One Summer of Surrender

by Jess Michaels

  He lowered the dress around her hips and she shimmied, shuffling it past the gentle swell until it fell in a circle around her feet. Of course she wore nothing beneath. Just as she’d worn nothing beneath every single time he’d come to her here.

  He was glad of it. That meant there was more time to look at her in all her beauty. To worship rather than unwrap the gift that was her touch and her taste and her feel.

  He pressed his fingers into her hair, combing away the pins that held it in place, letting long, thick locks of reddish gold fall all around them like a curtain. Her hair smelled like lemons and jasmine and he sucked in that scent to hold it inside of him.

  He guided her backward until her thighs hit the high bed. He lifted her onto the edge and they were face to face again. He cupped her cheeks, smoothing his thumbs along the contours, and kissed her once more. She tasted like sweet honey and sharp liquor, she tasted like the thing he craved most.

  And he wanted to taste her everywhere tonight.

  He drew away from her mouth and gently placed his hands on her shoulders to push her onto her back. She went without argument, resting back on the bed with a sigh like she hadn’t been able to find peace like this for a long time.

  Neither had he. He climbed up beside her, turning her until her head rested on the pillows. She stared up at him, waiting, silent, surrendering.

  He pressed a kiss to her lips and she lifted her hands to his hair, sliding the edges of her fingernails against his scalp, angling his head for a deeper kiss that seemed to go on forever.

  He finally managed to slide away, dragging his mouth along her chin, her throat, her shoulder. She shivered in response, whispering out an incoherent sound of pleasure. That little sound rocked through him, setting him on fire as much as her touch or her taste did. It awoke something in him he hadn’t allowed to live for a long time.

  The desire to give to her, entirely and completely. And though he knew he was a fool, though he knew nothing could change in the long term due to their history, tonight he would surrender to that desire.

  Surrender to her.

  He moved his lips over the swell of her breast and she gasped as he stroked his tongue over one nipple. It hardened beneath the touch, rising to meet him like she would when he entered her body. He sucked there, feeling her shift beneath him, reaching for and trying to escape intense pleasure as she tugged at his hair with ragged, helpless cries.

  He smiled against her skin and moved his attention to the other nipple, repeating the pull and tug, the slide of wet against hard until she was gasping for breath.

  He moved lower then, rubbing his cheek against her smooth, flat stomach, holding her hips steady while he sucked a path lower and lower. She lifted toward him, offering herself out of instinct, but he ignored the ultimate goal of her slick sex and instead glided lower, pulling at her stocking with his teeth, rolling it away with his hands.

  He repeated the action on the other leg and now she was truly naked, truly his. She sat up on her elbows to watch him, her gaze fully focused and fully aware of the power of this moment, just as he was.

  He never looked away as he slid his hands back up her legs. He never looked away as he pressed against her thighs and she opened to him with a shudder. He never looked away even as he slid his fingers up the inside of her leg and finally touched the sweet hidden jewel of her pussy.

  Only when he felt the slick wetness there did he allow himself to look down at the apex of her legs. She opened them a little wider, unashamed of his attention, welcoming it as she would welcome him.

  And he was ready to take her. Eager. Only not yet. First, he wanted something else. He leaned down, settling between her legs, spreading her open with both hands. She shivered, whispering his name, her hands gripping the coverlet near her hips.

  He ignored her begging. He ignored everything except for the sweet treat before him. Finally, he leaned in and darted his tongue out to taste her, and she let out a cry that certainly echoed in the room, likely echoed in the hall. A cry that made his cock jolt beneath his trousers.

  A cry that signaled it was only the beginning of this night. And he couldn’t wait to do more to make that sound escape her lips again.

  Chapter Ten

  Elise gasped, searching for air and finding none as Lucien settled his hot mouth against her trembling sex. She couldn’t believe he was doing this, touching her like this, loving her like this. No one had ever done it before.

  And yet now it felt like this was what she’d been waiting for her entire life. This feeling of sharp pleasure, this intense sensation of being loved rather than being merely claimed.

  It was amazing, and she cried out helplessly as he stroked his rough tongue along the entire length of her weeping slit. The sensation was incredible, focused and powerful, sharp and so pleasurable that she began to tremble almost immediately.

  He took his time, holding her open with one hand while he licked and licked, leaving no part of her safe from his attentions. She found her hips moving to greet him, grinding against him to strengthen the already intensely powerful pleasure building in her.

  He smiled against her skin, looking up at her as he claimed her and the power of their gazes meeting made the experience even more intense.

  He began to focus his wicked tongue more and more on her clitoris. His licks there becoming harder, his attentions lasting longer, and finally he began to suck her gently, then harder. As he did so, he slid one finger into her sheath, curling it slowly.

  Concentrated sensation rushed through her veins, her bones, her every fiber, and she twisted her head against the pillows, lost to the throbbing need that coursed through her trembling body. And then, with an expert combination of mouth and fingers, he thrust her over the edge.

