around his glistening shaft and she sank down on him, all the way to the thick base. Gripping her lush hips, he would wrench her up and down his prick while her firm, rounded tits bounced for his viewing pleasure.
Would her nipples be as red as her lips? Would she pant his name while he suckled them? Would she beg him to kiss her, to take that lush mouth of hers as she rode him? He slid his fingers into her chestnut locks, crushing her lips to his, tasting her sweetness…
His climax surged. He gritted his teeth against a shout as he shot his seed into his fist. Chest heaving, he lay back against the pillows, sated yet empty. A familiar feeling.
After the affair with Imogen—and, on occasion, during—he’d had bedpartners. He had needs, after all, and the impersonal rutting had nothing to do with the purity of what he felt for her. Imogen had never required his physical fidelity, only that he be her champion. But he had made her a promise, one he’d been faithful to: she was the only woman he had kissed. Several weeks after her marriage, Imogen had found him at his offices in Spitalfields. It had been their first meeting since she failed to show up the night they were supposed to elope.
Forgive me, Severin. I could not dishonor my family. I had to go through with marrying Cardiff, even though I don’t love him. Her cornflower blue eyes had shimmered. Please promise you won’t forget me. Please say I will always have a piece of your heart.
Unable to help himself, he’d gathered her in his arms and kissed her, tasting her tears.
I will never forget you, my darling, he’d vowed, stroking a strawberry blonde tendril from her temple. My love is yours until the day I die. And my last kiss will be with you.
Her tearful joy had filled him with bittersweet pride. In that moment, he had finally shed his guttersnipe roots and felt like a true gentleman. While he couldn’t save his lady from an unhappy marriage, he would be her worthy and loyal knight.
That had been five years ago, and he had kept his promise. He hadn’t kissed any of his lovers. Hadn’t missed it, in truth. Kissing evoked intimacy, and he was done with that. With the pain and unfulfilled promise of it. While Fancy Sheridan thought that love brought happiness, he knew from personal experience that she was wrong. One could not rely on love. At any given moment, love could pull the rug from under one’s feet.
The chit might have had a tup or two, he reasoned. But she has no idea how naïve she is.
That he found himself fantasizing about her was troublesome. More troublesome still was the fact that he’d frigged himself whilst thinking about kissing her. While Miss Sheridan’s sexual experience might qualify her to be a potential lover—his code of honor would not permit him to tup an innocent—he knew that she was not mistress material. She couldn’t separate her feelings from fucking, for one thing. She was too naïve, too romantic…and too damned nosy.
He thought of the questions she had asked him on the riverbank. About why he couldn’t manage his siblings. And about his experience of his own family. She’d caught him off-guard because no one had asked him such personal questions before.
Not even Imogen. For years, she had been the only one in his corner, and she didn’t like to speak of unpleasant things. And Severin’s life had been unpleasant. There’d been no polite way of sharing that his maman had whored for their survival. That she’d drowned her miseries in blue ruin. That she’d become mad from the drinking, lost control of herself, and he’d failed to save her from living out the rest of her life like an animal in Bedlam.
Thus, he had never told Imogen any of it, and she hadn’t asked. Yet Fancy Sheridan, whom he’d known for precisely four days, wanted to dig into his darkest corners? The old scar on his chest tautened in warning.
He needed to stay away from her. Far. Away.
Shifting onto his side, he tried to find sleep. To his disgust, he couldn’t stop thinking about the tinker’s daughter. He wondered if he would see her before he left…if he would ever see her again. Either option left him feeling unsettled. He mulled over the strange lightness he felt in her presence. Her endearing candor and odd mix of shrewdness and