After finishing, he snuggled her to him but found himself unable to stay awake. He’d wished to talk to her, see for himself if she was really all right. But couldn’t.
He had been wrung dry. The way he’d taken her, soaked in her, had been so extreme, so consuming, that there was nothing left. She plunged him into an absolute haze because she’d held nothing back. She had been with him every step of the way. And he became mesmerised. Everything about her, from her hair and her nakedness to her cries, had enchanted him.
And, damn it! He wanted her again. Why the hell had she vacated his chambers?
A sense of abandon smothered him. Were it any other woman he’d have been relieved to find himself alone. He’d never been the cuddling type. After he got satisfaction, he did not care much for company, chit-chat or anything.
It seemed not to be the case with the little shrew. He was hard for her again but understood she must be sore. He just wished to feel her warmth, hold her, breath in her scent. In other words, enjoy her company.
But the woman proved to be more slippery than a fish.
He adjusted his head on the pillow. Oh, well, he needed to abide by it. Dawn didn’t lay far.
Edwina lay in her bed, staring at the canopy above her head.
She had left his chambers because it was what she thought couples did once they finished their interactions.
During her life, she’d witnessed her parents emerging, each from their own quarters, which proved to be a good thing.
The escape had a reason. She was overwhelmed.
To have Harris bestow his skills on her had been much more than she had expected. He’d drenched her in so much carnal delight she’d be virtually incapable of meeting his eyes next they met.
Dear me! If she knew it’d be this good, she’d have tried it before. Alone, at least. The thought stirred her, eyes flying to the connecting door. The soreness between her legs amounted to a slight discomfort, though nothing deterrent against further activities.
Which put her on alert.
Were she to be honest with herself, she listed another motivation for deciding to return to her own bed. She didn’t want to be too involved with him. The purpose of this should remain at the forefront of her mind. Her late father’s debt and its clearing. Nothing more.
If a mere first time did what it did to her in so many ways, what would it not do if she allowed him to do it repeatedly? She’d certainly be addicted or worse, clingy. Therein lay the crux of the matter. It would be utterly stupid to throw any emotion in this mix. A libertine like him would be prone to tire easily of any woman. Going back to her own life should be her aim. For that, she had to keep her distance.
Certain to have made the right decision, she turned to the side and fell asleep.
Edwina headed for the morning room, relieved that it would take hours before she’d meet Harris in the evening. Since she moved here, she’d not taken breakfast with him. She’d set on a light-blue morning dress with a jewel neckline and long sleeves, one of the few the modiste had made in a discreet fashion.
But apparently, today she would have company for breakfast. For, as she stepped in the threshold, he sat at the table with a cup of coffee and the day’s paper as though he did it every single morning.
Her feet froze as she reproached herself for not staying in her chambers, just in case. Her lungs filled with air before she forced herself to sashay inside, schooling her features to be aloof.
“Good morning.” She wished.
His head lifted from the seemingly engrossing paper. His dark irises swept over her only to rest on hers with undivided focus. Those lips that had taken her to one hell of a sinful paradise stretched in his usual side-smirk. “A wonderful one, I’ll say,” he drawled.
She made a show of filling her plate with toast and jam at the sideboard before sitting on the opposite side from him. As she waited for the footman to serve her tea, her head rummaged for something to converse about but found nothing. The view of him turned her brain to mush. In his impeccable suit, with damp hair and shaved, he gave off the impression of a crisp businessman. Though he didn’t fool her for a second because that stare fairly devoured her, eliciting a completely inappropriate response from her already addled senses.
Addled, sated. And eager for more.
“Late start at the office?” she asked, beating herself up mentally for letting on that she regarded his presence as uncomfortable.
His knowing glance showed she’d not fooled him either. “No. Just indulged in a well-deserved sleep.” His wolfish expression left no room for doubt about what he referred to.
“Indulgence is your middle name, I’d reckon.” She took a sip of tea to moisten her parched throat.
The part of her that proved to be equally indulgent wondered why she hadn’t remained in his chambers. He gave all the signs he’d have rewarded her with more luxuriation. She eradicated the thought before it took root.
“In certain circumstances, it’s well and truly thwarted, wouldn’t you agree?” He took a sip of coffee, his gaze never leaving hers.
A sweet, sweet smile curved her lips, promptly gobbled by his eyes. “Not at all.” Even for her ears, it came prudish. “I’m sure you’ve been sufficiently gratified in your life.”
Her sharp answer made him signal for the footman to leave them and close the door. “You’ll soon learn how much more gratified I can be.” And he sprawled more on his seat, dishing his harsh masculinity for her entire appreciation. Something she fought bitterly not to give in to.
Resolutely, she ripped her eyes from his magnificent form and spread jam over the toast she would struggle to swallow.
A long moment passed before she heard him folding the paper. “I trust you are all right?”
The unexpected concern in his tone caused her to snap her head up to him. The wolfish expression had given way to an attentive one, and his dark eyes fixed on her as he held the paper firmly in his grip.
