So gently that it was a caress in itself, she slid her arms down, trailing her hands across his cheeks. The exquisite tenderness made his gut twist, and he buried his face in her hair with a groan. It took him a few lost moments to realize she rucked her chemise higher.
“I want to do this right,” he choked out in halfhearted protest.
The wench laughed. At him, the presumptuous baggage.
The sound vibrated through him like a low note from a cello. “Oh, you’ll do it right.”
No trace remained of the lost, frantic, angry woman who had threatened to desert him. He rejoiced in the return of her spirit. He didn’t want to defeat her. He wanted her to come to him as his equal. In everything.
Her throaty voice made hot blood swirl in his veins. Her chemise was above her thighs now although her drawers still formed a filmy barrier between him and where he thirsted to be.
The air was heavy with female musk. She was more than ready for him. With suddenly ruthless hands, he gripped her slender waist and swung her around so she faced the bedpost.
“Hold on hard.”
She grabbed the column, anchoring herself. She bent over so her rump tilted at a wanton angle. The transparent black chemise slowly slid back around her hips.
Roughly, he tore at the fastenings of his trousers. His rod sprang free, hard and demanding. With unsteady hands, he shoved her shift aside so he could rip her drawers off. He growled through the sound of shredding silk.
Enchanted, he paused, staring at the taut pale globes of her buttocks. She was beautiful everywhere. He needed an eternity to worship her as she deserved.
He bent to place a fervent kiss in the center of each perfect cheek. This close, her arousal was headier than wine.
“Hurry, Erith.” She quivered with need.
He nipped at one buttock and saw how even that much sensation made her quake. She was very close to crisis. If he wanted, he could make her come through touch alone.
But he was too selfish for that. He wanted to be inside her. He wanted to know she was completely his.
He loved her. He needed to prove that to her in the most primal way.
She might refuse to recognize that his every touch was a declaration of love. But that didn’t change the truth of his feelings. His hands were tender as he bent her toward the mattress. The beast within exulted at taking her like lion mating with lioness, or stallion with mare.
“Spread your legs,” he said in a raw voice.
To his joy, she opened before him like a rose. She was wet and swollen and ripe for his taking. He clasped her hips and tipped her toward him.
Slowly, almost reverently, he pushed forward. A moment’s luscious resistance then the head entered her. Her muscles clenched to draw him deeper. But he fought the alluring pull.
She moaned and pressed back. He inched deeper and she clasped him more tightly. Lightning sizzled through his veins. His heart pounded with furious excitement. Incendiary heat blasted him.
He moved gradually, feeling each tiny adjustment she made to take him. She was so wet and hot that the urge to thrust was nigh unbearable. His fingers flexed on her hips. His head throbbed with the strain of control. His cock felt harder than a brass cudgel.
Still he held himself back. Kept his penetration slow.
“Julian…” His name was forced from her throat. Her breath emerged in erratic sobs. She jerked back, taking more of him. “Don’t tease me.”
He slid one arm around her waist to change the angle of her stance. He surrounded her completely. Above, below, inside.
“Now,” he groaned.
“Now.” The sound ended on a low keen as he pushed fully into the moist, mysterious depths.
Against his forearm, her belly quivered. Her interior muscles relaxed and tensed in a tantalizing rhythm that set off fiery sparks behind his eyes. He struggled for breath, his lungs heaving.
She ground her hips, taking him even deeper. Another groan escaped him and he leaned over her, pressing his chest to her back, wanting this sublime joining to last forever. He pressed a hard kiss to her shoulder.
“Julian,” she sighed. His name fell from her lips as naturally as a thrush sang in the sweet spring.
The sound shattered any restraint. He drew out, relishing the cling of her inner passage, and thrust back to the hilt. She juddered under the force and he tightened his grip. The cheeks of her buttocks were taut against his belly.
“Yes,” she whispered, straining back as if she couldn’t get enough of him. “Again.”
He withdrew and plunged, feeling her brace for his thrust. He felt how he stretched her, shaping her to him. He closed his eyes and let vibrant, velvet darkness flood his mind.
She circled her hips, changing the pressure, the angle, the feeling.
Oh, yes.
He began to work in and out. Filling his ears with her panting sighs and whimpers, giving her no quarter. He knew she wanted none.
Her climax approached on a quivering wave. She trembled on the brink. But she wasn’t there yet. He beat back the overwhelming urge to lose himself. The effort set his jaw so hard, it almost cracked.
Last night he’d made her come once. Tonight, he intended to sate her completely.
He pulled out almost completely, luxuriating in her long moan. Then as he jerked forward, he ruthlessly lowered one hand to touch her hard between the legs.
With a guttural cry, she dissolved into ecstasy. Her spasms squeezed him, milked him, possessed him. Her back bowed until her shoulders butted his chest. Battling for restraint, even through the tempestuous heights of her passion, he rode out the clenching contractions.
Demons tortured him with hot pincers, devils gyrated in his gut, but still he held back. He fought with blind stubbornness, tensing his muscles until they ached.
Tonight, he would give her everything.
This was for her. This was the gift of his love.
