The Untouchable Earl

by Amy Sandas

  He did not tighten it, sensing just the suggestion of the binding would be enough. Looking down into her flushed face, he asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  There was no hesitation in her answer. No hint of alarm. Her gray eyes met his boldly as she waited with parted lips for whatever might come next.

  He continually underestimated her.

  He held her gaze as he trailed his fingers along the sensitive skin of her inner arm. He covered one of her breasts, loving its weighty fullness and the press of its hardened peak against his palm.

  Her eyes closed, and she arched her back, pressing herself more fully into his hand. He knew her breasts were sensitive, and he wanted nothing more than to ease her silent yearning.

  Curving his spine, he lowered his head and drew the exposed nipple of her other breast harshly into his mouth, allowing his teeth to scrape the peak.

  The sound of her desperate moan stopped his breath for several seconds. Not interested in giving her quarter, he sucked hard while molding the other soft globe with his fingers. Her gasps and moans grew more fitful with each sweep of his tongue. But it was when he hollowed his cheeks to pull her deep into his mouth that she began to circle her hips beneath him.

  Her passion was intoxicating, and Avenell needed to keep a clear head.

  Planting his hands on the bed and straightening his arms, he put a necessary distance between her hot skin and his.

  She opened her eyes to look up at him with a low sound of protest. Her desire swirled like a storm in her gaze. The vulnerability and strength revealed in her eyes reached into his gut and squeezed the breath from him.

  “Tell me what you feel,” he demanded. “Right now, in this moment.”

  Her arms flexed as she pulled against the rope around her wrists, stopping just shy of loosening the restraint. She licked her lips, and her gaze fell to travel hotly over his bared chest and abdomen. And then lower to where his painful erection jutted fiercely from the shadow of his groin.

  His entire body tensed when her attention seemed to lock on that part of his body.

  “I am on fire from the inside out,” she whispered in a husky tone. “I feel desperate and frantic. As though I am fighting for my life.” She brought her gaze back to his face. “And only you have the power to save me.”

  She arched her body, lifting her breasts and rolling her hips. “Please, my lord. Kiss me,” she sighed in a quiet demand.

  Kiss her? He wanted to consume her.

  In that breathless moment, her gaze seemed to contain all the mysteries of life and death. Mysteries he wanted desperately to explore…until he acknowledged with an intense stab of regret that a woman like Lily would not reveal the depths of her heart unless she could expect reciprocation in kind.

  Avenell would never know the beautiful secrets she kept. But he could know this.

  The sigh she breathed as he lowered his head toward hers.

  The silken texture and lush softness of her lips beneath his.

  The sweetness of her tongue, the sharp edge of her teeth.

  The way he so quickly and easily lost himself in the languid exploration of her mouth.

  She arched more deeply toward him. The peaks of her breasts pressed into his chest. He tensed at the rise in sensations but did not pull away. The kiss took priority over all else.

  Her tongue played fiercely against his, and her teeth scraped along his lower lip, demanding more of him. Her body melted as her moans and sweet whimpers fanned the fire burning hot inside him. She strained beneath him, arching deeper, pressing harder toward him.

  It was the deepest pleasure.

  And the harshest pain.

  He reached between them to slide his hand between her legs. Her outer folds were slick with her need as he caressed her. She moaned into his mouth. He responded by dipping two fingers into her silken passage. He stroked inside her while thrusting his tongue past her lips, desperate to taste every gasp of pleasure.

  Her response was perfection. Uninhibited, passionate, and pure.

  She tangled her tongue with his and drew him deeper into her mouth until he began to wonder who was possessing whom.

  He burned for her, inside and out.

  Lowering his mouth again to her plump breast, he swirled his tongue over her distended nipple while she writhed and gasped her rising pleasure. Her legs trembled as she rolled her hips urgently against his hand. Her body grew taut. She made a gorgeous sound in the back of her throat before her breath caught and her head pressed back into the pillow.

  Her surrender was evident in her gasping breath and fluttering eyelashes. But most poignantly of all, he felt it in the first pulses deep inside her body.

  Releasing her breast, he slid down to lower his head between her lovely thighs. As he continued to move his fingers, he covered her with his mouth, suckling her sensitive flesh.

  Her body stiffened with a strangled moan as her climax overtook her completely.

  Once she began to relax, Avenell pushed himself away from her to sit back on his heels. His chest was tight, and his body still surged with need. He pressed his hands on the top of his thighs as he consumed the sight of her—languid and weak and distracted by her receding pleasure.

  He had never seen anything more beautiful.

  Until she opened her eyes and the stunning light in her gaze speared him like a dagger.

  “Come to me.”

  Three small words, but when issued from her lovely lips, they nearly decimated him.

  He was already feeling far too much. But the intensity of the sensations across his skin could not compete with the depth of craving that stretched inside him.

  Aching and harder than he had ever been, Avenell rose up and carefully lowered his hips between her spread thighs until he pressed intimately to the entrance of her body, which still pulsed subtly with her release. His breath hissed out between clenched teeth.

