raked against her nub of pleasure, and she convulsed, pleasure splintering through her body. While still on his knees, he grabbed her hips and tugged her down so that she slid off the sofa. Penetration was immediate, and she cried out wildly at the almost painful stretch. He took her mouth in a raw, domineering kiss, swallowing her cry at his invasion.
Phoebe felt delirious with arousal. Her skin burned, and she wanted to get even closer to him. Wrapping her hands around his shoulder like a vine, her feet now braced on the carpet, Phoebe started an instinctive ride. Or was he using his hands to lift her up and then urged her down onto his manhood? She could not tell; Phoebe was lost in the provocative position and the lush eroticism of how they came together.
He hugged her to him, twisted, and tumbled them onto the carpet. He slipped his hands beneath her buttocks, lifting her to meet his thrusts, filling her repeatedly in heavy surges. There was a hint of urgency, or desperation, almost a savagery to his movements as he plunged inside her over and over. A stunning pleasure and pressure built inside her, clawing to be free. Each thrust held her poised on the brink, and her body raced to reach a pinnacle it was familiar with. Except each plunge seemed to push her beyond a point she had never been taken before, and Phoebe screamed into the crook of his need, frantic pleadings and then demands falling from her lips as unbearable heat twisted low in her belly.
Somehow, while he still rode her to bliss, he reached between them, took her nub between his fingers, and pinched. Phoebe’s mind blew apart as ecstasy writhed through her. She slid her hands over the arch of his back, caressing and urging.
“I love you,” she cried against his lips as he claimed another kiss. That soft cry had tumbled from her before she could catch it.
He froze, and his eyes fluttered open to stare at her as if arrested.
With trembling fingers, she traced his lower lip. She had not meant to admit her feeling, not when things felt so odd between them. “I love you,” Phoebe breathed shakily, testing the weight and truth of those words.
Something raw flashed in his eyes before his lashes swooped down, concealing the brilliance of his gaze from hers. Do not hide from me, she silently demanded. Then it did not matter, for his hands tightened around her, and with a few ravaging thrusts, he, too, found his pleasure. Stroking his back, she held him to her until his shaking had subsided.
I love you.
That cry of adoration lingered in Phoebe’s thoughts. She felt stupid and hopeful, as she waited, her heart beating for him to sign something…anything. Silence lingered, and his fingers did not move to caress, reassure, or return any sort of sentiments. Her belly went hollow, and the fact she told him she loved him felt unforgivable. It made no sense to lay her heart bare to a man who would never return her love. If only she did not desperately wish he would love her in return. When had she started to dream of that again? Of a man who would love her with every emotion in his heart and soul? Phoebe suspected that dream had started the very first time he kissed her.
He pulled from her, and she whimpered at the ache between her legs. Gently, he helped her to stand, her legs wobbled, and she laughed.
“I think, my lord, we almost killed each other,” she said softly, peering up at him.
Phoebe’s heart squeezed at the frightful look of indifference in his gaze, as if what they had just shared was ordinary. She reached up to cup his jaw, and he caught her hand and slowly lowered it to her side. A cold knot formed in Phoebe’s stomach. He padded away to the wash basin and returned with a washcloth to tenderly clean her. She watched him in silence as he removed her stockings, garters, and slippers. When he was finished, he went over to the washbasin and started to tidy himself. Padding over to the armoire, she took out a nightgown and slipped it on then made her way over to the bed, climbed up, and sat in the center.
Soon, he outed the lamp and slid into the bed. He did not take her into his arms as he usually did, and Phoebe sat there in the dark,