her back.
When they’d been younger, kissing him had been fun. And forbidden. And even more fun because of that. It had been nice.
But now, of all the sensations he churned inside her, niceness wasn’t one of them.
“Pearce—”
“Shh,” he whispered. “They’ll hear you.”
She bit her lip. If he kept touching her like this, they’d definitely hear her, when a whimper of longing tore from her.
He moved his hands expertly over her body now, as if attempting to know her again as he once had, to discover the woman she’d become.
She clamped her arms to her sides, fighting back the rising desire to surrender to the past. How easy it would be to give over and let herself indulge in the pleasures he could give, even small ones, even here, trapped behind the screen. This embrace didn’t have to lead to anything more—couldn’t, in fact. They’d missed their chance.
But at this moment, she could allow herself a small bit of pleasure, a reminder of what they could have shared had life not interfered. She could pretend that he still belonged to her.
With a sigh of surrender, she closed her eyes and rolled back her head, her fists relaxing at her sides as she let herself go.
“Yes,” she breathed out her permission.
He kissed the side of her neck in an openmouthed caress that sent her spinning. The tip of his tongue flicked against her spiking pulse, and he smiled against her throat at discovering the effect he had on her. Oh, that arrogant devil…that dashing and bold man who now had her trembling as he slid his mouth down her neck to the slope of her shoulder. Who had her foolishly longing for more than these few stolen touches.
When his hand slipped down to cup the fullness of her breast, her nipple tightened into an aching point despite the thickness of the stays that dulled his touch against her sensitive flesh. They’d done far more than this that last summer they were together, but his touch had never felt like this…so pleasing, so confident.
His fingers slipped beneath her neckline to caress her bare breast—
She gasped. So sure of what she wanted from him.
Still leaving hot kisses against the side of her neck, he began to tease at her nipple. His wickedly skilled fingers alternated between tender caresses and hard pinches that had her arching her back against him to bring her breast harder against his hand, that had her panting in soft, shuddering little breaths.
She wanted this. And more—she wanted to turn back time and make the last decade vanish, to claim back all those years she’d lost with him. The moment poured over her like a warm summer rain, and she simply couldn’t deny herself.
So she took his hand, laced her fingers through his, and slowly slid it down her front. Only a moment’s hesitation at her lower belly where butterflies somersaulted beneath the warmth of his palm…then deliberately lower between her legs. Lifting her skirt with her other hand, she guided him beneath to that aching place at her core.
He tensed against her, then breathed out a jerking sigh, as if he couldn’t believe that she wanted this intimate caress. With every ounce of my being. She slowly moved his hand against her in a gesture of silent permission.
“Amelia,” he breathed into her ear, then began to stroke her.
She couldn’t stop the shudder of pleasure that swept through her as he teased at her folds, now growing damp and hot beneath his fingertips. Pearce was the only man who had ever touched her like this. That last summer, the month before she turned sixteen—the first time he’d dared to slip his hand beneath her skirt. His fingers had trembled against her then, too, the way they did now. But then the cause had been the eager excitement of a green lad being granted a fleeting and forbidden pleasure. Yet now he trembled from something far more intense. So did she.
Without warning, he froze. His hand stilled between her legs while the other darted up to cover her mouth.
“Shh,” he whispered, that soft warning flashing her attention back to the two men in the room with them.
Forcing her pleasure-fogged brain to function, she held her breath and listened. The soft clink of glasses being set aside, the creak of furniture as the two men rose to their feet, the scuffle of boots—
They were leaving. Finally. But the relief that sped through her was punctuated by a spike of disappointment when Pearce slipped