  Propping himself on his elbows, he looked down into her heavy-lidded eyes. The depth and intensity of her climax was evident in her gaze, and for a second, Avenell believed he could feel the pulse of her pleasure in his own body.

  His chest tight and skin on fire, he pressed forward. Entering her by slow, torturous degrees. Her softness and heat caressed him. Her silvery gaze beseeched him and bewitched him.

  She bent her knees, bringing them up alongside his hips, drawing him in.

  The muscles of his arms, shoulders, and back were tight with the effort to keep his upper body apart from hers as he propped himself on his bent arms. He did not want any pain to distract from the pleasure that spread like fire through his body. He trembled from head to toe, and he knew it was not all from his determination to go slow when he wanted nothing more than to take possession of her with one reckless plunge. It was wonder tainted with fear that challenged his composure.

  There was so much heat. So much tenderness in the way her body accepted his. Encompassing, consuming, drawing on his final reserves. It was a sensation unlike anything he could have imagined.

  Finally, he could take no more. Tensing his buttocks, he gave one long thrust and drove deeply into her core. His jaw clenched, and a guttural moan caught in his throat. He nearly closed his eyes in an instinctive urge to contain the fierce rush of pleasure, but he could not look away from Lily’s face.

  The tip of her tongue pressed delicately against the top row of her parted teeth as she gasped for breath.

  It was the only reaction she gave to the rending of her maidenhead.

  While he felt as though he had trespassed into nirvana. Being inside her, fully encased in her warmth, was more powerful a feeling than he had expected. It was possession and surrender at once.

  Each ragged breath he drew as he remained still and focused on managing the overwhelming stimulation only made his body crave more. As stunning and intima
te as it was to feel so connected with Lily, there was an undeniable force within him, demanding he take them both to the limit of what they could endure.

  He knew he should wait, allow her body to adjust to his intrusion, but he couldn’t. He had been reduced to nothing but a primitive urge to finally, finally explore the bone-deep pleasure of being joined with this woman.

  And it was pleasure, he realized in awe. Full, encompassing, undeniable pleasure.

  The flashes of pain across his affected nerves were not nearly enough to distract from the beauty of everything else he felt.

  He held her gaze—or she held his—as he slowly began to guide himself in and out of her body.

  They discovered the wonder of it together as every movement sent rippling waves of sensation on top of sensation expanding outward from where they were joined.

  Her passion was stunning as she moved with him, taking him deeper and deeper with each thrust.

  Being inside her with the taste of her still on his tongue was an experience he never wanted to end. He measured each stroke, trying to prolong every nerve-screaming sensation. He fought to contain it and control it even as the temptation to submit rose higher and higher.

  Avenell’s chest squeezed painfully as he fought off his approach to the edge.

  There would only ever be this one first time that he made love to Lily. If he could, he would make it last forever—the consuming fire, the overwhelming sensations that lit every nerve and flowed unheeded through his bloodstream, obliterating fear and pain. The sense of being joined with her in a way he had never wanted with anyone else.

  She belonged to him.

  It was an undeniable truth.

  And in that moment, he acknowledged another truth—he belonged to her as well.

  Staring into her face, he was enraptured by the pink flush on her cheeks and the glistening moisture on her lips. As he watched, a tiny frown line appeared between her eyebrows, and a lovely tension began to claim her features.

  He intentionally slowed his pace, and after a few more languorous thrusts, she broke eye contact. A soft sound caught in the back of her throat as she arched. Clenching her lower lip in her teeth, she clutched at the velvet rope overhead.

  His every sense focused in on her as he thrust as far as he could go, wishing he had the power to touch her soul.

  Her inner muscles tightened around him, and she gasped his name.

  Not my lord.

  Avenell.

  It was too much. The hot, tight pulse of her body around him as she achieved another climax. The heady sound of her stuttered breath. The scent of his perfume on her damp skin. The sound of his name on her lips.

  Avenell shook from deep within. His climax was coming before he was ready. Before he had a chance to stop it. Before he could withdraw from her tight sheath. He achieved release in a hot rush, his shoulders and neck muscles cording tight.

  It was intense and swift. Decimating his reserve. Eradicating fear and pain.

  Twenty-three

  Lily slowly uncurled her fingers from their fierce grip on the velvet binding her wrists. They ached from how tightly she had been clutching at the rope. In truth, everything ached. Her arms, her legs, the muscles along her spine all the way up to her skull. Even her jaw ached a little bit.

  And deep inside…

  There was a tenderness that was beautiful and raw and perfect.

  She felt sated, yes, but so much more than that—she felt awakened. As though she had finally discovered some secret treasure.

  She gave a subtle stretch, loving the changes she felt in her body.

  Her movement disturbed the man on top of her. Though his hips still pressed intimately between her thighs, his upper body was levered away from her as he held himself on his elbows. His head hung heavily between wide shoulders covered in a sheen of sweat, and his breath fanned over her damp skin.

