into her again and again, the beginnings of that glorious thing once more began to build in her, as if inside her was a normally placid sea that could be boiled and churned by this storm and rush its banks. Until she was nearly sobbing with pleasure, clawing his shoulders, bowing to meet him. She buried her exultant cry in his shoulder.
And then he went still, with a stifled roar, and swiftly rolled away from her. She knew why when his release felt sticky on her thigh. And she clung to him as his body shook hard, at the mercy of his release.
And they shifted so that they lay facing the ceiling, sweatily entwined. Her head rested on his chest.
“Was I wrong?” he whispered finally.
“No. Of course not. When are you ever wrong?”
He gave a short breathless laugh. He was breathing as if he’d swum across the Thames to get to the settee and exuding satisfaction.
“It was indeed very good. But was it wicked? I felt wicked.”
There was a little silence. “You felt sublime.” He said it softly. The word landed like poetry and made her feel shy.
“Something tells me you don’t use that word very often, Captain.”
He didn’t reply. His chest rose and fell beneath her head.
Sometimes she thought that was entirely his strategy: every word acquired profundity when he issued fewer of them. Like a shot of whiskey, they were more potent for being distilled.
Instead he drew his thumb along her lower lip. Softly, back and forth. Like a mapmaker planning territory to conquer.
“I should have liked you to be more naked,” she murmured.
She could feel his mouth curve against her shoulder. “Next time I shall be the nakedest man that ever was born.”
“There cannot be a next time.”
She hadn’t realized she’d said that aloud until his chest stopped moving.
She realized she’d stopped breathing, as well, waiting to hear what he’d say.
“Very well.”
His tone was indecipherable.
She didn’t want to explain now, when her body was still humming like the final notes ringing in a symphony. She didn’t want to explain at all, in fact. The idea of another time meant there would be still more times, as it was inconceivable at the moment not to want that again and again. And now that she knew precisely the kind of wizardry involved, how the race toward release dissolved one into the purest, most vulnerable self, she could imagine losing just a little of herself every time. Until she was all his.
And therein, alas, lay the potential for destruction.
It was easier to end it now.
“Thank you for . . . this time.”
“No trouble at all.” He sounded amused.
The sweat was cooling on her body and the official start of their morning was hours away. The cook’s heart would give out if she walked into the parlor and found this.
“If I’m to be wanted for only one thing,” she mused, “I am glad there’s such pleasure to be had in it.”
Once again, every muscle in his body went so rigid she nearly bounced from him as though he were a carriage seat.
Then he drew in a long, long breath. Released it at length.
It was wrong, but she loved the feel of his chest rising and falling beneath her when he did. His control was formidable. Unleashed, he was.
“And they say I’m a brute,” he muttered.
“Who says you’re a brute?”
He didn’t answer the question. Which almost made her smile dryly. Exasperating man. The arrogance of him! He chose what to answer and when, as if he were the sole arbiter of what was important in the world.
“Your husband, he . . .” he began carefully. She waited. “Delilah, he ought to have been more considerate.”
And even though they’d been groaning and begging and bouncing away on each other like wild animals a moment ago, her face went hot. It wasn’t shame. Not precisely. It was for having a vulnerability exposed. It was for the care with which he chose those words. It bordered on tenderness.
But surely not. Surely it was mere accuracy from him.
She suspected whatever it was he felt was considerably stronger, and her own ferocious protectiveness unnerved her.
For a moment she couldn’t speak.
“I thought it was me,” she whispered. “That maybe I should have known, or—”
“No. He ought to have . . . you are . . . you are marvelous at this.”
Funny. In another time, another place, when she was another person, that might be one of the most appalling things she’d ever heard about herself: that she was