Chapter Six #2
Could she live with the knowledge that she’d finally seen him for who he was and then let him go because his surname was Stanhope?
As his tongue tangled with hers and their teeth clicked together in their fervor, Emmeline realized no, she could not.
She could not let go of him simply because of the family into which he’d been born. If other reasons to relinquish him came along, then so be it; however, his title and his ancestry would play no part in that.
Emmeline threw her arms around his neck and twisted her fingers in his thick, dark hair, knocking his beaver hat to the ground. Neither of them made a move to save it.
“You are maddening, Stanhope!” Her words were slurred and muffled as she spoke against his lips.
“I could say the same about you,” he said, his response likewise altered. “And my name is Grey. You will address me as such.”
“I didn’t ask for this, Grey.” She clung to him, wishing she could be even closer though the entirety of their fronts were pressed together so every curve and hollow melded.
“Well, neither did I!” he snarled, running his hands over her, memorizing her shape in a way that had been denied him the night before. “You have insulted me. Driven me to the brink of madness. Taken every opportunity you could to torture me.”
“You did the same to me,” she charged back.
“Were you a man, I would have called you out a long time ago. Demanded satisfaction.”
“Is what we are doing not satisfying enough?” she hissed before catching his lower lip with her teeth.
“It is,” he ground out through clenched teeth, “the most bloody satisfying thing I have ever experienced in my entire life.”
“Then why are you complaining?”
“Dammit, Emmeline!” he snapped gruffly. His kiss was nearly bruising in its intensity. “If you don’t stop critiquing me at every turn, then I shall be forced to do something drastic.”
“And what might that be?” She wasn’t scared of him; if anything, his threats excited her.
Grey spat a curse and stepped back. “I would suspect withholding intimacy is just as much punishment for yourself as it is for me,” she complained, every bit of her body begging for him to take her into his arms once again.
With a sudden snarl, Grey spun her around so quickly that she nearly lost her balance. “Is this what you desire?” he breathed into her ear, every word a hot, silken caress upon her senses. “You want me to lose control and show you just how I’ve wanted you despite every rational thought in my head?”
Emmeline nodded; she couldn’t help it. The ache between her thighs had been persistent since their interlude in the Benton gardens.
She had spent restless hours repeating to herself how it was precisely the wrong thing to desire the Duke of Stanhope; however, if anything, that knowledge had only stoked the fire.
And it seemed as if he’d been suffering from a similar affliction.
“I want your desire,” Emmeline breathed in desperation.
A growl of approval rumbled from deep in Grey’s chest as he hauled her back against him, one hand gripping her hip and the other hooked around to gently hold the base of her neck.
She could not wriggle free, but neither did she fear for her life in the slightest. Despite the harsh words between them, Emmeline understood—had always known—that Grey was an honorable man.
He ground his pelvis hard against her rear, allowing her to feel every granite-hard inch of his arousal.
She’d learned just enough from her sister about the male anatomy to set her imagination alight.
“Do you feel that?” Grey demanded roughly. “Do you feel what you do to me? How you make me come undone?”
She wanted to see Grey, to touch him, to feel what it would be like with no clothing between them. Her entire body hummed with that need, so much so that she moaned, low and loud, as she pressed herself back into him.
The sound ripped from his throat was evidence of how similarly thin his restraint had worn.
“I want you,” Emmeline gasped, attempting to push his hand on her hip to the aching juncture of her thighs.
She wanted what he’d shown her the previous night, and she wanted more.
Together, their fingers dragged the hem of her skirts higher; she gasped as the cool spring air grazed her calves and then thighs, rising higher to the exposed curves of her rear as Grey fisted the fabric of her skirts and undergarments and wrenched them up.
Every one of her senses was sparking with awareness.
She began to tremble when his other hand traveled down the curve of her breast, grazed past the aching peak of her nipple, and traced a tickle of caress on her lower abdomen, just above where the curls guarding her sex began. Just a little lower…
“Touch me!” she whimpered, then repeated herself more loudly when he did not immediately comply. She was quickly cut off when Grey’s large hand clapped over her mouth.
“Ah, ah,” he tsked, his warm breath in her ear. “You must remain quiet. Wouldn’t want someone to investigate and find you with your skirts flipped up and your delectable bottom on display.”
Emmeline’s eyelids fluttered at his words, and she emitted a tiny whimper against his palm. Oh, the image he painted for her…
“Will you be good for me?” he demanded. She could feel his hard sex pulsing against the back of her thigh, and—even though she was the one held in his arms—she felt powerful. She felt in charge. Whether he wanted it or not, she was the catalyst for this man’s arousal.
She gave a slow nod, her eyelids heavy with desire.
“Excellent,” he whispered with deceptive solicitousness. “Then I will make you feel good in return…”
With painful slowness, his fingers dipped lower, dragging out time and freezing the breath in her lungs, until, finally, the pads of his longest fingers caressed her slit.
This time, she was able to limit her reaction to a tiny squeak.
