Chapter Thirteen #2
She was able to feel exactly how aroused he was in that moment. “I was leery of falling for another military man, but when I saw you the night of that ball, I knew our futures would be intertwined.”
“How?” Shock went through his expression.
“Sometimes a woman just knows these things.” As she smiled up at him, when he did the same, Emma lost another piece of her heart to him.
“It was instant for me on that dance floor, Thornton. In that moment, I was certain there could never be anyone else for me, and then when you proposed, I assumed you’d felt the same. ”
“I did. You’ve had me at sixes and sevens since.” He cleared his throat as confusion went though his expression. “Yet it’s also terrifying.”
“I know. For me as well, but we’ll meet all the challenges. Surely you can understand that?”
Little by little, he brought them to a halt until their feet barely moved and they ceased going round in tight circles.
“I do, at least I’d like to believe that.
” As impossible as it was, he held her even closer.
“What of Galahad? Will you go back to London and take up with him?” That little twinge of vulnerability in his face had her protective instincts flaring.
“Of course not. I have you, and I hope we have ironed out some of the wrinkles between us.” With a shrug, she gave him what she hoped was an encouraging grin.
Worry reflected in his fact. “But he’s perfect. Even I can’t deny that.”
“Perhaps, except for one way.”
“Oh?” One of his blond eyebrows lifted in curiosity.
She nodded. “He’s not you. Galahad might be wonderful for some women, but not for me. I require a man with more… depth let’s say.”
Enlightenment shone on his face, and it made him look years younger. “You have no idea how that makes me feel.”
A shiver of need went down her spine. “Show me.”
“God, Emma, how could I have been such an idiot to ever leave you?” Then he claimed her lips with his, set out to apparently kiss her senseless. Of course she didn’t mind, for there was nowhere she’d rather be than in his arms.
“You are here now. We are here now. There’s no reason why we can’t make up for lost time.” Especially after that coupling they shared the night before.
“Damn straight.” Despite vulnerability showing in his expression, Cecil gripped her hips and propelled her over the floor to one of the sets of double French-paned glass doors, just as he had the other day. “Cecil?” A tiny note of alarm entered her voice.
“When we are together like this, I am in control of your pleasure. You should have learned by now not to question my proclivities.”
“I haven’t, but they do take me by surprise, and the servants…” The heat of embarrassment went through her cheeks.
With a growl, he glanced over his shoulder to presumably address them all at the same time.
“If you don’t want to watch me fuck the duchess, you should leave, but if you do, that is your prerogative.
” Then he urged her arms above her head and pressed them to the wall, holding her there with one large hand.
“Do not remove your hands from that wall else I will immediately stop my teasing.”
Then when he wrenched her bodice down, the sound of retreating footsteps betrayed the fact that the servants fled the room. “This is so embarrassing.”
“That is part of what makes this act more exciting.” He caressed a hand down her spine, and once at the curve of her buttocks, he slapped one of the full cheeks.
A surprised squeak came from her. The fingers of one hand clenched on the glass. “Why…? You have never done that before.” Confusion threaded through the inquiry, but he was ever a surprise.
“Trying to enhance our sexual play.” After relieving her of her clothing so quickly it made her head spin, he quickly shucked out of his breeches while she stood, unmoving, at the glass door.
“Are you certain you don’t wish to retire to your suite?” Though she tolerated his need for exhibitionism, she’d rather keep this part of their wedded life private.
“Quite.” He came behind her once more, glided his palms up and down her sides, and then as he cupped her breasts, he watched their reflection in the dark glass, as did she, for it was an overcast day. “I want every room in this damned manor to have a memory of us together, so you won’t forget.”
“How could I?” A soft sigh from her while he gently squeezed and massaged her breasts. Oh, but she wanted to turn about and caress him but she didn’t dare.
Cecil teased her taut nipples, rolled and twisted them with various degrees of pressure until she squirmed against him, her hips rocking into his engorged length.
“As much as I wish to draw this out, I don’t know how long I’ll last, for you are quite delicious in this naked state and waiting for me,” he whispered then pressed a line of kisses to her spine while continuing to work her over.
“I adore how enthusiastic you are,” she panted, and the fingers of one hand curled on the glass. “Yet being on display like this is something I need to have more courage for.”
“I can help with that… just as you help me with my demons.”
Hers were hardly demons, but Emma understood what he tried to say. “Do you think you’ll keep your clothes on through the whole of our ball?” At the back of her mind, she hoped he didn’t, for he was quite skilled in carnal things, and she’d been without him for nearly two years.
“Time will tell.” Cecil gave her nipples a quick, gentle pinch, and her thoughts reordered.
“Rogue.” When she wriggled her hips, he hissed out a warning. “Let me touch you. I’ve yet to have me fill of you on my terms.”
“Later. Remember, hands on that glass, duchess.” Then he dropped to his knees behind her. After encouraging her legs apart, he set out to caress his fingers over her skin.
“Oh, God.” Gooseflesh chased after his touch, and she trembled every time he drew his fingers up the inside of her thighs.
He’d left her garters and stockings on; perhaps it fed something deep down inside him, but it didn’t matter.
As he continued his work, he pressed a kiss to the base of her spine, dragged his lips over the curve of her arse, went as far as to nip her buttock and chuckled when she squealed.
Then he bent her at the waist with her rear thrust outward. “Should I put my mouth on that puckered, dark hole? Give you another layer of pleasure?”
“What?” She jerked, for he’d never done that before.
“Another time, perhaps.” Instead, Cecil glided two fingertips through her sensitive flesh to worry the hidden pearl out of hiding.
“Ooh…” Any other words she would have said were lost to a half-sigh half-moan.
“Mmmhmm. Someone is quite aroused.” When he stood, he slung one arm over her hips to fondle her breast, and as he did so, he caressed that delicate skin between her thighs.
