through his elbow. “I’m glad to hear it. But, Griffin?”
“Hmm?” He was strolling with her back toward the sitting room where the baritone was still singing.
“Promise me that if ever you run into straits again—financial or otherwise—you’ll tell me.”
“Oh, all right, Megs,” he replied, rolling his eyes a bit.
She smiled to herself. He might balk, but it was important to her that Griffin was honest with her. A family should be honest. And they should share things—both good and bad.
She was reflecting on the subject and wondering how exactly she could push Godric in that direction with his own family when they entered the sitting room and she stopped short in surprise.
It seemed the Duke of Wakefield had a magnificent singing voice.
MEGS LAY IN her bed that night, surrounded by the cold darkness of her room, and tried not to anticipate Godric’s arrival.
Tried not to long for him.
She lectured herself on the reasons why she was doing this, but the arguments had become muddled in her own mind and all she could hear was the drag of her breaths in and out of her body. She focused on the dinner at Griffin and Hero’s house, the face of sweet William, the accord she’d found with Griffin, the astonishing sight of the rigid Duke of Wakefield singing like a stern archangel, but each image wavered and slipped through her mind’s grasp. She even tried remembering the taste of the syllabub at dinner, the smooth texture of cream, the tart wine, but the phantom sweet dissolved in her mouth, and all she could taste on her tongue was Godric’s mouth.
There in the darkness she might’ve moaned.
He came at last, moving like the ghost he was. She didn’t even know he’d entered her room until she felt the dip of her bed, the warmth radiating off his body.
She trembled before he ever touched her.
Then his hands were gliding over her shoulders, sweeping down her chemise-covered sides, sliding up the slopes of her breasts while his head and shoulders hovered over her like a hawk shielding its prey.
Her breath caught. There was something dangerous about him. Perhaps there always had been and he’d simply damped it the night before. This was only their second joining and she nearly panicked at the thought. There would be many nights more. Nights when she lay in the dark and waited for him. Nights when she desperately tried to order her mind. Nights when she tried not to feel.
As she was trying not to feel now—trying and failing.
His hands moved, swift and sure, cupping her breasts, and she had no trouble at all remembering their pale, elegant length. Imagining what they would look like against her flesh.
She bit her lip, and his thumbs coasted over her nipples, catching, for they were already erect and pointed. Goose pimples shivered across her skin at his touch. When he brushed across her nipples again and then pinched both at once, it was all she could do not to arch into those beautiful hands.
Roger. She had to think of Roger.
His head descended with alarming swiftness and suddenly his mouth, hot and wet, was on her nipple. He tongued her through the thin fabric of her chemise and all thought scattered. She arched beneath him, whimpering. His hands clamped around her rib cage, holding her still. His pendant slid coolly across her belly as he suckled her nipple hard. He let go and drew back, blowing on her oversensitive skin, covered only by the wet fabric, and she shivered under the sudden chill. Then he was ministering to her other breast, thoroughly, intently. His focus entirely on her and her body. She hadn’t time to recover, to regain control under his sexual siege.
She could only feel and yearn.
He lifted his head finally, when her breath was ragged and nearly broken, and began trailing his open mouth down her quivering belly. At first she had no idea of his intent—couldn’t even think—but as his hand bunched up her chemise and moved lower still, she had a terrible premonition.
“No.” It was the first word spoken between them since he’d entered her room, and it sounded overly harsh to her own ears.
Megs licked her lips, feeling her heart still beating too fast in her chest, the obscene dampness on both her nipples, and the still of the night.
He’d frozen at her word, but it wasn’t in fear or apprehension. His stance, hovering over her, his arms on either side of her hips, seemed dangerous somehow. As