She bit down hard on her lower lip, and her entire body began to heat with a flush of pleasure.
She shivered when he began to stroke her, slowly, tenderly, gliding through the slick petals of her sex until he located the same bundle of nerves he had the night before.
With a press and a swirl, a fresh wave of arousal flowed through Emmeline, and she was forced to grip one of the arbor’s supports to keep her knees from giving way.
She melted into his ministrations. With every pass of his fingers, Grey skillfully drove her mindless until she clenched her thighs around his hand, wishing she might keep him there forever.
His delightfully sinful words of praise—how agonizingly beautiful she was, how she drove him wild, how badly he wanted to bury himself deep inside her—echoed within the protective walls of clematis leaves.
Emmeline moaned and pressed her hips back into Grey, blindly locating the cradle of his hips and nestling into place with the ridge of his member prodding her dripping folds.
A low, appreciative sound rumbled up from deep in his chest. “Are you asking for more?”
Eyes closed, head lolling, she had only the wherewithal to nod her head once and arch back into him.
“There is no turning back from more,” Grey cautioned her gruffly.
Dimly, she realized what he was saying. They’d already allowed their desire to drag them across several lines, but at least Grey was cognizant enough to allow her to put an end to whatever was simmering between them before there was truly no turning back.
And she wanted him all the more because of it.
“I know,” she said, grasping his wrist.
It was his turn to freeze. “And you want more?”
“Yes, Grey.”
“And you’ve truly enjoyed all that has taken place between us?”
“Yes, you dense-headed man!” She laughed breathlessly.
Deftly undoing the falls of his breeches, Grey rewarded her with a rock of his hips, the thick head of his member rubbing her swollen pearl.
“Good.” He positioned himself at her entrance and pressed forward so just the tip of him slipped inside.
She moaned at the intrusion, the tight fullness she experienced at that angle.
“Because I sure as hell did.” He thrust home and, without giving her a chance to catch her breath, he grasped her hips and began pounding into her. Faster. Harder. Deeper.
To keep from crying out, Emmeline bit her cheek so hard she tasted the metallic tang of blood.
The front of his thighs connected with the back of hers over and over again as their flesh collided, wet and needy and sensitized with the power of their arousal.
Every smack of their skin drove Emmeline higher until her vision began to blacken around the edges.
She gripped the arbor with white-knuckled ferocity, both as a way to anchor herself to reality and to use as leverage as she pushed her hips back into each one of Grey’s thrusts.
Her inner muscles tensed around his intrusion, trying to hold him deep inside of her and never release him.
“Grey!” she whimpered. It was becoming too much; she was feeling too much. Her body was filling with sensation to a dangerous level.
He made a low sound to shush her. “I know,” he grunted, low and primal, and she believed he was experiencing the same overwhelming emotions and physical experiences.
He was more strained and fractured than any time they’d shared in their history of one-upmanship.
To know he was as overwhelmed by what they were sharing as she was?
That was the feather that tipped Emmeline over the edge.
Screwing her eyes shut so tightly she experienced flashes of light behind the closed lids, her body was wracked with tremors as the most exquisite of releases rushed through her veins.
It was the most glorious cresting of sensation, a breaking and reassembling all at once.
Grey continued his relentless onslaught of her body; his hands clutched her hips and held her skirts out of the way as he ground against her orgasm, groaning at the tight grip she had on him.
Emmeline sobbed and gasped as quietly as she could, but it wasn’t enough for Grey.
He reached around and covered her mouth once more in a gesture that was somehow both thrillingly possessive and careful.
He knew she was lost in the haze of her passion and had little control over her reactions, but he had enough of his sanity intact to know she still needed to remain quiet.
“That’s it,” he breathed and panted into the damp curls at the nape of her neck, sending ripples of gooseflesh down her spine. “Give me everything.”
And, by God, did she. His demand ignited another wave of pleasure within her body even before the first one had ebbed away.
“Bloody hell, Emmeline,” he growled. “You’re amazing.
I never thought—I didn’t know—Lord, I will never have enough of you.
” The knowledge that she pleased him as much as he pleased her was too much; it drained every ounce of strength from her body.
Emmeline would have melted completely had Grey’s strong hands not held her aloft—had he not steadied her as he buried himself to the hilt and allowed the pulsations of her body to milk his hot spend from his body.
Filling her. Marking her. A low, gravelly groan reverberated from the depths of his chest as she ripped every last bit of pleasure from his body.
Emmeline was mostly insensible and entirely depleted by the time Grey sank to the nearby carved stone bench and brought her with him.
She was too exhausted to protest when he cradled her in his lap and gently positioned her head against his chest. His heart was pounding so hard beneath her cheek that its steady thump was all she could hear.
She closed her eyes and allowed herself to sink into it.
She slipped into a state of blissful meditation as she listened to the gradual slowing of the rhythms of his body.
His pulse and his breathing slowly returned to normal, but his arms wrapped around her, and the thumb stroking steady circles against her bare arm were her anchors. And she was content.