Chapter 19 #2
He reached between them and touched the hood of her sex, his talented fingers slick and firm as his shaft penetrated her. “Ah, now that’s a thoroughly aroused cunny.”
And he stroked her and he plunged deeper and the world inside Viveca contracted until its entire purpose was to be touched…
filled…pleasured…by him. Release, unable to take much more of his relentless drive, crested and her breath held, then she broke, sudden climax spiking through her, expanding, her entire being disintegrated into abandon as her quim pulsed around his hard length.
“Viveca,” he groaned, his eyes gone opaque, “I’m nearly there.”
He pulled from her, the loss of him too sudden. On instinct, she pushed his hand aside and took him herself. She’d watched him do this a couple of times now.
Her fingers firmed around him, and she stroked his long, thick, velvety cock—so hard and hot and slick. In this moment, he was all hers, and she experienced a delicious sense of power.
She was about to bring him to climax.
This was the first time, in fact.
It was the height of intimacy, for it was about more than simple release.
It was about satisfaction, for here they met in a place of vulnerable truth.
The satisfaction of bringing pleasure rather than only experiencing it for oneself.
A sharing of pleasure.
His head arched back, exposing his throat, and he was spending, his seed spilling on her stomach as she stroked him to completion.
On a deep exhale, he sagged forward, touching his forehead to hers, their ragged breath mingling.
The pleasure that yet rippled through her in tiny waves was unlike anything she’d experienced to this point.
And it was because of this man whose breath mingled with hers.
Whose soul mingled with hers, too.
He shifted back on a groan that sounded no small bit pained and delivered a kiss to each of her breasts. “Pretty pink nips to match those pretty pink lips of yours,” he said, then bussed a kiss onto her mouth.
Reflexively, her fingertips touched where his mouth had been.
“Now,” he said, “let’s get you cleaned up.”
He strode to the washbasin in the corner and returned with a damp cloth. While she wiped herself, he gathered their clothing that was strewn about the room. My, but he had a taut, muscular bottom. She whistled. “You’ve quite the sweet arse yourself, Blaze Jagger.”
He winked over his shoulder. “You like that, eh?” He snorted and began dressing. “We never managed to make it to the bed.”
“Next time, then,” she said, slipping the chemise over her head.
Once she’d finished dressing, it was as if the composition of the air had entirely altered without her noticing.
Gone was the humor and the ease.
He’d straightened and was now observing her as if from a very far distance, as if her words had snapped something to life inside him. “There can’t be a next time.”
It was as if she suddenly couldn’t breathe. Why would he say such a thing when the opposite was verifiably true?
There could and should and would be a next time.
“Blaze, I really, really want to keep doing this.” She felt her eyebrows digging into her forehead. “Don’t you?” A sudden idea came to her, and she didn’t hesitate. “We could make an arrangement.”
He’d gone stone still. “You’re not about to ask me to marry you again, are you?”
“No.” She wouldn’t that mistake, again. So, she’d arrived at a second-best solution. “I could become your mistress.”
Many regarded the arrogant, brilliant Blaze Jagger to be unshockable, but she saw from the way his eyebrows were reaching for the ceiling that she’d shocked him to his toes. “This has to be the end of it, Viveca.”
“But why can’t this be the beginning of it?”
“No.”
“But…” The reading lessons…yes. “We haven’t finished your reading lessons.”
“I can read.”
“Impossible,” she said and knew it for a lie. It was more than very likely that Blaze could read now. He was that brilliant, after all. “Prove it.”
Into the office he strode, and she followed with slow dread, a stone in her stomach. He opened the top book to a random page, planted his index finger, and read the line above it. Sure, he’d read syllable by syllable and yet lacked fluidity, but he’d read the words and knew their meaning.
Blaze could read.
Her purpose in his life was finished.
But that made little sense.
Not after what they’d just shared.
There was yet more to their purpose in each other’s lives.
So, why was he sending her away?
A reason sparked in her mind… “I’m not too good for you, you know.”
His head popped up. “What’s that, now?”
“Isn’t that why you’re doing this?” The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. “Out of some misplaced sense of nobility?”
“Nobility?” he scoffed. “I don’t have a noble bone in my body.”
“Don’t you?”
He shook his head. “That’s not why we have to stop.”
“Then why?” she asked, her voice breaking on the plea.
His eyes had gone flatly opaque, giving her nothing to read. “You’re impenetrable, Viveca.”
“That’s empirically untrue, now isn’t it?” she exclaimed. “You penetrated me—repeatedly—not ten minutes ago.”
“No word play,” he growled. “Bloody impermeable, then.”
“Impermeable? Like a surface?”
He exhaled, clearly exasperated. “Nothing touches you.”
“You touch me, Blaze.”
“Not like that,” he said, shaking his head. “Surfaces don’t count. It’s what beats below the surface that does.”
Then he was placing her reticule into her hand and marching her through the door they’d entered less than an hour ago and down the back stairs.
Not two minutes later, she found herself inside a hackney cab, her mind a racing whirlwind, unable to comprehend what just happened.
Weren’t she and Blaze perfect together? A perfect meeting of souls?
She knew it.
He knew it.
She absolutely knew he knew it.
Then why was this happening?
But that question wasn’t what had an icy bolt of fear striking through her.
Nothing touches you.
More than the words—words could be got around—it was the resignation within his eyes as he’d spoken them.
He’d already resigned himself to a life without her in it.
What choice had she but to accept it?