such power in her life, and it went on forever because he just kept sucking her clitoris with relentless focus.
She was limp by the time it was over and he lifted his head from between her thighs. He surged up, catching her mouth again, letting her taste the earthy, heady flavor of her release. She grasped his hips as he did so, pulling him taut against her, demanding, yet again, what she really wanted.
And yet again, he didn’t disappoint her. He reached between them, stroking the head of his cock against her wet entrance, aligning their bodies, and then he thrust, and he was inside of her.
It took a few gentle pulses to fully seat himself. She had been alone for a very long time and her body had to stretch to accommodate him. But when she did, it was electric. They were one body now, legs and arms tangled as he leaned her against the edge of the mattress and began to thrust harder and harder into her.
She clung to him, riding the waves of his loss of control, watching him as he came fully and completely undone inside and around her. He was no longer that proper earl, crushed by the weight of his responsibilities, trying to do what was best for everyone around him.
No, this was a different man. A man with hair wild from her fingers, a man with a hooded gaze thick with desire, a man with shining lips from eating her until she screamed…a man whose fingers dug into her flesh, bruising and claiming as he dropped his head into her shoulder with a guttural moan.
He yanked from her and ropes of thick release splashed across her skin as he pumped himself empty. He collapsed forward and she fell back. They were half on the high bed, half off, and she reveled in the heavy weight of him pressed against her.
For a moment, it was heaven and everything else fell away. But then he lifted his head and she saw the moment he shifted from Rhys her lover to the Earl of Leighton once more. His eyes went wide with…horror, that was the only way to describe it, and he stepped back from her, running a hand through already mussed hair.
“I am not my brother,” he murmured softly, then repeated it, even more loudly. “I am not my brother.”
She sat up. “Of course you aren’t. I did not make that mistake, I assure you.”
“I made the mistake,” he said as he grabbed for his trousers. He yanked them on, fastening himself before he began to pace back and forth across the narrow room. He would not look at her.
“This was a mistake to you,” she whispered.
That stopped him in his tracks, and he pivoted. “Not you. You aren’t a mistake. I wanted you—God, I wanted you from the moment I met you and that little curl bobbed out around your cheek…” He trailed off and shook his head. “But I don’t do this. A man can want things he shouldn’t have and still have the honor not to pursue them. I do not take advantage like he did all his life. That is not me. It…it wasn’t me until today.”
She hesitated a beat before she slid off the bed. She was still naked, but somehow the embarrassment was fading. He watched her, pupils dilating as she crossed to him. She touched his face, and though he stiffened, he didn’t pull away. He just stared down at her, the war he was waging deep within himself perfectly clear in those bright blue eyes.
She traced his jawline, then his lips with her fingertips before she lifted up on her tiptoes and drew his lips to hers. She brushed gently, back and forth, just a feather-light caress, not meant to spark desire, though it certainly did inside of her.
When she pulled away, she cupped his cheeks and poured all the love she couldn’t say, would never be able to say, into him, hoping it would soothe him even if he didn’t fathom what it was. “You didn’t take advantage of anything, Rhys. You asked me more than once if this is what I wanted, and if I’d said no you would have walked away from me without consequences to me or my future. I wanted this as much as you did.” She cleared her throat. “For as long as you have, though that admission may send us both to hell in the end.”
His eyes widened. “From the