The Defiant Wife (The Three Mrs #2) - Jess Michaels Page 0,43

might not be the last time, he couldn’t think of it being that…but he was still going to celebrate her like it was.

So many thoughts were spinning in Pippa’s mind, and when Rhys took her mouth, it did exactly as she wanted him to do. He emptied all the tangled reflections, all the edges of fear, and left only…him. Always him. She parted her lips, allowing him to delve deeper, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

He was warm and hard against her as he tugged her backward and they fell together on the settee. She ended up in his lap, and she shifted her skirts so she could straddle him. He cupped her backside as they kissed, massaging the muscle there, rocking her back and forth against him the way they both knew this would end.

But she wasn’t ready for the end yet. Not the end of passion, certainly not the end of what they’d begun to build here in Bath. She couldn’t think of that end, when he would become only her employer, when they’d see each other only to discuss matters with Kenley. When she would ultimately watch him marry someone else, perhaps even love someone else, and would have no choice but to be happy for him.

He pulled away and gazed up at her, his eyes filled with concern. “Please don’t find someplace to go in your mind, Phillipa. Be here with me right now.”

There was a desperation in those words. Something that told her he, too, was pondering all those awful futures. Somehow that comforted her, that she wasn’t alone in anticipating the loss. It allowed her to push it away, to give to him and not worry about what would come next.

She cupped his cheeks as she kissed him harder, deeper. He made that sound in his throat, the one she loved, the one that said he would surrender. That all the decorum would fade and be replaced with something far more powerful. Far more base and animal. He would become a man only she saw. One she could pretend was hers for the all too brief time they spent in each other’s arms.

No. That was what she was supposed to forget. She pushed at it, wishing it wasn’t a constant drumbeat in her mind. He tugged her harder against him, and she realized they were both fighting the same war. Not against each other, but against the inevitable.

She pulled away this time and stared down at him. They were both panting, both gripping each other because they were both seeking a lifeline in the undertow of reality. She drew a few deep breaths before she whispered, “We have now.”

His expression softened and he nodded. “I don’t want to spoil now.”

“Neither do I,” she said, and ground down more firmly against him. She felt the hardness of his cock against her thigh. A few small shifts and he could be inside of her, giving her pleasure, taking his own.

But that didn’t seem enough today when everything was charged between them. She wanted to do something more, something just for him. So she inched away, off his lap, off the settee onto her knees on the soft carpet. He tracked her like a hawk tracked its prey.

“Phillipa,” he murmured.

She shook her head. “Just let me,” she asked as she slid her hands up his thighs. God, they were hard with tightly corded muscle. She pushed them apart, sliding between them as she unfastened the placard of his trouser front.

As she lowered it, he sucked in a harsh breath, and she looked up at him as she took his hard cock in hand. Making him come undone was intoxicating. She got almost as much pleasure from that as she did when he touched her. Almost.

She stroked him once, twice, and he squirmed a little, still an earl trying to remain in control. But when she lowered her head and gently touched the tip of his cock with her tongue, all that fell away. He rested his palm on the back of her head, not digging his fingers in and mussing her, but applying just enough pressure that her legs twitched.

If there was a silent demand in his touch, she acquiesced to it. She took him into her mouth, slowly at first, but edging deeper as she swirled her tongue around his thick length.

“Phillipa,” he repeated, this time with more desperation.

She lived for that sound. That edge he was ready to fall over. She began to thrust