and mouth, kissing and touching every plane and sinew of his chest. His skin burned beneath her lips, his chest rising and falling with the sound of his breaths. Clara traveled a path that she would be forced to leave behind forever while simultaneously wishing, with desperation, that she could traverse it again and again.
She curled her hand around his erection, perspiration dotting her brow as she pressed her thighs together to quell the throbbing ache. Sebastian grasped one of her thighs and urged her legs over his hips so that she straddled his body. A trace of unease lanced into her—this was the posture of a whore, surely—but Sebastian’s eyes blazed with such a combination of desire and heat that Clara trembled with the urge to indulge in this blatantly provocative act.
“Sebastian, I…”
He stopped her words with a tightening of his fingers. One guiding hand on the curve of her hip, he took his shaft in the other hand and poised himself at the entrance of her body. Chestnut hair falling in skeins over her shoulders, Clara braced her hands on the wall of his chest and stared down at him.
“I can’t…” She gasped, words falling away at the drenching knowledge that with one shift of her hips, she could plunge downward and savor that hard, delicious thrust of pleasure. The exquisite memory of how it had felt the last time she straddled his lap spilled through her mind.
“You can.” Cords tightened in his neck, his fingers flexing against the dip of her waist. “You will.”
She did. Tentative at first, she lowered her body until he glided halfway into her and then, with a moan, she sank farther until he was fully inside her. Hot. Hard. Pulsing.
Clara curled her fingers against his damp chest. Her heart pounded against her rib cage, her gasping breaths flowing down to mingle with his.
“Clara.” He shifted beneath her, pushing his hips upward to thrust into her with a force that wrung a cry from her throat. “You need to…”
Spurred by recently learned instincts, she lifted her body and lowered it again, soon meeting his upward thrusts with a rhythm that made her blood burn and her body sing. Her arousal spiraled tighter and tighter, winding into the center of her being. Sweat coursed down her spine, into the crevice between her breasts.
She gasped when Sebastian gripped her waist, this time preventing her downward glide. He twisted her onto her back, his body still locked with hers, and surged over her. Clara wound her arms around him, her panting moans hot against his bare shoulder as he pushed into her and drove them both into the sweet, churning storm of bliss.
Afterward, he clasped her in his arms and they lay still and silent as their breathing slowed. Clara pressed her lips to his chest and closed her eyes.
This was the end. With everything she was, she had to pray for the success of her escape. And while sorrow blackened the circumstances that had led her to such desperation, she could not regret a single moment she had spent with Sebastian. Indeed, a restive joy surged in Clara with the grace of a bird taking flight—and she believed she could live a lifetime of undiluted happiness and gratitude that she had known such a man.
She lifted herself to her elbow and looked at him. Heat kindled in Sebastian’s eyes along with something else, something more, an emotion that expanded the walls of Clara’s soul.
Her heart was still sealed. But with him inside. She had locked her heart well and truly—not to keep Sebastian Hall out but to ensure he remained within.
The only sounds in the morning room were the scrape of forks against plates and coffee cups clicking against saucers. Sebastian watched Clara, who sat with a rigid posture in utter contrast to her supple writhings of the previous night. Again that brittleness had encased her, a teacup lined with threadlike cracks.
“So.” She patted her lips with a napkin, although she hadn’t eaten a bite. “Where is your meeting taking place?”
“I’ve arranged for us to meet at the dining room of the Albion Hotel,” Darius said. “What are your plans for the day, Clara?”
“I thought I’d visit Mudie’s Library, then pay a visit to Uncle Granville.” She set her napkin beside her plate. “In fact, I’m running a bit late already, so if you’ll both excuse me, I’ll finish getting ready.”
Both Sebastian and Darius stood and watched her leave, then exchanged glances. Sebastian was not