Lady Derring Takes a Lover - Julie Anne Long Page 0,93
. use your hands, too . . .”
She obeyed. The taut cords of his neck, the tension in his jaw, how his head dropped back as he took in and savored the pleasure she gave him, his sighs of near desperation—it was so unbearably erotic that when she stood suddenly, she swayed as though drunk.
He seized her hips, spun her about so swiftly she toppled forward, bracing her palms against his blue coverlet. His palms skated down her spine as he urged her thighs apart with his knee. And then he brought his hand around to where she was aching and wet and stroked a rhythm that wrought from her moans of astounded, ramping pleasure that she muffled with her forearm. “Tristan . . .” she whimpered. “Please . . .”
She came apart into a million cinders when he thrust into her. The counterpane took her raw scream. Her fingers clenched and unclenched in it as he drummed into her swiftly, his breathing gusting. “Delilah . . . dear God . . .” His voice was shredded. “I’m . . .”
He went rigid, his own raw cry stifled and wave after wave of bliss wracked him.
Before she slid like a melted thing down off the bed, he scooped her up into his arms and pulled her up onto the bed. She reclined in his arms as his chest rose like a choppy sea beneath her head.
Her hair was a mess, so he unpinned it, one pin a time.
Laid them all on his night table.
“You can pin it again before you leave,” he said drowsily. Never had pleasure so owned him. So fully consumed him. Never had it so thoroughly relieved him, if momentarily, of the burden of being himself, the man who held up the world.
“I must leave soon,” she murmured. She gave a somnolent, stunned laugh. “Never in my wildest fantasies did I think I’d need to repin my hair in the afternoon after having been ravished.”
“And after having ravished.”
“Fair enough.”
He smiled. He threaded his hands through her hair. As soft as he’d dreamed it would be, full of hidden mahogany lights. “Have you wild fantasies?” He was tremendously interested in these.
She hesitated. “Promise you won’t laugh?”
“I’m too sated to laugh.”
“Angelique and I once talked about what we would do if the king came to The Grand Palace on the Thames.”
“The king? Because now that you’ve conquered me, he’s the only challenge left?”
“Because it would madden the Duchess of Brexford, who can never get him to come to one of her dinners. She is terribly rude to me and tried to steal my cook more than once. She thinks I’m quite beneath her.”
“I think we’ve time,” Tristan said thoughtfully, “for you to be beneath me once again.”
She smiled and shifted to throw a leg over his thigh. Her hands were idly roaming over his chest, following the trenches made by his muscle. He shifted, restlessly. Mad hunger was an echo, but already ramping again. “Why were you stealing an apple?” she asked.
“I was hungry.”
“Tristan,” she said. She stopped the caresses and propped herself up on her elbows. Her hair fell down over his chest, across her face. He parted it like a curtain onto his favorite musicale. Her face was an ache.
“The difference between me and the drunk man at the entrance of your boardinghouse is pigheadedness and fortitude.”
“Yes. I’m certain that’s all. Had naught to do with courage, or intelligence, or skill.”
“Flatterer. You must be trying to seduce me again,” he said hopefully.
She was quiet, however. “You must have been so frightened.” It was a near whisper.
She was worried, that was clear. She was hurting for him now, and the boy he was. And somehow he didn’t mind. He had never realized these untold stories possessed any encumbering weight, any ballast, until he began to tell them to someone who thought they mattered.
“I was afraid. But I think when fear becomes a part of your everyday experience that you cease to think of it as fear. You either harness it, and turn it into a source of strength, or it harnesses you, and destroys your soul. I’ve seen examples of both.”
“I think it’s a question of character, too. And while I’m glad you’re here now, I’m sorry you endured that.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
This wasn’t entirely true.
The arc of his life didn’t allow it. It mattered that he caught the smugglers. It mattered to him, to his men, to the king, to the loved ones of the family killed.