  Feeling oddly shy after the depth of what they had shared, Lily kept her eyes closed. She was not sure she could keep everything she was feeling from reflecting in her gaze, and she was not ready to reveal so much.

  He shifted, reaching up to unwind the rope and release her wrists. Lily bent her elbows, relaxing her reach, but she did not feel a need to bring her arms down just yet. She had known the binding had not been tight enough to hold her if she had wanted to be freed, but there had been something terribly exciting in submitting to the restraint.

  The earl lifted away from between her spread thighs and lowered himself to lay beside her. He no longer touched her physically, but she could still feel him—his breath, his heartbeat, his heat—as though he had become a permanent part of her.

  And she felt the languid relaxation slowly ebb away from his body as tension returned.

  “Are you hurt?” The sound of his low murmur was like the shadows flickering around them—warm and dark, secret and sensual.

  “No,” she answered simply.

  How could she express the soul-deep tenderness she felt, the aching vulnerability, the steady, searing need that still ran through her blood?

  Finally, she opened her eyes to look at him. He lay on his side, propped up on an elbow as he observed her. The candles had burned low, and his face was heavily distorted by shadow, but what she saw gave her a pang of concern. She wondered at his rigid expression. Tension rode high in his frame. His brows remained heavy over his midnight gaze. And his lips, which had been both so demanding and generous on her body, were drawn into a stern line.

  Before she could consider what it might indicate, he shifted and rose from the bed in a swift and fluid motion.

  Lily’s disappointment weighed her down for a long moment as she listened to him moving about the room. She heard the water in the basin as he washed himself and then his footsteps as he returned to the bed.

  His movements were adept and gentle as he used a damp cloth to wash away what had been left behind by their lovemaking. Lily shivered when he walked away again, though it was not from any chill touching her skin.

  He was avoiding her gaze.

  No matter how much she wished to remain in the euphoric aftermath of what she had experienced, the lovely haze was sliding away. She pushed herself to a seated position and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her hair fell about her shoulders in a tangled mess. The pins had been lost somewhere in the bedcovers.

  Pushing her hair back over her shoulders, she looked up to see the earl standing at the washstand. He was turned away from her, and his hands were braced on the surface. He wore his breeches, but they rested low on his narrow hips. Lily’s attention was captured by the sight of his muscled back, his broad shoulders, and the strong bulge of muscle in his arms. Her gaze slid down over his firm buttocks and solid thighs, wishing they had not already been covered. She had gotten only a shadowed glimpse at the part of him that had been inside her body, but as she recalled that image, her mouth went a little dry, and her stomach quivered delightfully.

  It was astounding that she could still feel such a sensual pull after the pleasure she had just experienced. She suspected that pull would always be there.

  She was no longer a virgin. They had become lovers in truth, and this time, he had claimed his release as well. She had felt the sudden tautness of his body over hers, had felt him pulsing deep inside her.

  It had been a moment of pure elation. Infinite rightness.

  Yet now that it had passed, she felt him once again retreating from her, closing himself off.

  His confession earlier rang through her mind. It had been his first time, as well.

  Alarm trickled through her. Perhaps it had not been as…wondrous for him.

  The thought that she may have disappointed him filled her with dismay.

  Rising from the bed, she gathered her courage. She could not allow this weight and distance to remain between them. Not after the depth of connecti
on she had felt. Her steps were silent on the thick carpet as she walked toward him.

  Her trepidation grew the closer she got. There was a subtle harshness to his measured breath. The tautness of the muscles running along either side of his spine and the stiffness of his arms as he held on to the edge of the washstand revealed his physical distress.

  Lily’s chest squeezed tight. He had told her once that pain would be inevitable.

  She could feel him hurting as certainly as her own heart ached.

  * * *

  Avenell did not realize she had left the bed until he felt her presence directly behind him. His back and his chin came up sharply as a familiar dread washed through him.

  His gaze found hers in the long, oval mirror above the washstand. She stood just beyond his shoulder, her dove-gray eyes looking at his reflection with undisguised concern. Her nude body made a beautiful contrast to the shadows surrounding them.

  “My lord?” she asked softly. The kindness in her voice increased his panic. He was terrified of what she might be seeing in his reflection. “Did you…did you not experience pleasure?”

  Deep inside, he still shook with the aftermath of the most intense climax of his life. Being with Lily—being inside her—had shattered him to pieces. The pure, unadulterated sensations had broken every bond of control he possessed and had left him like this. Trembling and too weak to manage the fire crackling across his skin.

  “More than I ever thought possible.”

  “But now?” she asked.

  He could not answer. His throat had closed up, and his tongue was stiff against his teeth.

  While deep in the throes of passion, the sexual need within him had overtaken all else. But with his mindfulness returning, all he felt was the pain.

  He hadn’t felt so at the mercy of his affliction since he had been a confused and frightened child in the hands of people with no tenderness and even less empathy.

  Frozen in place, unable to speak, he watched as she lifted her hand, as though she intended to place her slender fingers against his back.