“Simms.”
She moaned, lost in pleasure.
“Simms,” he said again.
Her eyes opened, drowsy and heavy-lidded as she looked down at him.
“How long has it been since you last made love?”
She bit her lip. “Twenty minutes?”
“Right. Same for me. Give or take thirty seconds.”
Laughing, she braced her hands on his chest. “Why do you ask?”
“Because the first time was shockingly good.” He guided her up and down again. “But this . . . this is extraordinary. Even better. I’m trying to understand. It can’t merely be the long drought, can it?”
“Do you always talk this much while making love?”
He shook his head. “No. That’s different, too. Everything is different with you.”
Tighter, sleeker, hotter, wetter, sweeter. Not dreamlike or perfect, just more real. And so damn good, he feared hurting them both in that mad, frantic race to the end.
He struggled to a sitting position. It wasn’t enough to watch. He wanted to feel her br**sts’ softness and heat caressing his bare chest. Cushioning the mad beat of his heart.
He wanted to kiss her as he made love to her.
He brought her close, guiding her legs over his hips and locking her ankles at the small of his back.
With one arm wrapped tight about her waist, he guided her in a brisk rhythm. He worked the other hand between them and pressed his thumb to her pearl, working the nub in small, tight circles until she seized and shuddered in his arms.
And he didn’t stop. There would be no laziness with her, no half measures. This woman was going to get his best. He kept up the same attentions, kissing her neck and murmuring words of praise against her ear until she reached another, more devastating peak.
“Oh,” she whimpered in the aftermath, clinging to his neck. “Oh, Griff. Oh, God.”
Her words made him feel like a god. Or at least a demigod. A pagan, rutting, immortal being of pleasure.
He would have tried to bring her to a third crisis, but the clasping heat of her sex had pulled him too close to the edge. He lifted her off his cock, and she reached between them to encircle his erection with her small, delicate hand.
“Like this,” he said, demonstrating.
She followed his lead. “This?”
“Ah. Yes.”
Her grip was gentle, but strong. Her thumb rubbed perfectly along the sensitive underside of his shaft, and with each tug, his crown grazed the silky slope of her belly. He threw his head back in surrender, clutching at the twisted sheets. Within moments she had him gasping, growling—and spilling over her fingers in hot, forceful jets.
She smiled, looking very pleased with herself.
He was pleased with her, too. So damned pleased, there seemed no room for any other emotion in his heart. In his life.
And it couldn’t last. It couldn’t last.
God, he didn’t know how he’d ever let her go.
So he kissed her instead, wrapping his arms about her torso to haul her close. Using their closeness to conceal his weakness.
After lazy, lovely minutes of deep, languid kissing, she sighed against his lips. “I should leave.”
“No.” He gripped her tight. “No, no, no. Not yet.”
“I can’t risk falling asleep. You know I must go to my room. We can’t be found here together. The servants . . .”
He shook his head. “The servants are servants. Who cares what they think?”
She pulled back and blinked at him.
He winced. “I beg you. Pretend I didn’t say that. Or at least pretend you didn’t hear it.”
“Never mind.” Moving off his lap, she reached for her discarded chemise. After untangling the shift, she slipped it over her head and pushed her arms through the cap sleeves. “I don’t want to quarrel.”
“Well, that’s a new development.” He tugged at his ear.
“I just don’t want to waste what we have.”
“What is it we have?”
She held his gaze. “A few days,” she said quietly. “And a few more nights together. That’s assuming we’re not discovered tonight.”
He would have liked to argue the point, but in the end he couldn’t. “I’ll see you back to your bedchamber.”
“No, stay. Rest.” She pushed him back against the bed with a hand to his shoulder and a firm kiss to his brow. “I won’t get lost in the corridors this time.”
She gathered her discarded gown and stockings into a bundle, then made her way toward the side door—the one that opened onto his dressing room.
“Are these rooms all connected?” she asked. “If I slip from one to the next, I won’t have to travel so much of the corridor. I’ll be much less likely to be seen.”
He nodded, suddenly drowsy. She’d sapped him of everything. “Yes, they’re connected.”
She plucked a candlestick from the night table, then headed through the dressing room.
He lay back, listening. He heard her opening the door that led from the dressing room to his personal sitting room. From there, she could slip out into the corridor or cross into—
Oh, Christ.
“Wait.” He launched from the bed, stumbling into his trousers in pursuit. As he dashed through the dressing room, he snagged a fresh shirt from a hook. “Wait, Pauline. Don’t—”
Too late.
“I didn’t mean to,” she said, standing in the center of the room.
The room.
“I’m sorry. I truly didn’t mean to invade your . . .” She swallowed hard. “ . . . your privacy.”
He rubbed his neck with one hand. No getting around it now. He’d have to face this at last. He was seized by the terrible lightness of inevitability. The sense of just having jumped off a cliff.
“Did you paint all these?” she asked, holding the candlestick aloft. “They’re, uh . . . they’re lovely.”
“No, I didn’t paint them.”
“Oh. Good. I mean, not that there’s something wrong with a grown man painting a room with rainbows and ponies. They are quite nice rainbows and ponies.”
“Do you truly think so?” He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.
“Oh. Yes. How could I not? They’re . . . why, on this wall they’re frolicking, aren’t they? Just look at them, frolicking and—” She swallowed hard. “—prancing.”
Good Lord. She was utterly flummoxed, trying to find some way not to give offense. For no particular reason, she was valiantly striving to spare his feelings. Making a hash of it, but the thought was sweet.