Chapter 9 #3
There was no obligation in the way he kissed her. There was only the reckless need of a man who was helplessly drawn to her. And she kissed him in the same fashion, a woman who didn’t want to desire the husband who had abandoned her and yet who seemed incapable of resisting.
He broke the kiss and raised his head, glancing down at her, his pale eyes fiery in their intensity, his mouth darkened and red. “Will you allow me?”
His hoarse question took her by surprise. He had simply claimed her before. Had taken what he wanted as if she were a debt owed him. And she had given herself because she had been unable to resist him. Because she still had feelings for him, even though she knew all too well that she should not.
Because part of her still longed for this man, the man she had once believed could love her. The man she had allowed herself to love, before everything had changed.
“Yes,” she said, telling herself her acquiescence was because of her bargain with him and not because she was softening toward the husband who had abandoned her.
He kissed her again, his fingers settling on the buttons of her dressing gown.
She felt them come undone as she opened for him again, her eyes falling closed.
Sybil surrendered herself to sensation. To the night.
There was nothing but the skilled movement of his lips, the hot glide of his tongue as he licked into the recesses of her mouth.
She tasted whisky and sin and Everett. Her husband.
The man she shouldn’t want and couldn’t keep herself from desiring.
The man who was a mystery she couldn’t seem to understand.
Her dressing gown slid to the floor, and then she was only in her night rail.
Although they had done this once before, the dance between them was still unfamiliar and unnerving.
His caresses glided over her, molding her to him.
Her waist, her bottom. His big hands grasped her there, gently holding her.
Their bodies were flush, the only barrier separating them a thin veneer of civility: his jacquard silk and her modest lawn.
She felt him through the thin cloth, his form hard and strong where hers was pliant and soft.
Felt any resistance to him yielding, a heaviness settling between her thighs accompanied by an ache that increased with the pressure of his mouth on hers.
How easy it was to forget the hurt when she was in his arms. Perhaps that was the allure of the rake; he knew her body better than she did. Could make her yearn and burn for him, even as her heart lay in ash from the destruction he had wreaked upon it.
His mouth left hers to trail a tantalizing path of kisses down her neck, lingering on a particularly sensitive place before he murmured against her skin, “This half heart haunts me in my sleep.”
She didn’t know what he meant for a moment. Her brain was muddled by his nearness and his scent, her heart thumping fast, mind unable to concentrate on anything other than pleasure.
His fingers found the small row of buttons at the base of her throat, freeing them from their moorings and delivering more of her bare skin to his lips for sensual torment.
He feathered kisses over her as if she were a marvel to be worshipped, and she rubbed her cheek along the silkiness of his dark hair, reveling in the softness, the connection.
His hand moved from her bottom, traveling along her side and up, over her rib cage to cup her breast. The slow stroke of his thumb over her nipple set forth a ripple of pleasure. Slowly, he savored her, teased her. As if it were not desperately late. As if they were not at daggers drawn.
She was moved to react in kind, kissing his sharply angled cheekbone, his temple. Breathing him in, holding him to her. Believing, however foolishly, that there was something more tender between them than base desire.
Sybil ran her hands down his chest, exploring him.
Finding the knot of his belt and untying it so that his robe hung open, his bare chest radiating warmth.
Her eager fingers moved over the expanse she had revealed, marveling in the musculature, the crisp smattering of hairs over skin that was otherwise as smooth as hers.
Her heart seemed to trip over itself as he raised his head, his expression inscrutable, so handsome and yet aloof. He was present with her, and yet she couldn’t shake the impression he held a part of himself away. That he had erected a wall between them that was impenetrable.
She felt a pang deep within at the realization that this would have been easier if she didn’t still love him. But she did.
He said nothing as he caught fistfuls of her nightgown in his capable hands and lifted with slow deliberation.
The hem whispered over her calves, then past her knees and higher, revealing her to him in incremental stages.
She had to lift her arms to aid him in disrobing her, breaking the contact they had for a moment.