She’d not pretend to misunderstand what he asked. Not a little surprise invaded her. Though it shouldn’t, seeing the caring way he treated her yesterday during and after everything. She’d felt cherished by his thoughtfulness, and now again.
“Perfectly. Thank you.” She assured him.
Suddenly embarrassed, she turned to look out of the window at the cool early spring morning, presenting him with a view of her profile.
His chair scraped the floor, and her eyes flew back to see him coming in her direction, his brows crumpled. He neared her chair and held her chin up as though inspecting her in a better light. His large hand turned her to the left and then to the right as sensation cascaded through her.
“Did I do this?” He must be referring to the slight scratches his stubble had left on her skin. Over all her skin. She had only seen them this morning while dressing.
There was no other option than to face him directly. “I—yes,” she admitted reluctantly.
“I’ll make sure to shave more often,” he stated, still holding her.
A very inconvenient—and audible—‘no’ escaped her throat, though it came breathy and with a note of disappointment.
His thumb and forefinger held her chin with a tad more firmness as his eyes bore into her. “You mean to say you like it?” The question came gruffly.
If she liked it? Blast, but he transformed her into a river of compliance with it. And delectation. And greediness. Everything she had no place feeling or desiring. Or should be keen on repeating.
He gave her no chance to evade his stare. Steeling herself, she took him on. “Yes.” But the breathiness remained.
The air between them seemed to saturate with a million sparks of lightning flashing and quaking with volatile speed.
The air caught in her lungs as ruddy colour covered his cheekbones, and his stare lit with a raging fire.
“Hell, Edwina!” he cursed even gruffer. “You don’t make it easy on me, do you?”
She didn
’t fully understand what he meant. It was clear that he held some attraction to her. Impossible not to think it when he took her as he did yesterday. But how her admission made it difficult for him, she couldn’t tell.
“You’ll have to explain yourself,” she blurted.
His hand fell to his side, but her head stayed where he left it, mesmerised on him. Long seconds elapsed as his gaze raked her, a rather pained scowl on his rugged features.
“If I explain myself, we’ll be locked in my chambers for at least a month.” The idea of staying locked with him for this whole period took her by assault, intense heat pooling where she wanted him most.
His eyes flared with the flush surfacing on her cheeks.
Abruptly, he pivoted and strode from the room, closing the door behind him none too delicately.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A week later, Harris sat in his office listening to Miller reporting on the new ship that had docked and the cargo it carried.
He didn’t remember a single word of it.
The chit had been acting elusive. Each evening he came home to find her in the library working or reading. She sat there as if nothing extraordinary had taken place. Ever.
Each evening they had dinner together, at which he ordered her to his chamber. Each night he took her with a voracity he didn’t understand. Twice, three times, his hunger seemed endless.
And each morning he awoke to an empty bed. To a feeling of cold abandonment. Like she’d been a fairy evanescing with the light of day, existing only in his imagination. As though she hadn’t wrung him dry of everything he was during the night. As if she hadn’t shaken his world, rattled it to the core, depleted him of his will, his sanity.
It was driving him crazy.
During the stifled dinners they ate together, he tried to probe the reason for her skittishness. But to no avail. Not that she’d been skittish during their nights in bed. Oh, no. She’d responded to him with matching eagerness. Didn’t deny him when he came for more. Nor shy away, nor hold back.
Still, he found loneliness in the morning.
It made him crave something he had no way of putting a name to. As though the more he took, the more he needed. The more he needed, the more he took, but it was never enough.
Take this moment, for example. His head didn’t stay focused on his work. It wandered to her, and when he pulled his attention back, it escaped anew.
It’d been thus for the whole week.
He was becoming weary of this deprivation. At that second, he could only count the hours to dinner, and it wasn’t food he wanted on his plate.
“My lord—”
It was Edwina, always her.
My lord—”
Harris snapped his head to the clerk.
“I asked if you’re going to inspect the ship before it leaves?”
Harris eyed the younger man, then his gaze darted to his fisted hands on the desk, and back to the other man.
Abruptly, he sprang from the seat.
“There’s somewhere I have to be,” he said, grabbing his coat, forgetting about the hat.
Miller stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. But said nothing as he watched Harris brush past, yank the door open and rush out as if the hounds of hell were on his heels.
Darroch had to tamp down the impulse to run to the street as though he’d choke in the enclosed space of the warehouse.
In the street, the chilly morning air greeted him without cooling his flaming blood. He spotted a hackney being hailed by another man. He overtook the man and climbed in first, promising the driver ten times the fare.
The other man yelled at him, but he cared not a wit.
He promised the driver ten times still if he kept a breakneck speed, something impossible in London at that hour of the day.
Without waiting for the vehicle to stop completely at his house, he jumped out and stuffed what must have been a hundred times the fare in the driver’s hand. He climbed the front steps two, no, three at a time.
Hobson opened the door and took his coat.
“Tell the servants to gather in the kitchens and stay there until I say so,” Harris instructed as he strode inside the foyer.
“Yes, my lord,” the butler said to the walls because Harris was already marching to the library, fast and resolute as though he must save it from Hannibal himself.
