Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Valerie tried to remember how to breathe as she searched Adrian’s stony face, struggling to read the feeling behind the gleam of his eyes.
Does he mean to punish me? For what? What is so… troublesome about me kneeling?
She cleared her throat, where the tragedy of his story had formed a lump. “For once, Your Grace, allow someone to take care of you,” she said, gently caressing his hand. “I am prepared to accept the risk of offering you comfort.”
Even if he sent her away, she would not go. After all he had done for her, she owed him kindness at the very least.
He deserved kindness, considering all he had endured.
Not so long ago, she had wondered what could possess someone to remove themselves from society altogether—for a decade no less—but now she understood.
Who would want to face society, or anyone, again if they had been so tormented all their lives?
Who would want to give up their peace, after all that?
“You have misunderstood,” Adrian said, his voice a low, stirring rumble that made her stomach flutter.
She frowned, utterly confused. “Then what do you mean? What risk do you speak of? What… will happen next?”
Rather than tell her, Adrian showed her.
His hands cradled her face as his lips sought hers in a blazing crush, his kiss hot and fierce and fervent. The shock of it held her frozen for a moment, her mind and body faltering at the sudden burst of passion.
After everything he had just told her, she had not expected anything like this, nor had she meant to provoke him into desire when she kneeled at his feet. Truly, she had just wanted to be close to him to offer comfort, returning a favor.
Oh… but how I have craved this…
Snapping out of her surprise, she looped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with equal fervor. No hesitation, no uncertainty, just the feverish pursuit of satisfying her desire. She had dreamed of this all through the previous night; how could she possibly resist?
All of a sudden, he was on his knees with her. His hand slipped into her hair, drawing out the stick that she had made to hold her unruly locks up. Wavy golden hair tumbled down, Adrian gently sweeping it back off her shoulders as he kissed her harder.
She grasped his shirt and pulled him closer, unable to get enough and fearful that he might suddenly stand up and leave. She could not match him in strength, of course, but if he tried to depart, she would at least be able to hold onto him long enough to steal one more kiss.
“Valerie…” he murmured against her mouth, pausing for a moment.
“Yes?” she whispered breathlessly. It pleased her to hear the sound of her name from his lips.
But he did not reply.
Instead, he caught her mouth with his and wrapped his arm around her waist. At the same moment, his other hand smoothed over the curve of her hip and slid down to the swell of her backside.
In one swift, impressive display of strength, he lifted her up and guided her leg around his waist. Although, she did not need any encouragement, her other leg joining the first in locking around him.
His tongue flicked against hers, exploring for a moment, deepening the heat of their kiss. Then, without so much as a grunt of exertion, he rose up from his knees, taking her with him.
What risk am I taking? What does he mean to do with me?
There was no worry about the answer, for curiosity had already rushed in to sweep away any concern. Indeed, she was positively overwhelmed with the desire to see how things would unfold.
So, clinging to him, kissing him with everything she possessed, half-wondering if she was dreaming, she savored every second as he carried her across the room. More concerned about it all coming to an end than the risk of it continuing.
“Oh!” she gasped as he lay her down upon the chaise-longue, his body pressing down against her, those astonishing eyes of his seeming to gaze right into her very soul. Into her thoughts. Into her wildest dreams. Taking inspiration.
He must have known the torment of his stillness, the yearning that strained like a thread pulled too tight in her veins. Was he waiting for permission? Was he waiting for her to make a move? She did not know.
A slight shift of his hips, nudging aside her thigh, and she became aware of a hardness against her.
In an instant, her desire transformed into a living, breathing beast within her that demanded satisfaction.
A ravenous thing that would not be left wanting.
She was not certain what it wanted, what she wanted, exactly, but it had everything to do with that unknown hardness.
“You are my torment,” Adrian murmured, his eyes bright with an internal fire.
“I have done nothing,” she protested breathlessly, her hips tilting up slightly.
His brow furrowed as if she had hurt him… or pleased him; it was impossible to tell.
