“No?” he echoed, baffled.
“No!” Charity grabbed a handful of his cravat, settling onto the balls of her feet as she yanked him closer. “There is exactly one thing,” she said, in a searing hiss, “that I wish to do at this moment, and it is most certainly nottalking. Now, be good for me andtake off your fucking coat.”
His eye widened at the command, at the insistent tug of her fingers upon his coat, the fierce and determined yank upon his cuff. “In your sister’s drawing room?” he uttered, though he released his hold upon her long enough for her to wrench his sleeve down.
“Yes.Yes.” Right here, right now. There was a storm roiling in her chest, and it would burst her open at some point, probably sooner rather than later. They would have to talk, certainly. But it did not have to benow, when at this moment—
When at this moment, he was no one else’s but hers. When there was no marriage to delicately avoid consummating. When every desire that she had restrained these last two months could at last be satisfied.
Another kiss, desperate and aching, and Anthony surrendered to her demands, shrugging out of his coat and letting it fall to the floor. There was the rumble of a groan in his chest as she pressed herself against him and nibbled at his lower lip. Whatever meager claim she might have laid topatience evaporated. His waistcoat went the same way, stripped off in a hurry. Charity heard the split of a seam as she tugged it from him, tossing it aside. She ripped at the buttons of his shirt, tearing at the fabric. In the distance, there was a faintpop, as of something very small sent flying with a great deal of force, and she knew he’d lost at least one button to the careless tearing of her hands.
She grasped handfuls of the soft linen of his shirt, pulling it from where it had been tucked into his trousers, yanking it off over his head. And then—ah, the heat of his bare chest, sprinkled with coarse, dark hair. For a moment she pressed herself close to savor the sensation of it, as his fingers caught in her laces in a desperate effort to untie them.
And there. Practice and experience had yielded some improvement. Her lungs expanded as the constriction of her laces eased, and she slipped off her sleeves to let the gown slide to her feet. Still there were too many layers between them, and she managed her stays herself, leaving him to pluck at the strings of her petticoat until it loosened and fell to the floor.
He sucked in a breath as she tore off her chemise, and she realized she had never actually been naked before him. Not entirely. Not like this. Because there was an intimacy in it that would have been unwise between them; a blurring of lines that, once crossed, could not have been undone.
She was going to cross every one of them this evening. Withrelish.
Anthony reached for her like a drowning man might grab for a lifeline, and she danced nimbly away from the grasp of his fingers with a spry leap that freed her from the clinging fabric at her feet and a whirl that sent her tangled hair flying into his face.
“No,” she said, as she let her chemise fall from her fingers and flutter to the ground. With one hand she jabbed a finger at the sofa. “There. I want you there.” There was something decidedly feral about the quality of her voice, revealing a raw sort of aggression, of possessiveness. Greedy in a way she had never been over a man in her life, avaricious and hungry. She had never once conflated lust with love, and while she had had numerous experiences with the former, she had never known the latter. But now they were intrinsically linked in her mind, in her heart, in the heat that bloomed between her thighs. Forthisman alone.
And good, sweet man that he was—he obeyed without question. With the pure, unceasing devotion of a man who would have followed her to the ends of the earth had she asked it of him. “Here?” he asked as he settled there, shifting just a bit as if his trousers had grown too tight for comfort.Buttoned up tightly behind the fall, there was a noticeable bulge tenting the fabric.
“Yes. Good.” Lamplight and shadow played across his face as she approached, and this time she did not sidestep the eager reach of his hands. Those rough fingers sought to touch every part of her as she straddled his lap, sliding up her arms, over her shoulders. Sweeping down her spine in a caress that elicited a shiver and a prickle of chill bumps. Coming to rest at last upon her hip and over her bottom.
His head bent, his mouth finding the side of her neck. The shadow of a new growth of beard upon his jaw scraped her tender skin. A gasp rolled up her throat as her head tipped back, reveling in the sensation, the delicacy and reverence of his lips on her skin—the barely-restrained hunger beneath it.
The heat of his breath fanned her flesh, and he made a ragged sound in his throat as she found the buttons of his fall, struggling to free him from the last remnants of his clothes. Even in the chill of the room, a mist of sweat broke out upon her skin. He burned her with his hands and his lips, seared her senses, and threatened to boil away the last of her scattered thoughts into so much vapor.
There. The last of the buttons gone, and he muffled an agonized sound against the hollow of her throat as she wrapped her hands around the rigid length of his cock and stroked. He choked out a foul word, his thighs tensing, turning to granite beneath her. His chest heaved with a few frenzied breaths, the tenderness of his hands upon her turning greedy, grasping.
And she—laughed. For the simple joy of making this one man lose his mind with desire. Lose his control. Lose each ingrained inhibition and every last shred of reserve.
His head lifted, his eye narrowed into a fierce glare. Through the tightness of his throat evident in every wheezing breath, he asked, “You think this is amusing?”
“I do,” she purred, and gave a savage grin as he shuddered and tensed his jaw against another firm stroke of her fist. “I think it is delightful.” She bent to press her lips to his ear, touched the tip of her tongue to the shell of it. “I think, at some point in the near future, I am going to have a great deal of fun torturing you just like this. And I think you are going to be a very good boy, and let me. Won’t you?”
Another stroke, and assent burst from his lungs with the anguish of a man stretched upon a rack. “God, yes. Anything.”
And he meant it, she knew. Anything she wished. Anythingat all. “Good,” she whispered sweetly against his ear. “Such a good boy.”
A violent shudder rippled down his spine. His voice rasped against her cheek. “Please. Let me take you to your room. Let me…take you.”
No. A bed was for a sort of sweetness she was not capable of at this particular moment. Later, perhaps. As a dessert. But now—now she intended to gorge herself upon every bit of wickedness in which their relationship had been forged. Built in secret moments on sofas, in carriages, in gardens. It was only right that it should be consummated the same.
“No,” she said, pressing at his chest. “You are going to lie down. AndIam going to takeyou.”
“I haven’t even got my trousers off,” he protested as he nonetheless maneuvered himself into the position she had demanded. “My boots—”
“Leave them on. I don’t care.” She’d not shed her stockings. The delicate silk rubbed the wool of his trousers as she straddled him once more. He breathed a sigh of relief as she loosed her grip on his cock—only to give a deep groan as she rose onto her knees, positioned him between her thighs, and sank down upon him in a smooth stroke.
Yes. Perfection. The way he grabbed for her in sheer desperation, clutching her hips in an iron grip. The strangled sound he made as his hips helplessly bucked up into hers. The way he filled the aching emptiness inside of her as she came to rest, her hands braced upon the wall of his chest.At last.
“Christ.” He swallowed hard once, again. “Nothing—nothing has ever—felt so good as this.” He forced his hands to release her hips, slid them up her sides, found the globes of her breasts. Stroked the pads of his thumbs across her nipples.
“Ahh.” Her head fell back. A lift, a fall. He stroked her from within; a fulsome presence inside of her. The broad head of him rubbed some place of incredible sensation within her with each plunge, sending sparkles of dark starlight careening through her veins. His breath came in gasps, in pants. He braced his booted feet upon the sofa behind her, lunging to meet her with every fall of her hips.