  She had never experienced pleasure like this. The waves were deep and never ending, jolts that kept coming and coming so long as he suckled at her twitching body. And it went on and on, until she felt lost, until she felt found all over again.

  Finally, he stroked his tongue over her one last time and withdrew his finger gently. She found her breath at last just as he pushed from the bed. She watched him, dazed, as he stripped out of his clothing in front of the firelight. He was smiling at her as he did it, clearly enjoying the results of his earlier handiwork.

  She reached for him and he let her catch his hand. He moved forward, taking his place back on the bed. Only this time he covered her with his body, settling between her legs, his arms braced on the coverlet as he looked down at her.

  He said nothing, but nothing needed to be said. She saw everything in his eyes. Everything she had loved about him, everything she had lost. She saw the future she’d once planned with him, the one that had been shattered all those years ago by impossible circumstances out of her control.

  She reached for him, touching his cheek, his shoulders, smoothing her hands along his warm flesh as if to prove this all wasn’t some dream. If it was, she wanted to stay in it forever.

  Even if she knew that wasn’t possible.

  His expression shifted, as if he read some version of her thoughts. His lips drew down into a frown and he leaned in to kiss her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him, and gasped as he slid his cock deep inside her in one long thrust.

  He held still for a moment, just kissing her, like he wanted to really feel her body, feel this moment. She did the same, flexing around his hardness, curling her fingers against the planes of muscle on his back. This moment, if nothing else, was hers.

  She would remember it for the rest of her days.

  He began to move then, slow thrusts that began to rebuild the fire he had created with his mouth earlier. He drew back from her as he did so, watching her as he took her.

  She lifted to meet him, grinding against his pelvis, taking all the pleasure she could from him. He shuddered, making a low sound in his throat that was better than any pretty words he might have concocted.

 
He also shifted, rolling onto his back so that she was on top of him. She sat up, adjusting herself onto her knees. Now she had the power and it was amazing to feel that way. Especially considering how much taking Stenfax had done since their reunion. Oh, she’d loved it, but now this was her pleasure, her taking.

  She wasn’t going to waste it. She reached down and grabbed his hands, pressing them back against the pillows, tangling her fingers in hers. She rolled her hips over his, watching how his face twitched with pleasure. The same pleasure echoed in her body.

  She wanted to make this last all night. Something screamed at her to draw it out, but it was difficult when her body reached for pleasure and found it in spades. Her thrusts grew faster as she neared release a second time and then she was falling over the edge again. She worked her spasming body over his, hard and fast, crying out with release and relief that she couldn’t control.

  His neck strained as she did so, and once again he flipped her over onto her back. He moved against her with hard, heavy thrusts that only served to draw out her own pleasure even more. Finally, his face twisted, his breath grew harsh and he cried out her name and pulled away from her. The proof of his release splashed across the sheets and her stomach as he came.

  As his breathing slowed, he looked down at he and she saw the moment his feelings changed. There was a slow tension that entered his face as he looked at her. A wall that came down between them.

  And it tore into her. Earlier in the night, she had confessed her pain and he’d comforted her. More than that, he’d made love to her, really made love to her. She’d had a tiny hope that maybe that meant something.

  But she could see now that it didn’t.

  “Let me get you a handkerchief,” he said, speaking to her like she was nothing but an acquaintance who had sneezed.

  She sat up as he got off the bed and swept up his trousers. He put them on before he caught his waistcoat and pulled a folded square from the pocket. He held it out and she stared at it.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want it.”

  He wrinkled his brow. “Don’t you want to clean yourself up?”

  She let out a broken laugh. “I’m not dirty, Lucien. I have no need for it. I’m a woman who just shared something wonderful with her lover. I feel no need to wipe away the evidence, nor to pretend this night away. Not like you.”

  He turned his face, breaking off their connection once more. “Elise.”

  She pursed her lips at the exasperation in his voice. There was no arguing with it. They were stuck in this loop, it seemed. He despised her but couldn’t resist her. He would take her and yet never allow these moments to soften his heart.

  Meanwhile, every single moment they shared tattooed his name on her very soul.

  She gathered the coverlet and flopped it over herself for some kind of protection. “You got what you came for, Stenfax,” she said softly. “Of course you’ll go. The easier to forget you’ve sunk so low.”

  He let out a low, pained sound and she jerked her face toward him to find that he had dropped the waistcoat back at his feet and was just staring at her.

  “Is that what you think?” he said. “That I come here, I fuck you and I go home without a thought for you?”

  She shrugged. “It’s hard to think that isn’t true based on what I’ve experienced.”

  He moved toward her a long step, his hands shaking at his sides, his eyes flashing with emotion. “You know nothing, Elise. Not a damn thing.”

  “Then explain it to me,” she barked, sliding to the edge of the bed, the covers wrapped around her. “Explain it. God, just say anything that means something.”

  “I don’t leave here and forget you,” he growled. “I have tried so very hard to do just that over the years, but it never works. For three years, I have woken up with one thought in my head. Do you know what that thought is?”