“You have done more than you know,” he replied in a voice that stirred up the bonfire inside her, setting loose a flurry of pulsing sparks and smoldering embers that flushed across her skin.
His head dipped, his kiss desperate, his body moving to the rhythm of that scorching kiss.
With a soft cry of pleasure, ignited by the friction of that unknown, rock hard protrusion between her thighs, she tangled her fingertips in his hair and kissed him back in kind.
The way her nightdress had gathered, and the fabric of his trousers, kept her from finding out what that firm length might be, but she was not complaining; this was heaven.
Slowly, he kissed away from her mouth, though she tried to pull him back. Do not withdraw from me. Do not dismiss me again.
She thought she felt him smile against the curve of her neck as he kissed downward, as though he could read her thoughts.
He slowed down more, like he meant to put her mind at ease, taking his time to explore her.
As such, with his kisses searing grazes down the column of her throat and along the ledge of her collarbone, she relaxed into the delicious sensation, certain that, at least for a while, he would not pull away from her.
When his lips touched the skin of her bosom, her lungs reacted as if they were connected to the brush of his mouth. She gasped, her back arching to lift her bosom closer to his lips, her labored breath transforming into an impassioned moan as she exhaled again.
Adrian’s hands were not idle, one elbow propping him up, while his other hand followed the path of his kiss.
Fresh surprise caused a sigh to hitch in Valerie’s throat as his fingertips eased beneath the collar of her nightdress. Deftly, he unfastened the buttons, taking his time, letting her know what he meant to do without saying a word.
Is that… proper? It was an ingrained thought that did not have time to mutate into doubt, as he pushed the fabric aside, his touch skimming over the sensitive flesh of her breast.
She shivered with delight, all notions of propriety and modesty thrown straight out of her mind. Indeed, the only thought that filled her head was: What next? Oh, show me what is next.
“Oh… oh, Your Grace!” she gasped to the warm, wet heat of his mouth closing over the peak of her nipple.
That, she could not have predicted.
He stopped, his blue eyes flitting up. “Adrian,” he growled. “If you are going to moan, let it be my name that you cry out.”
She bit her lip, nodding. “Yes, Adrian… Please…”
With a sly smirk, he took her nipple in his mouth once more… and sucked gently.
Her back arched up off the chaise-longue, her hands smoothing over the rippling muscle of his shoulder blades as a cry tore out of her. Not his name—she could not hope to form real words with her mind ablaze with pleasure—but a cry of pure bliss.
How… can this feel so… good?
Electric tingles danced across her chest and shivered down into her stomach, where the muscles tightened and the butterflies fluttered.
Each pull of his mouth ignited another rush, her body connecting, uniting in a way she had not known it was capable of doing, every part of her attuned to the next.
“Oh, yes… Oh, God…” she panted, grazing her teeth across her lower lip as her fingernails lightly raked over his back.
A low growl from his throat stirred her up into a frenzy, the vibrations rippling into her chest.
All too soon, he rolled his tongue over the pert pink of her nipple and kissed away from her breast. A disappointment and a thrill, all at once: the dichotomy of wanting him to suck that sweet, sensitive flesh again and wanting to find out what else he could do.
She could not have both. At least, she did not think she could.
His soft lips charted a course through the valley between her breasts, his hand lingering upon that supple flesh, before moving lower. He unfastened the buttons of her nightdress as he went, like unveiling new contours upon a map, his mouth exploring every bare speck of her skin.
He tasted the furrow at the top of her abdomen, where her breathless ribs met, and kissed along the curvature of her waist. From there, he grazed his lips slowly over the rising hill of her stomach, his tongue marking the hollows below the ridges of her hips, before he kissed his way down her left thigh.
All the while, Valerie bucked and gasped, the sensations compounding.
She had never known she could feel so much, her body so alive, so heightened with feeling that she wondered how she was not aglow.
That was how it felt, as if she had been lit up from within, lightning bolts flashing through her veins, blazing with pleasure.
