Benedict's Challenge - Carole Mortimer Page 0,26

flew open, and she looked down at him. The pleasure intensified at the sight of Benedict’s wide shoulders holding her thighs apart and his head nestled between them. She watched, mesmerized, as his fingers stroked and pressed against the exposed and erect nubbin above while his tongue lapped up her juices below.

He raised his head slightly, his lips slick with her release. “Let go, Chloe, and come for me,” he said again.

Let go? Let go of what? She didn’t know—

She let out a sound, half groan, half scream, when overwhelming heat swept through her and pleasure claimed her body as, instead of stroking, those long and sure fingers now squeezed the swollen nubbin.

It was pleasure such as Chloe had never known existed, certainly never imagined, as wave after wave of her release took her higher and higher still.

“Again,” Benedict instructed gruffly before he sucked that nubbin into the heat of his mouth, soft and then harder, over and over again until release claimed Chloe for a second time, then a third, and she fell into a mindless euphoria where it seemed her body listened to and obeyed only Benedict.

She lost count of how many times her flesh listened to and answered his demands. Consequently, it took several seconds for her to realize… “Someone is knocking on the door. Benedict!” she hissed when he gave no reaction.

Benedict was so lost to the intensity of pleasuring Chloe, he had been deaf to that knock. “Ask who it is,” he recovered enough to request softly.

“Who is there?” she called out.

“It is Carlton, miss. I cannot find His Lordship, and his presence is needed urgently. I have not seen him since shortly after dinner, and I have looked for him everywhere without success. I wondered if you had any idea where—”

“I am here, Carlton,” Benedict rasped.

There was a brief silence before the butler, obviously surprised by this information, managed to collect himself enough to answer. “You presence is needed in the east wing, Your Lordship.”

Those few words were enough to pull Benedict back from being on the edge of doing something both he and Chloe would have cause to regret. So far, he had only given her pleasure, but the throbbing demand of his cock told him he would shortly have wanted more. Much more.

“I will be there immediately,” he informed the butler, even as he pulled Chloe’s arms from about his neck.

“Benedict?”

Benedict kept his gaze averted. It was enough for him to hear the hurt in her voice. He did not need to look at her to see it. There was nothing he could do to dispel the taste of Chloe from his mouth, but he could wipe all physical evidence of her slick juices from his lips.

He quickly used his nightshirt to do so before pulling on and refastening his robe. “I have to go.”

“To the east wing?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

Benedict made the mistake of glancing at her when he heard the anguish in her tone. Mistake, because Chloe was now sitting up, her breasts fully on display, revealing two perfect and sloping orbs tipped by dark rose-colored and engorged nipples, made that color from his having licked, suckled, and bitten them just minutes ago.

Saliva flooded his mouth again merely looking at them. “I simply have to go,” he repeated, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

She frowned. “You already said that.”

Benedict drew in a deep and controlling breath. “Then you would do well to listen and cease asking me the same question over and over again.”

“Benedict!” Raw pain edged her shocked tone.

He stared at her coldly. “I never should have come here tonight.”

Chloe flinched. “Nor made love to me?”

“No,” he stated icily. “I… This will not—it must not happen again.”

Those words struck Chloe with the force of a blow, causing her to hastily pull the covers up the bed so that they now covered her naked breasts. “I believe you said that the last time this happened.”

“This time, I mean it,” he bit out harshly.

“Go,” Chloe ordered in a shaky voice. “Please, just go, Benedict.” She felt too weary to argue with him further.

She waited until he had left the bedchamber before turning to bury her face in the pillows, after which she proceeded to sob deeply.

One thing Chloe knew for certain, she would not—ever—allow herself to be seduced, then so callously discarded again.

She had no transport or means of returning to London on her own, but for the rest of her stay here, she would avoid burdening Benedict with her company as