  She shook her head wordlessly, for she was honestly afraid to say anything for fear her voice would make him truncate his confession.

  “Elise is gone,” he said softly, almost tenderly. “I wake up every morning with that thought in my head. I go to bed each night with the same fucking thought echoing so loudly that it almost blocks out every other thing. I eat my breakfast, Elise is gone. I go to my club, Elise is gone. I try so bloody hard to move on, but Elise is gone.”

  She sucked in a hard, harsh breath not just at his words, but at the crumpled pain on his face when he said them. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “I’ve tried everything I could think of to dismiss you from my mind, Elise. I even tried to seek out a marriage.”

  She flinched. “Yes, I know.”

  God, how that had burned her to the ground when she heard Stenfax was engaged to be married again. She’d even gone so far as to find out where the lady in question—Celia Fitzgilbert—lived, just to see her. And she’d hated her, briefly, for being so pretty.

  But then the engagement had ended, right around the time Elise’s own husband had died and it was like all the lights in the world had been lit at once.

  “Do you want to know why my engagement to Celia ended?” he asked.

  “I-I heard it was because Gray fell in love with her sister. That you two stepped aside so that they could wed.”

  He sighed, a sound of pure exhaustion with it all. “Gray did fall in love with Rosalinde. But that’s not why. Celia and I ended our engagement because there was no feeling between us. She wasn’t willing to sacrifice a future with love and I wasn’t going to make her. She recently married someone she does love, so I am happy I let her go.”

  “And you?” she whispered.

  He laughed, but it was empty. “Me? Well, I took a great deal of time to analyze that subject after the end of the engagement. And I’ve come to realize that there is no feeling left in me, Elise. You took it all when you left.”

  She pushed to her feet, now dragging just the sheet behind her. “No, you can’t mean that.”

  He nodded. “But I do. I have no love left. I have no capacity for the kind that a wife desires and requires. I have nothing left because Elise is gone.”

  A sound cracked through the air and she realized with a start that it was her own moan of anguish at his words. The depth of his pain was so deep and so dark, and she had caused it. She had ripped his heart out and hadn’t even known she’d been carrying it with her all this time. How she hated herself for that.

  But it also gave her a tiny sense of…hope. If Lucien had been so broken by her, did it mean she could repair him as well? Repair them? After all, he kept coming to her despite these hard and harsh feelings. He kept wanting her despite his better judgment.

  Didn’t that count for something?

  She reached for him. He didn’t back away as she gently placed a hand on his heart.

  “Couldn’t we…” She drew a long breath. It took so much to say this, to ask it. “Couldn’t we start over?”

  He went almost impossibly still for what felt like forever. He stared at her, his dark gaze filled with such heartbreak that it was physically painful. Then he reached up and took the hand that rested on his chest. He threaded his fingers through hers and held it, gently.

  “Elise,” he whispered. “You are temptation embodied and not just because of what we share in bed. But I can’t trust you. I don’t know that I ever could again, no matter what you said or did to try to prove to me that I could.”

  She bit back a cry. There it was. The final nail in her hopes and in her heart. If this man didn’t trust her, couldn’t trust her, then none of the rest mattered.

  And yes, she could explain herself. But what she had said to Vivien earlier in the night now felt truer than ever. Her words would be meaningless. She couldn’t change what had happened, nor take away the pain this man had experienced in the interim because of her.

  If she told him the truth, it would be as some kind of absolution for herself. It wouldn’t make him trust her, it would only hu
rt him and others even more.

  To confess would be a selfish act.

  “I understand,” she whispered when she could find her voice, find her words, find a way not to break down when she spoke.

  He let go of her hand and instead reached out to cup her cheek. His fingers caressed her skin far more gently than she deserved considering what he’d just told her.

  “We can’t do this anymore, can we?” he asked.

  She bit back a sob. “No. No, I think it hurts us both too much.”

  He leaned in, his mouth a breath from hers. “Then we must make tonight special. A better goodbye than our last one.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, tears escaping no matter how she fought them. Then she opened them and looked at him. “Yes,” she whispered, and cupped his face to draw him to her lips.

  He kissed her, gently, sweetly, as he backed her toward the bed once more. And as they fell together, she pushed away all her pain, all her awareness that this night had now transformed into a goodbye. She would have plenty of time later to deal with that reality. For now she just wanted to have this last moment with him.

  This last moment with the man she loved more than anything in this world.

  Chapter Eleven

  “The Marquess and Marchioness of Folworth to see you, my lord.”

  Stenfax lifted his head from the line of figures he had been staring at, unseeing, for several hours to find his butler Xavier at the door. He shook his head.

  “Of course. Show them to the parlor.”

  The servant bowed and backed from the room, leaving Stenfax to collect himself. And collect himself he would have to do. It had been three days since he last saw Elise and he hadn’t been sleeping, he’d hardly eaten.

  How had he survived three years like this? He could hardly remember.