by Sylvia Day
She shook her head. “I would rather wear it.”
“No.” Justin did not intend for the word to come out so harshly, but damn it all, he wanted her naked beneath him. Her skin to his.
Sophie arranged herself like a sensual feast, her lithe body sprawled across the many pillows that piled against his headboard. The last remaining vestige of her attire was so sheer, he could see the shadow of her areolas and the impatient thrust of erect nipples. Between her legs a dark triangle lured him, enticed him. But it was not enough.
“You deny me?” He frowned, hating the material that separated him from his deepest desire.
The fingers of her right hand fidgeted with the lace that framed the neckline. “I am not young. And I have had a child. In this instance, I believe wondering is better than knowing.”
Sophie knew the moment understanding dawned. Fontaine’s eyes widened and he stilled, taking stock before acting, as was his way. She leapt before looking. He looked before leaping. It was one of the many things she appreciated about him.
She watched him move to the bed, eyeing his powerful masculine beauty with hunger and infatuation. He was so lean, yet muscular. Perfect. Everything about him was perfect. And she was so imperfect.
He took a seat on the edge of the bed, and cradled one of her hands within his own. “I am grateful for your beauty,” he murmured. “It arouses and amazes me.” His mouth curved in a slow smile. “But I adored you when you were gangly.”
“I was never gangly!”
“You were.” His smile widened into a grin. “No breasts or hips. Just tall and reed-thin. And I adored you. I adored you with mud on your face and food on your chin and twigs in your hair.”
“I never had food on my chin!”
“You did.” He crawled over her, his knees resting on either side of her hips, his cock right where she wanted it . . . if only he would lower his body six inches or so. “It is you who captivates me, love. Your impulsiveness, your vitality, your lust for life. You have no fear. You see what you desire and grab it with both hands. I admire those qualities about you because I lack them myself. I am overly cautious and sometimes take too long to act, a fault that has cost me dearly.”
Her hand lifted to cover her mouth and hide the trembling of her lips. She knew he referred to losing her to Langley and her heart ached. She made it a point to regret nothing in her life. If she proceeded with an action, it was because she was decided. But she regretted having caused him pain, even though she had done so unwittingly.
“So you see,” he continued, collecting the hem of her chemise and tugging it upward, “while I am thoroughly smitten with your exterior, it is your interior that won my deeper regard.”
Sophie arrested his movements with her hands over his. He met her gaze squarely, his brows lifted in silent challenge. She knew that look well, and it made her smile. She took a moment to marvel over how comfortable she felt with him, as if they had been lovers forever, then said, “Allow me.”
With her heart full, she sat up and pulled her chemise over her head. It was not as easy as she would hope, her insecurity around the marquess a lifetime habit. The change in position put their torsos in close proximity, and she shivered slightly as she felt the heat of his skin. Releasing a deep breath, she settled back against the pillows and lifted her chin.
His gaze was so hot it made her perspire. Her eyes closed as Justin touched her stomach just above her pelvic bone. She did not have to look to know he followed the mark left by her pregnancy. The mattress dipped and swayed as he moved away from her, and her eyes burned at the unbearable intimacy. A moment later she jerked in surprise when his open mouth pressed to the spot, then moved upward, his tongue slipping into her navel. One hair-dusted leg hooked over hers and tugged it aside, opening her thighs to his avid touch.
“Justin!” she gasped, arching as he parted her and stroked her with his fingertips.
His mouth moved to her breast, brushing along the side, kissing the faint marks that marred the under curve. “Christ, you are so beautiful.”
Her arms lifted, embracing him, as he found her nipple and engulfed it, suckling strongly. A callused fingertip circled her clitoris, then dipped lower to slip inside her. She cried out and bowed upward, straining, her body echoing the contractions of his mouth around his plunging finger. Aroused by his praise and gentle ministrations, Sophie felt herself softening, opening, becoming slick with welcome so that every thrust of his hand sounded wetly in the room.
