Chapter Thirty-One
Harry lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling and stroking the snoring Cuthbert’s soft ears when he heard Georgie’s bedchamber door open. His stupid heart soared and his cock hardened with renewed hope, even though he actually held out none that she was headed his way. He strained his ears to listen for her approach and almost jumped out of his skin when his door handle turned.
And then she was there. Standing in a loosely tied robe in his doorway with an odd expression on her lovely face.
He almost knocked Cuthbert to the floor in his haste to sit up. “Is everything all right?”
She nodded and closed the door. “I don’t want us to waste time fighting, Harry. Not about things that make us fundamentally you and me, under circumstances neither of us can change.”
“I don’t want to fight either.”
Her lovely face blossomed into a nervous smile and she edged closer. He could tell by the gentle movement beneath the fabric that her breasts were unbound before she stopped awkwardly. He could see the shadowy outline of her nipples through the soft linen thanks to the flickering candle on his nightstand; the flame wove its magic with the copper and gold in her hair.
“Then I wondered if you would allow me to spend the night with you?” Her fingers went to the knot in her belt and, as the air whooshed out of his lungs, she clumsily undid it. “If you still want me, that is?”
Harry didn’t even have the wherewithal to choke out one of his erudite “ums.” Could barely breathe. Barely blink.
Her smile was shy. “Because I know that this can go nowhere, but I still want you.” With a swallow, she let the robe fall open enough to display the naked valley between her breasts and thighs. “Do you still want me?”
He nodded as his gaze hungrily raked the length of her. There was shimmering copper between her legs too, although the rest of the soft curls on her womanhood were darker. He couldn’t fathom why that was the singularly most erotic thing he had seen in his life, but it was.
He sucked in more air as he’d forgotten to breathe, and her smile altered. It wasn’t one of Georgie’s usual smiles—although he had always found those intoxicating enough—this one was sultry. It grabbed him by the balls and mercilessly teased his shaft, rendering him so speechless, he couldn’t have uttered a cohesive sentence if his very life depended upon it.
As if she knew she had him enthralled, Georgie slowly eased the robe from her shoulders and let it fall, and he was powerless to do anything but stare, transfixed. Acres of alabaster skin. Two perfect, pert breasts tipped with saucy raspberry nipples that tightened to tantalizing points beneath his captive gaze.
“Would you make love to me, Harry?” Words he had fantasized about since the first day she had upturned his life.
“I would love nothing more, Georgie, but—” She pressed a finger to his lips as she sat on the mattress beside him.
“There are no caveats, Harry. No ulterior motives. Certainly no expectations beyond me leaving on the London post before the week is out and you sailing away from me forever. I want no promises, nor need any. I want no guilt nor recrimination from you either. You are an outstanding sailor who deserves to climb to the very top of the rigging and I am a governess who has never expected marriage. But if I’m destined to die an old maid, I’d rather not be a maid in every sense, and I’d never forgive myself if I denied myself you tonight when I want you so very much.” Her mouth whispered over his with a boldness that matched her new temptress’s persona, and he knew he couldn’t resist her. He kissed her back and she stayed his hungry mouth with her index finger again. “Although I would rather it was just me who leaves here on the post next week, so I hope you know how to prevent us making a child together. Employers tend to frown on such things.”
He nodded as he mourned that child they would never have when a mixture of her and him toddling around their feet appealed so very much. She watched him frown, and the smallest crack in her seducer’s fa?ade showed.
“Are you sure you want me?”
“More than I’ve ever wanted anything.” There was no point lying about it. No point trying to deny himself of things he didn’t have the strength to fight.
“Then have me.” She pressed her body against his and his flesh rejoiced at the contact. Because it wasn’t enough, he hauled her into his lap and then lowered them both onto his bed as his mouth plundered hers. And would have continued kissing her until dawn had he not felt the weight of a pair of curious eyes staring.
He rolled to glare at Cuthbert, who was still sitting on the bed, head tilted as he stared. “You need to sleep somewhere else tonight, young man, as I have a much better proposition and do not need an audience for it.”
As Georgie giggled, Harry swung his legs out of bed, picked the puppy up and marched him to the door. “Go sleep with Norbert.” He deposited Cuthbert out on the landing and closed the door. As he turned, she was staring at his fully erect cock in fascination.
“Does that hurt?”
He chuckled at the question. “No… and yes. It aches… for you.” He padded back to the bed and slid in beside her. “Now, where were we?”
Her lips had barely touched his when a high-pitched howl came from beyond the door. It was just like Norbert’s, but childlike enough that Harry knew it would tug at Georgie’s heartstrings. “Now Cuthbert’s sad.”
“Ignore him.” He pressed a kiss to her neck. “And he’ll go away.” He smoothed his hand over her hip while he nibbled her ear, and straightaway, his earthy vixen softly moaned her appreciation. “It’s time he selected one of the children as his master anyway, so this is the nudge he needed.”
“I think he’s already chosen his master.”
“Hush your mouth.” He silenced her with a kiss. Until Cuthbert howled again, louder, and she sat up, perturbed.
“If we leave him out there crying, he’s going to wake the children and then this…” She flapped a hand between their bodies. “Isn’t going to happen.”
