skin.
When he could speak again, the words on his lips were not a question, but a demand that was half a vow. “Promise me you will not go away from me again,” he murmured. “Say the words.”
She promised.
Some tightness in his chest eased.
He needed to get to his feet, to clean her skin with his discarded shirt. He needed to recapture the roan and find an inn and then figure out some way to get to London with her.
But he held on to her for a long time, lingering there, watching the patterns the shadows made on her hair. He marked the rise and fall of her chest with each breath, a slow and steadfast rhythm that matched his own.
Chapter 20
This is what I ought to have said: You stagger me. Your wit, your courage, your wide and tender heart.
—from the papers of Arthur Baird, rejected draft
Naturally, things seemed worse in the morning.
After Arthur and Lydia had haphazardly restored themselves in the woods the previous evening, they’d made their way to a coaching inn—which, she’d informed him, she’d seen from the road whilst chasing the Thibodeaux.
He’d clutched her to him reflexively at her words. The fear of the day still clung to his bones, imprinted somewhere along his spine. When they’d arrived at the inn, he’d requested a single bedroom, a hot bath, and supper on a tray before recalling that he’d left his meager funds in the trunk that had remained with Huw and Georgiana.
Lydia’s grin had been some recompense for the mortified heat in his face. “I have some coins sewn into my hem,” she’d confided, “but we may have to sell the mare to afford the rest of the journey to London.”
God, he was mad for her, for her clever, practical brain and that impossible bravery. He’d kissed her, helpless to stop himself, right there on the stairs.
Over dinner, he’d told her what he’d been able to make out of the Thibodeaux’s conversation—fragments only, as they’d spoken in French and he’d been on the other side of a carriage wall. “They spoke of Davis, to be sure. They mentioned London, and a duke, and a spy. And four or five times I made out the name Joseph Eagermont.”
She’d paused and sat back in her scarlet brocade chair, her wineglass arrested halfway to her mouth. “Jasper?”
“Aye,” he’d said. “I think we must find him now more than ever. And Lydia…” He’d hesitated, torn briefly between his need to protect her and his desire to tell her the truth. But she was strong, this woman—strong enough to hear it all. He’d swallowed hard and gone on. “They had weapons, several pistols on them. And they spoke of us. Of you and me, Lord and Lady Strathrannoch. I cannot help but fear that they’ve discovered our connections to Davis and Jasper both.”
He was afraid—Christ, he was so afraid that he’d put her in danger.
She’d set the wine down untasted, her busy fingers sliding along the rim. “I wish we knew what they were after. We must find Jasper. And I begin to wonder…” She’d trailed off, her index finger tapping out a staccato rhythm on the glass.