“Cecil, please…” Her words were breathless, rushed, and each time he thrust those two fingers into her, she instinctively pushed back to receive his intrusion.
It was quite intimate and oddly satisfying.
“Please. I need more.” A shiver wracked her person.
She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him. “I only want you.”
“You are quite the managing baggage, did you know that?” he whispered as he grabbed her hips, widened her stance a bit more with a knee, fit the tip of his member to her opening. “I adore that.” With a growl mixed with a groan, he thrust into her, penetrating her until he was fully sheathed.
And she was nearly flying in the heavens. “Merciful heavens. How can I want you so much?” The question was borne on the wings of a moan, and Emma wriggled her hips to better receive him.
“Because we are still well-matched.”
“Thank you for saying it out loud.” A flutter went through her soul.
Yes, there was something erotic and wild joining with him in this way, but there was also a quiet intimacy there that bonded them further.
She watched as he moved in and out of her body in the glass door’s reflection, and she shivered.
This was raw and real and true, just like him.
I love him still.
Faster his pistoned his hips, deeper he drove into her, harder his fingers gripped her hips and would no doubt leave marks in her skin. His marks, signs of his possession. And she shivered again, for she wanted that too.
“You are mine, Emma.” Then he snaked a hand around her hips, furrowed the fingers through her damp curls to find the swollen nubbin at her center once more. “You belong to me and no one else.”
“I know.”
“Say it. I need to hear it.” Emotion graveled his voice.
“Ah!” She squirmed in his hold. “Yes, yes, yes! I’m yours, always.
” When her arse brushed against his erect shaft, his moan blended with hers, and still he rubbed and circled that button.
“Cecil, send me flying!” In defiance of his orders, Emma removed a hand from the glass, pressed it against his and guided him to where she wanted him the most, and together, they worried and teased and played until her body shook and she went taut in his hold.
A keening cry sounded, wrenched from her throat as she threw back her head, as he kept his hand at her center while her body shook.
“Fuck me, you’re beautiful when you spend.
” Cecil slid his hand more comfortably between her thighs, cupped her sex, and while he continued to worry her nubbin with the pad of his thumb, he plunged two fingers into her passage.
Immediately, her walls contracted around him as he worked those digits in and out, rubbed them against a specific place that would send her into the seventh heaven of delight, which she’d only been taught by him.
“I cannot survive….”
“Please don’t leave me.” Why he’d admitted that, he had no idea, but there it was.
This time, she ripped the cravat from about her head and as she threw it down, she found his gaze in the dim light.
“I have no intentions of that, but only if you promise me the same.”
“I do, for I can deny you nothing.”
When Cecil rubbed his thumb on that nubbin, it was the beginning of the end.
She shattered again, this time with violent spasms, and screamed out her enjoyment.
Then she faltered as if her knees refused to support her weight.
He caught her when she would have slumped to the floor.
“Emma…” Quickly, he turned her about in his arms, hefted her upward, pressed her back against the window glass, and with a grunt, he claimed her mouth with his in a kiss that would forever sear him onto her consciousness.
“I can never forget you; you are my duchess, and I will remember you through every dark nightmare so that I can come home to you.”
“You are so sweet.” Not knowing what else to do, she held his head between her hands and kissed him back with matching enthusiasm.
All too soon, that one meeting of mouths became frantic and frenzied, as if they were both searching for something in each other, as if they both wished to become one.
The glide of his hands over her body, leaving nowhere untouched, had her drowning in hot desire and something much stronger.
Something that would never fade. Did he feel it too?
“I can’t hold back now.” Cecil tightened his hands on her thighs, lifted her, and then moved her over to a nearby stout worktable that would eventually be laden with refreshments at the ball.
When he set her arse on the edge, she stared up at him, falling into the blue pools of his eyes.
While holding her gaze, he tugged on her ankles until her hips balanced on the edge.
In that moment, something was exchanged between them, something foreign yet comfortable and exciting, and she knew with an infallible certainty there was no going back.
“Ah, Emma.” Splaying her thighs wide, he thrust inside her body and groaned. As he leaned over her, pushing her legs close to her chest, she clutched at his forearms and held on. Her muscles squeezed around his shaft.
“Finish me, Thornton. Give me all of you, all that you’ve denied me for so long.”
“Damn.” Over and over and over again, he stroked into her like a man possessed, went impossibly deep thanks to her precarious position.
Sweat trickled down his face at his temples.
It dampened a few curls at her forehead.
With every thrust, the worktable scooted over the floor, but it didn’t seem to bother him.
“Oh, yes…” Emma plucked at one of her nipples, rolled it, and when he fondled that hidden nubbin as he joined with her, she broke.
More to the point, she shattered and went flying indeed.
The fluttering contractions racking her core sucked him under, ushered him into his own release, and seeing that moment of real emotion in his eyes was beyond everything.
Then she was gone, flying, twirling, going tip over tail until she collapsed onto her back on that table.
Barely aware that he’d finished or that he’d scooped her into his arms, she opened her eyes, didn’t even voice a protest as he carried her out of the room, leaving their clothing behind. That was just the sort of man he was.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed.” A soft grin played about his sensual mouth as he loped through the corridors toward the grand staircase.
“Why? We have both already spent.”
“There are other things to do in a bed than enjoy sex. Not many, but some.” Then he winked, and another piece of her heart went into his keeping. “Can I help it if I wish to lie with you in the afterglow?”
“But—”
“No arguing, duchess. If you want all of me, you’ll follow me through every mood.”
As if that was a hardship. With a sigh, Emma held onto his broad shoulders and let him have his way. This is what she’d missed while he’d been here and she in London. He might be broken, but he was hers, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.