fall.
“Joshua,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”
“Tupping my wife, I hope.”
“It’s the middle of the day.”
“Your conduct books say a man can’t tup his wife in the middle of the day?”
“They don’t mention the matter at all.”
“You read the wrong books.”
She laughed breathily and tumbled back on the pillows, lifting her hips to help him as he shoved up her skirts, up over her stockinged knees, her bare parted thighs, her quim warm and ready. He pressed his hand against her and she bucked and moaned, so he fell between her thighs, kissed her perfect lips, and sighed as she found his skin under his shirt.
“I need you,” he heard himself say, cursing his own inelegance, fumbling with his falls. “I need…”
His cock sprang free and he shoved his breeches down his thighs. Her hands were warm and eager, wandering over his hips, gripping his buttocks, as she arched into him.
“What you do to me,” he growled in her ear. “I need…Oh mercy, you drive me mad.”
“I do that?” She sounded surprised and smug.
“You do. It’s you, it’s all you. Only you.”
Her wandering hands slid around his hips, to his front, bumping his cock. She gasped and stilled, and he nipped her ear and told her everything was all right. She touched him then, gently, tentatively, torturously.
He pushed her thighs wider, lifted her, and she let him. She tipped back. His eyes didn’t leave hers, so deep, so dark, so drunk with desire, and oh yes, she did want him, as he wanted her, and he pushed deep inside her, as deep as he could go, reveling in the sensation of her heat enveloping him, holding him tight.
Her fingers dug into his spine and he froze. Held himself over her. Cursed himself. He’d gone too hard, too much, too soon.
“Cassandra, sweetheart? Are you all right?”
Her eyes were on him but he had no idea what she saw. Then her lashes fluttered and her lids closed.
“Oh,” she said.
She rolled her hips and clenched her muscles tight around him.
Oh mercy. Sweet, sweet mercy.
“Oh,” she said again, and again she rolled her hips and squeezed.
Inflamed, encouraged, he dipped his head to the soft skin of her breasts, tasted and nuzzled, tugged a nipple between his lips.
“Oh,” she said, and did it again.
He withdrew slightly, sank back in, and she welcomed him, and when he thrust an awkward hand between them, she rocked against him, squeezing him, finding her rhythm, taking her pleasure. She knew now what she wanted; she was discovering how to get it.
“Take it,” he murmured in her ear. “Take your pleasure on me. Use me. Have me. Take it all, love, take it. Take me. Take everything you want.”
He pleasured her breasts, gave her his cock, and watched her, awed, like he was viewing a miracle: Her head was thrown back, a flush stained her throat, and then she froze, her eyes widened, and he felt the soft cry build inside her. He captured her orgasm with his mouth as the pleasure shuddered through her and through him and he felt more pleased with himself and the world than he remembered feeling in years.
She reared up, locking strong thighs around him, her hands searing his skin—he could forgive the miles of blasted fabric in their way so long as he felt her hands on his skin—and he took his pleasure, feeling every inch of her with every inch of him, over and over and over, enveloped in her generous heat, in her limbs, in her. In all of her and only her. And when he came, deep inside her, he buried his face in her neck and surrendered to the waves of pure bliss.
Even after he relieved her of his weight, he stayed deep inside her. He had nothing else to do, and nowhere better to be.
His heart still pounded and, yes, hers did too. He felt the cool sheen of sweat over his back where her hands still caressed him, and he was still inside her, softer now, warm and content. Contentment was all he found in his heart, too, when he searched it. He raised his head and looked at her: her eyes closed, lashes dark on her cheeks, the flush mottling her throat, so warm, so beautiful, bathed in daylight.
Daylight.
Gradually, he became aware of other things. Small things. Approximately six miles of fabric was bunched up between them, what with her gown and his shirt, and his buckskins dug into his thighs and his boots—Bloody hell, he