Lifting his head, Justin watched her, giving her no room to hide. His skin was flushed, his eyes fever-bright, his lips parted with harsh, panting breaths.
“I used to imagine you like this,” he confessed in a husky whisper, withdrawing from her depths, only to return with two fingers. Stroking along her inner walls, rubbing, caressing, making her writhe. Her nails dug into his forearms, her nipples peaked hard and painfully tight.
He kissed her, absorbing her cries into the heat of his mouth. “If you open your legs wider,” he whispered, “I can fuck you deeper.”
His crude wording first startled her, then inflamed her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she spread her thighs shamelessly, hungrily accepting the deluge of sensation after the last few years of numbness.
“No, look at me,” he murmured, his throbbing erection a hard pressure against her leg. “Let me watch you.”
Sophie relented, unable and unwilling to deny him, feeling safe with him in a way that made such sharing possible. Her eyes locked onto his, her body quivered against his, her gasps mingled with his, until she cried out. Falling into orgasm with a hot rush of tears. Clinging to his big, hard body with all her strength. Grateful he was with her, just as she had always been grateful when he was at her side.
“Justin,” she whimpered, rubbing her tearstained cheek against his. “Darling Justin.”
He came over her, the ripples of his abdomen glistening in the candlelight, the muscles in his arms flexing as he held his weight aloft. “Put me inside you,” he rasped, his chest heaving as if he had run a great distance.
Touching his lips with the fingertips of one hand, she reached down with the other and positioned him. His breath blew hot against her skin as he rolled his hips and eased into her.
She tensed as he breached her, her lungs seizing as the first thick inches spread her wide.
“Hush,” he murmured, freeing one hand to stroke down her side. Reaching beneath her thigh, he pulled it up, anchoring it on his hip so that the pressure lessened. “You were made to hold me.”
He settled more of his weight on top of her, pinning her down, forcing her to accept his leisurely pace.
Senses that had been dazed by her recent climax, flared to renewed life. “Please,” she begged, squirming. “Please hurry.”
“You never had any patience, love.”
She moaned as he sank deeper. And deeper. So slowly. Taking his time. Finally, with a breathtaking lunge, he filled her to the hilt, his thighs shaking violently against hers.
“Christ, you feel good.” His forehead pressed to hers. “Perfect. No! Don’t move . . . be still . . . allow me a moment . . .”
Near mindless with lust, she rocked her hips restlessly, pushing him deeper into her, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly.
Justin brushed her damp curls away from her forehead. She stilled, staring up at him, arrested by the sight of the deep hunger and longing in his eyes. He made no effort to disguise it. Here, in this moment, Sophie saw inside him such as she never had before, finding the man beneath the collected exterior.
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Please, kiss me.”
“Yes,” he murmured, his lips lowering to hover over hers. “Yes.”
As their open mouths met in a passionate mating, he withdrew from her drenched sex and then slid home, the thick head of his shaft rubbing inside her just as his fingers had. Her kiss grew frantic, her desire near maddening. Her nostrils filled with the scent of his skin and their joint arousal, urging her to actio
n. She pressed her heels into the mattress and lifted to meet his next downward thrust.
He growled when he hit the end of her. “I want this to last.”
“No! Dear God, no.” Sophie grabbed his buttocks and urged him to pump faster. His firm ass clenched within her palms on every downstroke, the feel of him propelling his cock into her so erotic she began to plead softly.
“Whatever you want,” she promised in a rush, desperate to give him pleasure, desperate to break through his iron control. “Anything you want . . . please . . . faster . . .”
Justin pulled back and lunged hard, pounding deep. “Is this what you want?”
“Yes! Yes.” She writhed upward, straining with him, her body moving as a thing separate from her mind, driven by an animal greed that should have shocked her. Instead, she was empowered by it.
Embracing her need for him with all the passion she possessed, Sophie took him as hard as he took her, accepting the fierce driving thrusts of his cock with no restraint. Relishing the sounds of his guttural cries of pleasure.
