Her whole body ached with need. He had her so excited, she would have done anything.
“I want your cock.” Her voice was breathy. “I want it inside me.”
He drew his finger from her slickness and took himself in hand, positioning the smooth, broad crown of his erection at her entrance. “This is what you want?”
“Yes.”
He put his hands on the arms of the chair. “Then take it.”
She sank down on him, a little lower each time, taking his hard fullness into her in delicious increments until her lap rested on his.
“Now look.” He turned her head toward the dressing table. “Look what you did.”
Their reflection filled the looking glass. His big, bronzed hands gripping her pale flesh. The gentle bounce of her breasts as she rode him in a lazy rhythm. The haze of desire in his expression.
“God, you’re beautiful.”
His hands sank to her waist, and he guided her into a swifter pace, driving up with his hips to fill her. She slumped forward and buried her face in his neck, surrendering to it all. The feel of his hard length dragging in and out of her, teasing her most sensitive places again and again . . .
The pleasure rose and gathered so swiftly, her climax caught her before she knew it. She went limp in his arms, sobbing faintly with pleasure, trusting him to keep up the rhythm she needed.
And he did.
When the last tremors had subsided, he tightened his arms around her, stroking her hair.
“That didn’t go as I planned,” she said, when she’d finally recovered her breath. “I was supposed to be giving you wicked pleasure.”
“Oh, you did. You most certainly did.”
He brought her mouth to his, and it was like their first kiss in the tower—a tender, languorous sweetness spread atop a chasm of need.
She marveled at his patience. He was still so big and hard inside her. He had to be desperate for release.
Bending her head, she kissed his neck. She stroked her fingers over his shoulders and through the dark hairs on his chest. He began to move inside her again. Thrusting slowly. Tenderly.
So deeply, she could feel it in her heart.
His arm tightened around her waist, and his thrusts grew harder, more desperate. Until each one wrenched a sob from her and a harsh, guttural sound from him.
Closing his eyes, he let his brow fall against hers. His thrusts redoubled in force. They clashed against one another—cheek against jaw, teeth against chin. Raw, openmouthed kiss against kiss.
Then his hand tightened in her hair, and he broke the kiss, pulling her just a few inches away. He held her so tightly, forbidding her to look anywhere else. She had no choice to but to stare into his eyes.
“Look,” he said. “Look what you did.”
Those bold green eyes held hunger and yearning and stark, unabashed want.
And something more.
Something that could only be love.
“I know,” she said. “I know. It will be all right.”
He seemed to swell inside her. One . . . two . . . three final, desperate thrusts. Then with a growl, he shuddered and slumped forward in her arms.
As his breathing slowed, she drew soothing touches up and down his back and murmured soft, crooning words in his ear. It seemed the act left him so spent and vulnerable, he would allow himself to be fawned over—and she took full advantage.
“That was . . .” He released his breath, then seemed to give up on the sentence entirely.
“It was, rather.” She looked up at him. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Rafe hired a postchaise to convey Clio home. He rode out on his gelding. He might have shared the coach with her, but he had his reasons for riding alone. For one, he knew she had to be sore from their night of passion. Two hours with her in a small, dark space? He wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her.
Second, he needed the time to think.
There was much to be done. Once he had Clio settled in at the castle, he needed to set things in motion with the solicitors. He would ride to Dover and wait for Piers. It wasn’t going to be a seaside holiday, greeting his brother with the news that his bride was no longer his bride. But Rafe didn’t want the news to come from anyone else.
In the meantime, there were other hurdles to clear. Such as his reckoning with Sir Teddy Cambourne.
Upon their arrival at Twill Castle, however, it seemed his reckoning would be delayed.
“How surprising,” Clio said, after conferring with Anna and changing into a simpler frock. “We’ve beaten them home. They must have stayed very late at the ball. Or very early.”
“Perhaps they didn’t want to travel in the rain.”
“So long as they’re safe and well, that’s a lucky stroke.” They entered the castle’s entrance hall, and she spoke to him in low tones. “As far as everyone at the ball knows, you brought me home to the castle last night. And as far as everyone at the castle knows, we stayed at Pennington Hall. We might not need to explain ourselves to anyone. Not until Piers comes home.”
“I’m not waiting for Piers to come home.” Rafe explained his intention to go to Dover.
“To Dover?” she asked. “But I’m the one who’s going to speak with him. We practiced the other night.”
“Things have changed. My signature is on those papers, and he deserves an explanation from me.”
“But I spent the whole ride home planning out my speech. And I had the best idea.”
She led him down a side corridor and into a room that seemed to be her office. The shelves were lined with household ledgers and books. On the wall were pinned a survey of all the surrounding lands and various architectural sketches.
She said, “Sit in that armchair, if you will. Behind the desk. Be Piers again.”
Bemused, he did as she asked. “I’m sitting in the armchair. What now?”
“I have the rough sketches for the oast and the brewhouse, of course.” She reached for a ledger. “I’ve done the tabulations of what it will cost to convert the local fields to hops. But before we get to those specifics, there’s this.”
If her intent was to make him understand, she did the worst possible thing. She placed two books on the desk blotter, side by side. One bound in blue; the other in red.
He peered at the titles. His sense of foreboding didn’t improve. “Cookery books?”
“Humor me for a moment. You’ll see.” She opened the first—a faded blue volume—to the listing of contents. “This is my mother’s cookery book, purchased when she was first married.” Then she opened the second one to the same page. “This is the new edition I received on my eighteenth birthday. If you scan the two side by side, they are much the same—but not identical. Can you find the difference?”