Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,254

“I think I’ve waited my entire life for you.”

“I know I’ve been waiting for you,” Eloise said.

He squeezed and pulled her against him, nearly burning her with his touch. “I’m not going to be able to go slowly,” he said, his voice shaking. “I think I used up my entire allotment of willpower just now.”

“Don’t go slowly,” she said, sliding onto her back and pulling him atop her. She spread her legs, opening until he settled between them, his sex coming to rest right at the opening of her womanhood. Her hands found his hair and sank in, pulling his head down until his mouth was right at hers. “I don’t want it slow,” she said.

And then, in a single fluid motion, so fast that it took her breath away, he was inside her, embedded to the hilt, knocking against her womb with enough force to jolt a surprised little “Oh!” from her lips.

He smiled wickedly. “You said you wanted it fast.”

She responded by curling her legs around his, locking him to her. She tilted her hips, which pulled him in even deeper, and smiled back. “You’re not doing anything,” she said to him.

And then he did.

All words were lost as they moved. They weren’t graceful, and they didn’t move as one. Their bodies weren’t in tune, and the sounds they made were not musical or lovely.

They just moved, with need and fire and total abandon, reaching for each other, reaching for the summit. The wait was not long. Eloise tried to make it last, tried to hold out, but there was no way. With every stroke, Phillip unleashed a fire within her that could not be denied. And then finally, when she couldn’t contain herself one moment longer, Eloise cried out and arched beneath him, lifting them both from the bed with the force of her fulfillment. Her body quivered and shook, and she gasped for breath, and all she could do was clutch his back, her fingers surely leaving bruises on his skin as she clung to him.

And then, before she could even fall back down to earth, Phillip cried out, and he slammed forward over and over again, emptying himself within her until he collapsed, the full weight of him pinning her into the mattress.

But she didn’t mind. She loved the feel of him atop her, loved the heaviness, loved the smell and the taste of the sweat on his skin.

She loved him.

It was that simple.

She loved him, and he loved her, and if there was anything more, anything else important in her world, it just didn’t matter. Not right there, not right then.

“I love you,” he whispered, finally rolling off of her and allowing her lungs to fill with air.

I love you.

It was all she needed.

Chapter 19

. . . days are filled with endless amusements. I shop and attend luncheons and pay calls (and have calls paid upon me). In the evenings I usually attend a ball or musicale, or perhaps a smaller party. Sometimes I remain at home with my own company and read a book. Truly, it is a full and lively existence; I have no cause for complaint. What more, I often ask, could a lady want?

—from Eloise Bridgerton to Sir Phillip Crane,

six months into their unusual correspondence

For the rest of her days, Eloise would remember the following week as one of the most magical of her life. There were no stupendous events, no bursts of fine weather, no birthdays, no extravagant gifts or unexpected visitors.

But still, even though it all seemed, on the outside at least, very ordinary . . .

Everything changed.

It wasn’t the sort of thing that hit one like a thunderbolt, or even, Eloise thought with a wry smile, like a slammed door or high C at the opera. It was a slow, creeping kind of change, the sort of thing that begins without one realizing it, and ends before one even knows it has begun.

It started a few mornings after she’d come across Phillip in the portrait gallery. When she woke, he was sitting fully dressed at the foot of the bed, staring at her with an indulgent smile on his face.

“What are you doing there?” Eloise asked, tucking the sheets under her arms as she scooted into a sitting position.

“Watching you.”

Her lips parted with surprise, and then she couldn’t help but smile. “It can’t be very interesting.”

“To the contrary. I can’t think of anything that could keep my attention for so long.”

She blushed, mumbling something about his being