He shoved open the door. Edwina sat by the fire, weaving her laces, demure dress, a wrap against the chill, and that damned bun.
Prim, proper. Serene. The sight of her unleashed unrestrained famine in him.
The noise caused her to lift her head, her eyes tinged with a slight surprise. “Harris,” the tone also serene. “Has something happened?”
He neared her, took the lace from her limp hands and put it aside. “You happened,” he growled.
The look of pure lust she must have identified in him flushed her cheeks, dilated her eyes. Her lips fell apart, her tongue darting out to moisten them. The view of her arousal nearly splintered his control.
He bent down and hauled her up. Her skirts billowed around him as he strode to the stairs, her wrap falling by the door.
“W-what are you doing?” Affronted, the woman had the temerity of sounding offended.
“The obvious,” he stated, taking the stairs two at a time. At this rate, he’d be able to race with the horses in Ascot.
“The servants—” The motion obligated her to lace her arms around his neck as she looked at him with what seemed like a mixture of awe and longing.
“Confined to the kitchen.” With an elbow, he pulled his chambers open.
“Oh,” she answered faintly.
He kicked the door shut. “Yes, oh.”
Effortlessly, he placed her on the bed and came over her, at once scattering her pins. A hand rucked her skirts up to make her cradle him between stockinged legs.
An arm held her by the waist, as his mouth plundered hers. Pliant in his arms, she took his tongue, bent her knees, all willing woman. The perfume of jasmine and lemongrass acted directly on his groins, worsening his already urgent state.
Harris dragged his mouth down her neck, nibbling on the jumping vein on the junction of her shoulder while she moaned and sighed. He went back to her lips, did it all over again. And yet again. Eagerly, he yanked her dress down to feast on her breasts. Her spine arched, her arms holding him tight.
He couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t think clearly. His head boggled; his heart thundered. He was out of his mind with want.
One of his hands slid down her bodice and snuck inside the slit on her drawers, his fingers fairly swam into her folds. Her arousal drove him to Hades.
“I couldn’t wait,” he rumbled. “Scratch that. If I waited, I’d die!”
His fingers massaged her swollen clit. Perhaps she was on the edge too for she climaxed in seconds.
His hunger was so intense that his hand trembled on the flap of his breeches. He had not enough patience to undo the six buttons, so he tore at those, plucking them and making them fly everywhere.
Baring his rock-hard erection, he fumbled with a French letter. He barely positioned himself at her entrance before he plunged inside her to the hilt. His head fell back with a grunt of relief laced with despair. In and out, he moved mindlessly, out of control.
He took her greedily, ravened everywhere he reached with his hands and mouth. With see-sawing breath, his mouth wandered over her skin as his arms trembled under the strain to contain himself.
Her body clutched his, her arms and legs clung to him as he pressed deeper and deeper. The pleasure of taking her laced with the agony of craving everything. Blistering and erratic, he lunged.
His hips clashed with hers, sweat dripping from his brow. His jaw buried in her neck, he inhaled her scent, listened to her moans, damned her wriggling; howled every imprecation under the sun. He was darkness and hollowness and thirst. She was his light, his fulfilment, his oasis
.
Still, he lunged, his world funnelled in this, in her. The heat surrounding his flesh and her body surrounding his drove him to boiling point. Her hair spread on the pillow, her head thrown back, her face covered in pleasure pushed him to the extreme.
He lunged one more time, and she screamed, clenching around him hot and wet, driving him to a special kind of hell.
Like a lost soul, he sought the finish line, the completion. Avid, he drove his possession to the ultimate consequence. He wanted everything, all of her, total surrender. When it came, it blew him apart, split his guts, exploded his conscience. He poured his seed, his essence, his culmination with a howling sound he’d never emitted before. A blend of victory and defeat, satiation and ruin. The elation of taking her clanged with the failure of resisting this madness. This wasn’t him. He didn’t know who he was anymore.
He fell on her limp and drained. As always, she sheltered him.
But he couldn’t stay, couldn’t allow it to happen again so soon. He had no doubt he’d start over in less time than it took to say her name.
She’d take him without giving in to him. As always.
She’d vanish at the first opportunity, put distance between them, leave him cold and alone.
And that got him incensed. Which afforded him enough strength to go away from her.
He left the bed, his hair dishevelled, his shirt wrinkled and his breeches torn, he couldn’t resist a glance at Edwina. Lying on the rumpled sheets with tangled hair, bare breasts, rucked skirts, and half-undone stockings, she was the very portrait of a proper miss; properly ravished and sated. Harris nearly faltered and dived in for a repeat.
Damn it all; she’d become a fever in his blood! With the last shred of strength, he turned his back.
In the dressing room, he cleaned himself and changed his damaged breeches.
When he came back to his chamber, she sat on the bed, straightening herself. Apparently aloof and indifferent, she seemed not to see what she’d just done to him. What he’d just done to himself because he was incapable of staying away from her.
Her Wicked LibertineEDIT Page 10