Then he plunged into the root, swiveling his hips to grind against her. Her neck arched, her eyes flew wide. “Justin?” she gasped, taut as a bow, suspended on the edge of something wonderful.
“Come, Sophie,” he crooned breathlessly, stroking in measured rhythm. “Come, and I will come with you.”
Arms around his neck, she pressed her cheek to his and shivered into orgasm with his name on her lips. As he promised, he followed, holding her, loving her, supporting her.
Just as he always had.
CHAPTER 6
Justin sprawled naked atop the counterpane, one arm tucked behind his head, the other holding Sophie close to his side. The fire in the grate burned low, the tapers extinguished. Her fingers wandered idly across his chest, and her leg was tossed over his. As far as heaven went, he was fairly certain this was it.
“What is your life like with your son?” he asked.
“It’s wonderful.” Her tone held a soft breathy quality of happiness. “Every day is an adventure. You never know when you will find a toad in your bed or a grasshopper loose in your dining room. Some nights there are monsters in the armoire and on others, there are faeries in the air.”
“I would enjoy that, I think.”
He felt her smile against his skin. “You will be a wonderful father, I’m sure. I realize now that it was only my own insecurities that made me feel as if you looked unfavorably upon me. You were merely trying to protect me from myself. I think you will be somewhat of a mother hen, fussing after your progeny and taking great pains to ensure their safety.”
He snorted.
“And that snort,” she commented. “I used to think it was arrogant and dismissive. Now I collect that you make that noise when you are embarrassed by praise.”
“Provoking wench. Is the only way to keep you from teasing me to make love to you? You are much more agreeable then. Tractable even.”
She hugged him tightly. “You are quite good at the business, you know. I did not know that I could . . . feel like that . . .” —she exhaled in a rush—“while you are inside me.”
He looked down at her. “An orgasm?”
“I have had them before,” she amended quickly, lifting her head to look at him. With her face framed in a riot of short, dark curls, and her eyes bright, she looked younger and happier than when she had arrived. Pushing his fingers into her hair, he massaged her scalp, finding deep joy in his right to touch her as he wished.
“But not during intercourse?” He smiled. “I hope you enjoyed it. I intend to repeat the experience as often as possible.”
She sighed forlornly. “I would love to stay, but time draws short. The sun will rise soon.”
He cupped her cheek. “Only hours separate my body from yours.”
Sophie pushed up, baring her curves to his gaze. In the faint orange glow from the banked fire, she looked like a pagan sexual goddess. His cock twitched in appreciation of the view.
“What are you saying?” she asked with a frown.
“I am saying that I will have you again tonight, if not before then. Do not be startled to find yourself in a secluded corner with your skirts around your waist.”
“You said you were leaving!”
Justin arched a brow. “That was before you asked me to bed you.”
She gasped. “I will not be your mistress! I have a child who shares my life.”
“You insult me,” he said, swinging his legs off the edge of the mattress and standing. “I would never ask that of you.” Collecting his black silk robe from the armoire, he shrugged into it, then moved to the grate. “Do you truly believe that I would think you were sufficient for fucking, but not for wedding?”
“I cannot marry you!” she protested.
He blew out his breath and kept his face averted to the fire. It would not do for her to see him wounded. Though it was ridiculous to feel that way, he knew. He had known from the moment he acknowledged what he must do, that she would fight him tooth and nail. “That sounded like a refusal.”
“Oh, do not be daft!” she muttered. “Marriage to me would ruin you.”
“Allow me to worry about that.”
“What is the matter with you?”
He finished stoking the new coals and rose from his crouch. “Sophie—” His voice fell to silence as he faced her. She had pulled on her discarded chemise and knelt on the bed with her hands cupping both knees. He thought her the most glorious creature in the world.