She seemed to shudder forever. Her husky cries and ragged breathing tortured him, made him frantic to unleash himself. Her body closed hard on his, searing him with desire.
Just before he crossed the line to madness, just before he reached the final limits of will, her quaking fury ebbed.
He felt her body change, soften. She became boneless in his arms, sagging like a silk banner on a windless day. Her breath rattled in her lungs as she fought for air. Her pleasure had been volcanic.
Exhausted, he cradled her against his chest and buried his face in the warm thickness of her hair, which tumbled from its formal style. His hand slid to her waist to hold her through the fading tremors.
“Julian,” she said again.
He’d never tire of the sound of her voice saying his name.
“My darling.” He brushed aside her hair and placed a tender kiss on her nape.
She was damp with perspiration. He breathed deeply, savoring her satisfaction. The sweetest scent in the world.
Aftershocks still vibrated through her. The clenching teased mercilessly at his control. He beat back the urge to move, to bring himself to completion.
“I never knew,” she said on a sobbing gasp.
She stole his heart anew when she reached down to lace her fingers through his where he held her. The touch conveyed a tenderness her unbridled passion hadn’t revealed. The touch told him she felt more at this moment than animal satiation.
As did he. By God, he adored her. Words of love choked in his throat. Although before the night was over, he’d make her listen, damn it.
He felt her stir from her daze of replete exhaustion. “Julian, you didn’t…”
“Come?”
How delightful that she was a little shy. He smiled into the damp tendrils of hair that clung to her neck and tangled in the ruby collar.
“You’re smiling.” The hand that rested upon his started a gentle stroking that harmonized perfectly with the way her passage caressed his hard length.
“How do you know?”
“I hear it in your voice. It
’s nice.” She sounded sleepy. After that cataclysmic climax, he wasn’t surprised.
He adjusted the angle of his hips to settle more deeply. He desperately wanted to move and possess. He would soon. But for the moment, he couldn’t bear to shatter this precious intimacy. There had been times tonight when he’d wondered if he would ever hold her again. He intended to savor every instant of this hard-won closeness.
One of her hands still curled around the bedpost. “I like having you inside me.”
“I like being inside you.” He tensed and thrust very softly. She quivered in helpless response.
He closed his eyes and held her. Basking in her swift, overwhelming reaction. Her sensitivity to every touch astonished him.
“Stand up and I’ll undress you.”
She shifted without protest. Each movement changed her body’s pressure around his. He closed his eyes and prayed for strength. In the darkness behind his eyeballs, wild lights flashed as he struggled against giving himself to her the way she’d just given herself to him.
Before she straightened completely, he withdrew. She smothered a whimper.
Perhaps he’d been too rough. He was a big man. Long and thick. And he hadn’t been considerate. He’d been too hungry for her.
He curved his arms around her shoulders and nuzzled the tender flesh below her ear. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” Her breath caught as he scraped his teeth across her skin. Then with more emphasis, “No.”
“I wasn’t kind.”
She reached up and curled her hands around his wrists. “I won’t break.”
He felt her inhale, and she rubbed her head against his upper arm. The gesture’s natural affection made his yearning heart falter.
“Your passion is exciting,” she said. “You have no idea how desirable it makes me feel.”
“Every man desires you.”
“They desire the courtesan. You desire me.” She shook her head and her hair brushed softly across his forearms.
Reluctantly he drew away, and she gave a soft mew of disappointment. He began to pluck at the strings on her corset, black silk embroidered with trailing red roses. His hands were all thumbs. No wonder. Every drop of blood in his body drained to one organ.
“Damn this infernal garment. Do you care if I tear it?”
“It’s very pretty and it cost you a fortune.” Her voice bubbled with amusement.
He loved her when she teased him. He loved her when she was serious.
Oh, hell, he just loved her.
“I’ll buy you another one.” With a sudden savage movement, he grabbed the sides and tore the corset. Her gasp chimed with the rending of the material.
“Stand still,” he whispered. The chemise was pretty too, embroidered to match the corset.
“I can just take it off.” Her voice was unsteady with a mixture of laughter and shock.
“Why stop when I’m ahead?”
He hooked his hand into the back of the chemise and ripped down hard. The silk was so fine, it split with a whisper, to reveal the smooth line of her back down to her lissome waist.
“Why indeed?” she said with a touch of irony, and shrugged the ruined garment from her body.
“You are indeed a glory to behold,” he murmured, running his hands down her spine. Her skin was warm and satiny under his touch.
When he turned her to face him, she placed her palms flat on his chest. He rested his hands on hers, mimicking the way she’d taken his hand when they bent over the bed.
He looked down at her body. The perfect jut of her breasts, the long line of torso, the flat stomach, the sinuous hips. The tawny curls that hid the treasure of her sex.
Between them, his cock rose hard and insistent. She slid one hand down to encircle his engorged organ. Fire blazed through him, blinding him. He shuddered and pressed into her hand.
She kissed him, sucking his lower lip into her mouth and nipping softly. Her hold tightened as she opened her mouth over his. He shook as he fought the excess of pleasure.