Harry growled, because she was right, then heaved himself from the mattress again to go scoop the irritating puppy up. “You can come back in, but you are absolutely not watching!” He wagged his finger at him. “And that’s an order.”
Harry snatched a blanket from the bed and made Cuthbert a nest with it in the corner, then caged Cuthbert within it using the fire screen, nightstand, and his Royal Navy traveling trunk. “Now be quiet and go to sleep.” He wagged his finger again, trying to replicate Georgie’s stern expression whenever she effortlessly controlled her errant charges, and miraculously, the mad, miniature wolf curled up in a ball with a huff of defeat.
Harry dashed to the bed this time and practically fell on her. “I believe I was around here…” He nuzzled her ear again and she stretched like a cat, smiling as she ran her fingers through his hair and down his back.
“That’s nice.”
“Just nice?” He traced his finger along her jaw and down her neck, then followed it with his mouth. “Not a word an overachiever like me wants to hear when I am supposed to be outstanding.”
Her upper body arched as he caressed the curve of her breast, and then lazily around her nipple before he teased it with his tongue. It was gloriously sensitive, and as she always did when he touched her, she unconsciously demanded more. She branded him with a kiss so sinful, it made his body hum, and instinctively opened hers so that they were almost intimately joined, tilting her hips in invitation. When he ignored that to instead worship her other breast, she writhed beneath him in impatient frustration.
“Harry, please…” Her teeth nibbled at his lower lip as she reached between them to caress him. “Don’t make me wait. I ache for you too.” She wrapped her fingers around his erection, and it pulsed and twitched with need. “So much it hurts.”
Within seconds, and just from her unschooled touch, he was on the cusp. All it would have taken was a few more moments and he would be lost and they both deserved so much more than that. She, certainly, deserved nothing but the most thorough and satisfying deflowering he was capable of, so he reluctantly shifted to slow things down. But as she moaned her disgust at being thwarted, he kissed her lips as gently as he caressed the hot, slick, delicate skin between her damp curls.
Her body was ready, willing, and so responsive it shocked them both and she cried out as he stroked the tiny bud of nerves crowning her womanhood. “Nice?” he whispered in her ear as her legs fell wantonly open.
“Outstanding,” came her breathy response. “Please don’t stop.” So he didn’t, but he could not resist watching her as she discovered pleasure. Within moments, her eyes were closed and her arms flung back into her lovely hair. Her perfect breasts jutting with each sensual arch of her back; her puckered nipples begging to be kissed. She thrashed and moaned and bucked her hips against his hand. Completely without shame or embarrassment as she embraced every new sensation with enthusiastic wonder.
As her breath became choppy, she moaned, impatient. But there was a wariness there, too, which made her fight the mounting sensations, letting him know that not only was he the first to have her body, but he was also the first to bring it to a climax. Knowledge that was both humbling and beguiling and almost enough to send him over the edge.
“Please don’t stop.”
“I won’t, love.” He laced his free hand in hers and she gripped it hard, her breath beautifully erratic, and then, on a shuddering exhale, she finally let go, and she was radiant and untamed as her body pulsed beneath his fingers.
She smiled when her eyes finally opened a good minute later and she caught him staring. “That was… nice.” She tugged him by the hand upward and into her arms, then looped hers around his neck to kiss him. “But please don’t stop. I can see already that your noble streak is plaguing you and you are having ludicrous ideas of being a gentleman and leaving this at that.”
Harry chuckled because she was right. “There is still plenty we can do without me taking—” She swallowed that in a kiss.
“England expects every man to do his duty.”
“You are going to quote Nelson at me?” Lord, he loved her and her clever mind and sharp tongue. “Here. In bed.”
“Kiss me, Harry.”
So he did, grinning, because Georgie just made him smile and being with her was joyous. Within moments she was sighing again, and so was he as he edged his body slowly inside hers. She tensed briefly but refused to let him stop or apologize, preferring to kiss him instead as she wrapped her legs around him to anchor him in place.
He paused when he was buried to the hilt, every muscle straining, to give her time to adjust to intrusion, but again, she would have none of it. She undulated her hips in a way that tortured, yet he still tried to keep things slow as they began to move together, even though it physically hurt to hold everything back when she felt so good. But Georgie wanted everything and told him so. “Don’t stop” soon became “more,” “faster,” “deeper,” spurring him on and eliminating all reason.
She felt like home, which was an odd sensation to have when so consumed with passion, but there it was. She was petite and dainty and he was big and solid, yet they fit together as if by design. Intimate flesh caressing intimate flesh in a dance as old as time, both simultaneously tender and tumultuous, totally, utterly, divinely in sync, as if this was meant to be.
As natural as breathing.
As necessary as air.
He lost himself in her until he lost his mind. As the walls of her body began to pulse around his, he felt his own climax claw at his groin and he barely scraped enough wits together to withdraw as she had asked. A split second later white stars shattered behind his eyes and his body exploded. He called out her name over and over like a benediction and told her that he loved her and she clung to him with teary emotion.
But though he yearned to hear it—strained to hear it—as they fell into the abyss together, he could not help noting that she never said she loved him back.