I swear I won’t hurt you.” He dragged over a chair and sat down in front of her.
His mouth was nowhere near convenient for kissing, and it was turned up in a sly smirk. Odious, odious man.
If she didn’t know better she’d think he was going to kiss her . . . Sweet heaven.
He bunched her dress and petticoats up in a fist and petted her nether curls with his free hand. “Scoot toward me just a little bit.”
“W-what?”
He reached around her bottom and gave her a push. Maris gripped the edge of the table before she fell off.
“Beautiful. Roses and your own musk. You smell good enough to eat, Maris.” Then his face disappeared and all she could see was his glossy black hair at the juncture of her thighs.
And all she could feel . . . she yelped at the first swipe of his hot wet tongue along her seam. Sweetest heaven. What was he doing? He’d dropped her dress to one side and both his hands held her folds open for his silent, serious assault on her wits. She could do nothing but meet his thrusts with feeble spasms of her own. Her legs fell apart—exactly like a ragdoll’s—and she allowed herself to focus on his fingers and remarkable tongue.
Never in her thirty-four years had she ever imagined anything like this. The salacious act that Reynold Durant was performing on her should fill her with disgust. Him, too. Yet his long nose was buried in her curls and his tongue was curling up inside her, and his hands—oh, his hands were doing things that drove her wild.
Once upon a time, Henry had stroked her like this, though never with such diligence or precision. But he had never kissed her as Reynold Durant was doing, never took the morsel of flesh that was the key to her undoing gently between his teeth, then sucked hard as his fingers slid into her. Maris rocketed up from the table and gasped, holding the edge of the table so she wouldn’t fly right off.
She bucked helplessly as each wave washed over her. She was finished, done for. Surely he knew that. But he kept kissing her center as though he found her to be delicious. Delectable. Showed her no mercy. She climaxed again and again, begging him in a ragged whisper to stop.
But is that what she really asked of him? She was incoherent at the moment. Unreliable. Perhaps she told him to continue. Whatever he heard, he simply did as he pleased, which seemed to involve giving her more pleasure than she had ever deserved.
She was hot and wet and in a sort of heaven that she doubted a Judeo-Christian god would approve. “You must stop,” she hissed. She couldn’t remain upright or relatively quiet one minute longer.
In an instant his tongue disappeared between his lips and his hands rested damply on her knees. Reynold Durant—Reyn—looked up at her, his black eyes gleaming. “Must I? Very well. Did you like it?” His lips were rough. Red. Beads of perspiration etched his forehead and his black hair was tousled. He looked as if he’d run a mile.
She had no words to answer him. Not a one.
“I see you’re speechless. It was a success, then.” He grinned, looking like a very naughty boy.
Maris nodded, almost against her will. She was every bit as depraved as Patsy Rumford, only she didn’t need him to tether her to the table to gain his mastery over her.
“Has no one ever done this for you before?”
“ No.”
“Ah. Well, I’m honored to be the first.”
She felt a finger trace a pattern on her right thigh. She’d noticed the few times they’d met his hands were often busy. She’d thought it a nervous trait, but found his circular touch pleasant. She tried to still her breathing to the light downward curve as his fingertip swirled.
Seconds ago that fingertip and two more had been snug inside her, working her into a near-frenzy. Now Reyn was spelling something with her own moisture on her skin in a language she’d never learned.
But what they had done would not get her with child, so it was all a waste of time, wasn’t it?
Even if she’d never felt so exhilarated, she was falling into herself, her back muscles tightening in tension, her bare arse chafing against the rough wood of the old table. Her crumpled new dress would require ironing, her mind retrieving from wherever Reynold Durant had sent it. Maris had sworn