He dragged his mouth from hers but only far enough to place a flurry of glancing kisses across cheek and nose and chin. He wanted to devour her. He wanted to make her part of him eternally.
“Get on the bed,” he said hoarsely.
“Still giving out orders?” Her fingers continued their devilish dance on his hot flesh.
“You love it.” He grabbed her by the waist and swung her onto the sheets. She landed with a bounce that made her breasts jiggle
“I might not mind it.” Her voice was breathless with laughter, surprise, and excitement. “Occasionally. Once in a blue moon. Just to keep you quiet.”
He laughed and knelt over her. “No, you love it.”
You love me.
With every moment, he became surer of that. She might never say the words but each action was eloquent of her feelings.
“You’re such a conceited devil.”
He nudged his way between her parted legs. She linked her arms around his neck in ready welcome. How could she ever have believed herself cold? She burned like an eternal fire.
He forced words through his pounding arousal. “Next time I do this, I’m going to take my time. Show you why I’m the toast of Vienna.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Her taunt ended on a moan as he slid into her with one powerful thrust.
Lifting himself on his elbows, he stared down into her face. Her head tilted back and her lips parted as she fought for breath. Her eyes fluttered shut and moisture sheened her brow and cheeks.
She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
He shifted his hips, pressing deep, seeking the sweetest place. She moaned again, lost in a dark world of desire.
He set the rhythm, each time testing the limits. Each time testing her bliss. Her pattern of sighs told him when he found what he wanted.
“Look at me, Olivia,” he said gruffly.
She opened her eyes and focused on his face. Her pupils were huge, almost swallowing the rich topaz. Her lashes were damp and tangled with tears. No trace of the teasing coquette remained. Instead he felt like he looked into her soul.
The earth-shattering honesty of what he felt for her shook him to the core. She was his true match. She was meant for him. She would be his forever. His body claimed her eternally.
“Don’t hold back this time,” she whispered. “I want you completely.”
“I wanted to pleasure you all night,” he said roughly as he withdrew and returned, withdrew and returned. “I wanted to show you everything.”
“Just show me you want me.” She lifted her knees to cradle him between her thighs.
“I want you, Olivia,” he said on one last mighty thrust. He couldn’t dam the surge of his seed. Just as he couldn’t dam the fatal words any longer. “I love you.”
The ragged declaration faded into a deep groan as he released his essence into her womb. White light dazzled him and the thunder in his ears overwhelmed all other sound. The stark truth of what he felt for her flung him beyond time and place.
Her fingernails scored his back as she attained her own peak. Her body tightened, draining him of every last drop of love. Even when he finished, her passage clenched around him as if she couldn’t bear the radiant communion to end.
Exhausted, he collapsed, burying his head in her shoulder. Struggling for breath. Struggling to return to a world that had changed utterly in the last seconds.
“I love you, Olivia,” he repeated in a shaking voice.
“And I love you, Julian.”
Even through the wild tumult in his blood, he couldn’t mistake the bitter, despairing defeat in her voice.
Chapter 24
It was early evening when Olivia returned from her weekly visit to Leo. Spring had finally arrived, and she mounted the steps to the York Street house in daylight.
Two weeks had passed since that extraordinary night of anguish, conflict, and ecstasy when she and Julian had confessed their love. Two wee
ks of reveling in a passion beyond her wildest imaginings. Two weeks of relinquishing her battle to hide what the earl meant to her. Two weeks of fatalistically recognizing she was helpless to stop him breaking her heart.
On a deep river of sexual satisfaction, she floated unresisting to her destruction. A woman like her couldn’t fall in love. A woman like her couldn’t leave herself vulnerable the way she was vulnerable to Julian. Those were the inescapable lessons of a courtesan’s existence.
This brittle happiness would exact its price. But dear God, not yet, not yet.
The very fragility of her poignant rapture only made her treasure each shining moment more. Every day strengthened a reckless determination to seize what joy she could.
She knew his plan to take her to Vienna hadn’t altered. The argument about that was postponed, not forgotten. While she believed he did indeed love her for now, old betrayals made her chary of committing her future so completely to a man. Any man.
Even Julian.
How on earth could she go with him? Her life was here. Leo was here. She didn’t want to trail the Earl of Erith around the Continent, her only role that of complacent mistress. She didn’t want an existence of waiting for her lover to come home from a world where he belonged but she had no place.
She lifted her chin with a gesture of scornful defiance. The future could go to the Devil. She refused to worry about tomorrow until it howled outside for her blood. She’d rather think about Julian making love to her last night, slowly, tenderly, with breathtaking skill. No wonder the ladies in Vienna and Paris and Constantinople had sighed after him. She was inclined to sigh after him herself.
When she entered the house she’d always think of as her private paradise, the butler approached with a troubled expression. “You have a visitor, madam.”
“Who is it, Latham?” She removed her pelisse, gloves, and bonnet and checked her hair in the hallway mirror. The day was blustery and she looked windswept after her long walk across the fields with Leo.
“A young lady. She wouldn’t give her name.”
Surprise made her pause. Young ladies didn’t call on a notorious courtesan. She gathered from his serious demeanor that Latham used the word advisedly.
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