But then he was there, shucking off his own dressing gown. Cupping her cheek and ravishing her mouth with deep, passionate kisses that were their own revelations. Moving them both toward the waiting bed.
She kissed him and lost all sense of herself, lost her desire to resist, to control the moment, her reaction to him.
Simply lost. She was cast adrift, nothing but sensation, raw and aching, driven by mad desire to reach the same dizzying pinnacle she had two nights before.
Wanting what this man could give her, if not the love she had once longed for. If not his heart, then this.
The room was a blur of color and low light and soft, seductive sounds.
The play of his mouth on hers, the crackle of the fire, their footsteps on the Axminster.
Then the dip and creak of the bed as they settled on the mattress together, his lips never leaving hers.
He guided her to her back, his large body settling over hers.
She clung to his shoulders, reveling in the ripple of corded muscle beneath her fingertips.
Everett broke the kiss and lifted his head, his cool eyes impossibly hot and storm-tossed as he raked her with a look—lips to breasts, lingering on the puckered pink points of her nipples, so needy and rude. Like the rest of her, they could not be controlled. They ached for his lips.
Slowly, he reached for her as he leveraged himself on his left forearm, weighing the underside of her breast as if he were handling the rarest, most precious jewel.
As if her body was meant to be revered. She held her breath and waited for his touch, her back arching of its own accord, her naked body his to pleasure.
“Tell me what you want,” he demanded, his voice low and almost rough, like gravel wrapped in velvet.
She was astounded. How could she possibly convey in words what she desired when she scarcely even understood herself? New warmth colored her cheeks as she released her breath, nails digging gently into his supple skin.
“I don’t know,” she told him.
Because this was new, the two of them together. Coupling. His frank sensuality. A naked body atop hers. Her husband of three months, finally in her bed. It was as if he wanted more from her than she knew how to cede.
“Yes, you do,” he countered, stroking her breast, that gaze of his unwavering. “Tell me, Sybil.”
He was right, she realized. She did know. She wanted his mouth on her as he’d done before. Wanted him to close his lips over her nipple and suck. But she couldn’t say it. She didn’t dare.
Did she?
Her eyes fluttered closed. That made it easier. Perhaps, if she didn’t have to meet his eye, she could be brave.
But Everett was having none of it. He released her breast and took her chin in a firm hold.
“Look at me, wife.”
Still, she hesitated, lost in sensation, her body so keenly attuned to his, already primed and ready.
“Open your eyes.”
Something wet and hot glided over her nipple, and pleasure jolted through Sybil, forcing her eyes open.
His light-blue gaze was on her, commanding her attention.
A lock of dark hair fell rakishly over his brow, his beautiful countenance set in stern lines of desire and something else, something she couldn’t define.
His lips were tantalizingly near to her nipple, which now ached for more of his attention. “Tell me.”
He blew on her bare skin lightly, the tease of the hot air proving her undoing.
“Your mouth,” she confessed at last. “I want your mouth on me.”
He rewarded her by giving her exactly what she wanted, taking the peak of her breast in his mouth and suckling hard. The air left her lungs, her body bowing from the bed, a sound tearing from her lips.
Her fingers left his shoulder to sift through his hair as she held him to her.
She felt the pull of that hot suction between her legs as if that were the spot where he had placed his lips.
She writhed restlessly against him, seeking, needing.
He moved to her other breast, latching on and taking a long pull, making a low sound of satisfaction that vibrated through her.
A cry fell from her lips, and she clutched at his hair, the silken strands a new luxury for her to explore.
And when she thought she could bear the tender torment no longer, he left her breast to kiss his way down her body.
Over her ribs, along the curve of her stomach, to her hip. He was alarmingly near to her there.
It was shocking. Confusing. Thrilling. What did he intend to do? Surely not…use his mouth on her. Desire swirled at the forbidden thought, and she was bemused to discover she wanted him to. Wanted those beautiful lips on her.
His hands were on her thighs, caressing, demanding. “My name.”
She didn’t understand, too overwhelmed by an acute mixture of need and embarrassment over her wanton response. “What do you…”