As Adrian kissed inward, following the dimple where her thigh met her hip, his arms slid underneath her trembling thighs and eased them onto his broad shoulders.
Unable to resist, she glanced down at him, just catching his smirk as he pulled her to the end of the chaise-longue.
“Adrian!” she yelped, laughing—laughter that became an earth-shattering cry as, with him kneeling on the floor, he lowered his head between her thighs and struck his tongue against a tinderbox.
Rather, a powder keg that he had just exploded.
“Oh… Oh, yes… yes!” she panted, her fingernails clawing at the velvety chaise.
His tongue rolled slowly across a part of her she had never known existed, a bundle of nerves that thrummed at the tantalizing caress. When he tasted her again, that thrum became a pulse, became a blaze, became fireworks that shimmered within her, crackling with a breathtaking power.
She writhed and trembled, her body no longer under her control.
Adrian had the reins of her every sensation, the conjurer of her pleasure, and though she did not believe in curses, she was now certain that magic existed in the world.
Right now, it was coursing through every nerve and vein and limb and sense, transporting her to a realm of fantastical, unbelievable bliss.
A moment later, she could not breathe at all as his tongue curled around that sensitive spot, and he sucked gently. It was not merely a lightning bolt that crackled through her but an entire, glorious storm that had her thighs shaking upon his shoulders.
“Yes! Oh, yes!” she cried out, her neck arching back.
He relieved the intense pressure, resuming the measured strokes of his talented tongue.
The more he tasted her, the more he lavished his attentions upon her, the more that feeling of pure, thrumming magic began to swell, as if it was building toward something.
Like her journey northward, it was a storm in the skies that had not yet broken, her body tensing with the knowledge that it soon would.
A few delirious, potent, life-altering minutes later, that storm finally broke… and it was not a mere drizzle.
“Oh… Oh, Adrian… Adrian…” The moan of his name seemed to chase the swell of her conclusion, until words failed her once more.
There was only the shuddering cry of unrestrained ecstasy as a whole sea of lightning pummeled through her, vibrations thrumming along every nerve, seizing every muscle.
Her back arched up off the chaise-longue, her fingernails digging into the velvet, her teeth raking across her lip, as her eyes squeezed shut and a burst of pure light seemed to erupt in her head.
In all of her twenty-two years upon this earth, she had never felt so much, all at once. She had never known it was possible. And as she cried out Adrian’s name, she cursed all the women she had known who had kept it a secret.
Adrian slowed the brush of his tongue as Valerie soared, each teasing stroke adding a fresh burst of power to the delicious storm of her bliss.
But, like all tempests, it could not last.
Before long, the intensity ebbed, fading to a stubborn spread of dimmed pulsations, a mere echo of her pleasure’s former ferocity. Yet, there was no real dismay, for it rather felt like her body was returning control to her, bit by bit. And now she knew what it was capable of.
With one last caress, Adrian turned his head and kissed the inside of Valerie’s thigh.
He kissed his way upward, following the course he had charted earlier, until his mouth came to rest upon her lips.
She met his kiss with a smiling satisfaction, locking her arms around his neck as she pulled herself up to be closer to him.
Do not send me away, she prayed as she savored his kiss.
But that, too, could not last.
Carefully, as his mouth stole one more kiss, he tugged the sides of her housecoat over her bared skin and tied the belt at her waist. Then, he stood up and offered her his hand.
“It is late,” he said. “I think it is time for both of us to retire.”
Suddenly shy, which seemed absurd considering what had just happened, she took his hand and allowed him to help her up.
“What if you have another nightmare?” she asked.
He gazed at her then, the ghost of a sad smile upon his lips. “Ignore the screams. They will pass, as most things do.”
Uncertain of what he meant by that, and too flustered to ask, she did not exchange another word with Adrian as he escorted her back to her chambers. Indeed, she did not even respond to his “goodnight, Miss Wightman” as he left her there.