Chapter 16
They walked hand in hand back to the main house. Both were lost too deep in thought to speak. When they reached the top of the staircase inside, they stopped.
Thomas looked at Cecily, and she nodded. She had made her choice, and there would be no going back. No regrets.
He led her into his bedroom and closed the door. She was relieved when he locked it. The last thing she wanted was for his valet to come in and disturb the moment.
Strong arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her to him. His gaze searched her face. Wherever he looked, he placed a soft, tender kiss.
“I wanted to hold you like this that day when we stood under the tree in Hyde Park. It took all my willpower not to seize you and kiss you then and there. I never thought I would actually get the chance to do it,” he said.
“It would have just been another moment of scandalous behavior on my part, so I don’t expect anyone would have bothered with a second glance if you had,” she replied.
She reached up and brushed her fingers along the stubble of his beard. There was something so seductive about a man with an afternoon shadow. For a moment, she wondered what Thomas would look like if he let his beard grow.
She put the thought away for another time. They would have the years ahead in which to explore the changes in one another, and their bodies.
His lips met hers in a kiss that was full of warmth and reassurance.
“You have done nothing scandalous as far as I am concerned. Though I would ask that you if you are going to help yourself to more than a couple of glasses of champagne, that you have a full meal beforehand. I only have two knees, and you have already mangled one.”
Her eyes grew wide with feigned horror. “I was perfectly fine where I was in my practice of praying to the garden beds. It was you who did not keep a weathered eye on where your feet were treading.”
He chuckled. She was going to give him a lifetime of cheeky retorts, and he would die a happy man. “Speaking of beds,” he said.
Cecily glided her hands up the front of Thomas’s shirt, feeling the strong muscles underneath the linen. Reaching his cravat, she found the ends and began to work on undoing the ties.
“Yes,” she replied.
His hands did not remain idle, making quick work of the buttons on the front of her gown. After pulling it over her head, he threw it on a nearby chair. She raised an eyebrow in approval of his skills.
Within minutes they had shed the rest of their clothes and stood with only Cecily’s shift and Thomas’s shirt between them and complete nakedness. The lightness in his manner disappeared.
“I want you, Cecily. From that night in the hotel, I have wanted nothing more than to hold you in my arms and make love to you. But I need you to understand that this is not just lust. I am giving myself completely to you from this moment on. Please tell me that you want me as much as I want you?”
She had little experience of truth in her life, but she was in no doubt that she saw it shining in his eyes. It took her breath away, humbled her with its purity.
The lump in her throat made it hard to reply, but she managed a breathless, “Yes.”
He bent and kissed her once more. His hands took hold of the hem of her shift and lifted it. Stepping back, he pulled it over her head and with a grand flourish, threw it toward the pile of their clothes. His shirt immediately followed.
They stood in silence while their gazes slowly roamed over naked flesh.
Thomas had a scar on his upper chest which reached to his shoulder. His gaze followed hers as she reached out to trace the long pale line.
“Thrown and pined to the ground by a bad-tempered mare five years ago. My own stupid fault for having thought I was the master,” he said.
“Hmm. I made that mistake when I was fifteen. It took weeks for the bruises to heal. I learned to respect the stable master’s advice regarding how I treated my mount after that,” she replied.
His fingers touched her breast, cupping it gently in his hand. “May I?”
She nodded as he took a nipple between his fingers and squeezed. Her hands rested lightly on his chest. His other hand drifted over her hip and down to the thatch of hair at the top of her thighs. She swallowed as he slipped a finger inside her heat.
He groaned. “You are so wet.”
He slid a second finger into her and began to slowly stroke. She whimpered as his masterful fingers stretched and teased her sex. She wanted to touch him, but he held her under his command.
Thomas finally released her from his embrace, then led her to the bed and lay her upon it. He climbed on and knelt over her. When he set his lips to her heated core, Cecily closed her eyes and gripped the bedclothes.
While she was not a complete innocent in the ways of love, no rough fumbling roll in the hay had ever been like this. Her whole perception of intimacy shifted with every stroke of his tongue.
He pushed a finger inside of her and began to thrust in and out once more. Each movement running over her sensitive nib sent shards of pleasure through her body. With his tongue and finger moving in concert, he brought her to a level of sexual pleasure she did not know existed.
She forced herself to open her eyes. Then, seeing his hard manhood within reach, she took hold of him and began to stroke. He lay his fingers over her hand and guided her in the grip and intensity of how she should pleasure him.
When she was beginning to think that he could not take her any higher up the mountain before she fainted, Thomas released her from his embrace. He settled over her and pushed her knees apart.
They held one another’s gaze as he slowly entered her. He withdrew to the edge of his touch before thrusting deep and seating himself fully within her.
Cecily groaned, “Sweet Saint Anne.”
“You will need all the saints’ help before I am done with you,” he murmured in her ear.
He flexed his hips and ground against her sex. When she whimpered with pleasure, he did it again.
“Yes,” she sobbed, as his strokes grew in intensity. She was with him every thrust, her hips rising and falling in time with him.
“Say it again,” he growled.
“Yes. Thomas, yes!”
She crashed through into a heart-stopping orgasm, which rolled on and on through her body. His breath grew short as he pounded furiously into her.
“You will never say yes to another man, only me. Your body belongs to me from this moment on. Your ecstasy is my reward for giving you my soul.”
He stilled above her, and a deep groan escaped his lips as his body shuddered with his climaxed.
Cecily watched as Thomas returned to the present. He opened his eyes and looked down at her.
She smiled and lay her hand on his sweat-soaked chest. “So much for being a quiet country squire. I will be keeping your bedroom talents a secret all to myself.”
He rolled over and slumped beside her onto the mattress. Cecily took hold of Thomas’s hand and as their fingers touched, they entwined. They lay in post-coital bliss for a time.
When Thomas finally spoke, Cecily caught the heavy emotion in his voice.
“I thought I had lost you. That I had misjudged my step and stumbled out of view.”
She came to him and laid her head on his chest. “No. It was me who had the problem with vision. I have spent all my life looking at people through a lens of mistrust, just waiting for the moment they would fail me. I never expected to meet someone like you.”
“Like what?”
“Dependable. Loyal.”
He snorted. “You mean boring?”
She raised herself up on one elbow and placed a soft, loving kiss on his lips. A privileged life, money, and power were what many people craved, but she had known the shadowed side of that life.
“I will take a lifetime of being with you and knowing that you will always be there for me over a cold and empty palace. Besides, I never said you were boring. I love the passion you have for this place, for the horses in the stables. There is nothing dull about a man who understands what is real and valuable in this world. And that is why I have fallen in love with you, Thomas Rosemount.”
With a shuddering breath, he pulled her hard against him, whispering, “Thank you, lord, for this woman. I shall treasure this gift every day.”
She pulled the blankets up around them and settled in his arms. The promise of sleep beckoned. Across the room, she spied a vase of yellow flowers on the mantlepiece.
Thomas kissed her neck. “Cowslips. The top meadow is full of them in spring. Pretty little things—I always have them in my room when they are in bloom. They are supposed to symbolize the key to getting back into heaven.”
Cecily thought back to her dream and wondered if all this time she had read it wrong. Perhaps the dream was not about her being abandoned on the side of the road. It was about her waiting for that one person to come along and claim her.
It had always been about him.
“Sleep, my love. The sooner you sleep, the sooner you will wake to my kiss,” murmured Thomas.
Cecily closed her eyes as sleep pulled them both into its embrace.
“And every morning, I shall bless that kiss with these words: I love you.”