His gaze moved away from the flashing green eyes and came to rest on the Fontaine crest carved into his headboard. Immutable resolution filled him. Sophie was where she belonged and he would fight to keep her with every breath in his body.
“You are a model of respectability,” she continued, warming into a full-blown heated debate, “and an admired member of the aristocracy, and I am an example of how far one can fall from grace.”
Justin crossed the distance between them, caught up her hands, and pulled her from the bed. “Lady Sophie Milton-Riley,” he said with all due seriousness, “would you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
She stomped her foot. “No, no, no, you mad fool. You said there was no way for us to be together that we could both live with, and you were of sound mind then. Obviously sexual congress disturbs your brain functions in some way. You need sleep,” she pronounced. “Once you wake, you will see how insane your proposal is.”
“I love you.”
“Dear God.” She gasped and bent over slightly, as if struck.
“I have always loved you.”
Sophie shook her head violently. “You are mistaking the remnants of orgasm with elevated feelings. You did not feel that way before sex.”
“My love.” He pulled her into his embrace. “We would not have had sex, if I did not intend to marry you. I asked you, quite clearly, if you were prepared to be owned by me. You agreed.”
“That is not what you meant!”
“It was. Kindly remember that you are the impulsive one in this pairing. I am the one who considers all aspects in great detail.”
Sophie pushed at his chest in a bid for freedom and he released her, knowing that she would pace in her agitation. It was quite comforting to know her so well.
“You might grow to love me,” he said, watching her.
“I already love you,” she snapped.
He grinned.
She glared. “But that is the worst of all reasons to wed!”
“I will marry you, sweetheart, so you should accustom yourself to that fate posthaste. I lost you once. I refuse to lose you again.”
“Justin.” She heaved out her frustration, striding back and forth in front of the fire, oblivious to the way the backlighting revealed every inch of her delectable form. “Why must you always be so difficult? I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself for me.”
“Yet you intend to sacrifice our love for me?” He shrugged out of his robe and went to her, tossing
it about her shoulders to keep her warm. “Where is the fairness in that?”
She stopped, her gaze dropping between his legs. He saw her swallow hard. “You would resent me after awhile. Society will never accept me, and that would reflect upon you. I would become a great hindrance. That would be unbearable for a socially active man such as you.”
He lifted her chin so that their gazes met. “Not having you would make me more wretched.”
“You’ve no notion.” Her eyes were luminous with unshed tears. “It is not pleasant to be relegated to the fringes.”
His hands settled on her shoulders, then slid down to her elbows. “Do you trust me?”
“You know I do.”
“Then trust me to manage this.”
“How?”
“I will find a way,” he promised, sliding his hands beneath his robe to circle her waist and lift her off her feet. The feel of their bodies touching made his heart leap and then race madly. His cock swelled between them, and her breathing quickened. The instant, intoxicating, wildly uncontrollable hunger that flared between them was delicious.
To feel so alive, to be loved by the one woman whose affection he had needed for so long, to have the opportunity to correct the greatest error of his life . . . it was all together nearly enough to make him shout with joy.
But the weight of their dilemma hung over them like a dark cloud. They were both highly aware of the imminent thundercrack and the downpour of censure that would follow. The only certainty was this moment, these last hours before dawn.
So he determined to relish them. He stepped toward the bed with his precious Sophie in his arms. She clung to him, her mouth at his throat, kissing and nibbling in a way that drove him to madness.
Laying her on the chocolate velvet counterpane, he followed her down, brushing the edges of the robe aside so that he could cup her breasts. His open mouth lowered, surrounding her nipple through her chemise, his tongue flickering across the tightened peak. He rested on his side, freeing his hand to slide down between her thighs. She opened without reservation, baring her cunt to his reverent caresses. A deep sound of praise rumbled up in his chest, vibrating against her skin as he continued to suck deeply at her breast. He parted her and stroked through the slickness he found, both hers and his. With two fingers he pushed into her, feeling the soft-as-satin walls tighten and release as he pumped in and out.