Chapter 33
Josh
Iam a lucky bastard, especially compared to poor Dominic, who’s days or weeks from having his wicked way with the woman of his dreams.
I, however, am minutes away.
We nailed our close-ups, the heated subtext we’d conjured up burning through every line we uttered to each other. Alyssa and Abigail were pumped, and it’s bought us some time while they set up for the wide shots.
Elle is leaning against the door of my trailer in full Georgiana regalia, watching me like an elk might watch a lion.
I watch her right back as I shrug off my coat and throw it down.
Unbutton my waistcoat. Pull my cravat loose and spool the silk along my neck, letting it slide to the ground.
Finally, I roll the sleeves of my shirt up slowly as she gazes longingly at my forearms.
‘Hilary’s going to have your guts for garters.’ Hilary is my costumer today.
‘I don’t give a flying fuck about Hilary.’ I move toward her, finishing the job on my sleeves. ‘I’m gonna enjoy this. I’ve been desperate for this, baby. All. Fucking. Morning.’
I stand in front of her, the tips of our shoes almost touching, and turn my attention to her pointless little coat. It’s palest blue, to match her pretty gown, and as low-cut as the gown. Heaven forbid those ladies should choose warmth over the chance to showcase their wares to their suitors.
The coat is open the whole way down the front.
The only bit that’s fastened is a patch across her chest. I attempt to focus on undoing the slippery, covered buttons as her breasts rise and fall right before my eyes.
Fuck, she’s beautiful. That pale, smooth skin, begging for my lips.
I get the offending coat off of her and bend to kiss the swell of her breast, sliding my hands around her waist to steady her. Her fingers sink into my shoulders.
I need to kiss her. Claim her. I’ve been thinking about nothing else since the other day.
Every second I’m with her, I’m watching her mouth.
Every second I’m not, I’m thinking about her mouth.
I lift my head and drink in her utter beauty for a moment.
The anticipation, the hunger, in her huge blue eyes.
The delicate line of her jaw. The lustre of her skin that even layers of makeup can’t hide.
And then I seal my lips to hers. Jesus. The relief is so sweet. She’s so sweet. And I drag my thumb along that jawline as I thrust my tongue inside her mouth. Branding her. And, if I’m honest, beseeching her to remember why we should be together. Why she can’t live without this any more than I can.
But right in this moment, I shouldn’t worry, because she’s every bit as needy as me.
She writhes in my arms and seals her hand to the back of my head and pulls me in as close as she can.
I oblige, pressing my hips against her, crushing her against the door as the semi I’ve been nursing all day builds and builds with a desperate need for her.
‘Do you want me?’ I whisper roughly in her ear when I come up for breath.
She arches her neck against the brush of my lips and groans. ‘Yes. But—stay in character.’
If that’s how she wants to play it, fine.
We’ve made it pretty obvious we both find Dominic and Georgiana’s dynamic super hot, but I have a suspicion there’s a strong element of self-preservation in there, too.
I’m guessing she’s a lot more willing to drop her guard—and her panties, if she ever wears any these days—for her all-time favourite romantic hero than for me.
That’s okay.
I can roll with that.
Especially if it gives her the sense of security she needs to be intimate with me after the way I treated her.
I’m pretty sure this is the only way I’m gonna get to be intimate with her right now.
Hence my point. I’m a lucky bastard to get a second chance with Elle Hart, whatever it looks like. I know that.
This make-believe world we’re using works both ways. Dominic is as much of a shield for me as Georgiana is for Elle. I have no idea what she thinks my game is: she knows I want her, but not how strongly I feel about her.
Have always felt about her.
How much I regret what I did.
How little of a reflection of my real feelings that Twitter stunt was.
How undeserving of her I’ve always felt.
So just as she’s using Georgiana’s desires as a conduit for her own, I’m gonna use Dom to show her I not only want her, but respect her. Idolise her. Love her.
At her request to stay in character, I run my tongue down her neck and palm her breast. ‘I am your adoring servant,’ I tell her in Dom’s voice.
I don’t even need to fake the huskiness.
I’m so turned on by the taste of her skin and this world we’ve created between us, I can hardly speak.
‘All I want to do is worship you. Show you your beautiful body is made for pleasure. Not needlework. Not bible studies or any other things that call themselves diversions. Pleasure. I want to teach you. Let me teach you, my darling.’
She responds to my proposition by rolling her hips hard against mine. ‘Teach me. Please, Your Grace.’ There’s a catch in her voice that makes my breath hitch.
‘I will,’ I promise her, and I take her hands and lift up her arms and hold them above her head as I kiss her as deeply as I can, angling my head and winding my hungry tongue around hers before releasing her hands and pulling back.
‘Come with me.’ I lead her by the elbow to the breakfast bar and turn her to face it. Stand behind her and take a hold of her hips, pulling her back against me so she can feel my arousal.
‘Feel what you do to me?’ I ask in her ear, sliding one hand around her waist to hold her against me in a vice-like grip and the other up where it slips under the scoop of her gown and finds the hardening bud of a nipple just below.
I roll it between my finger and thumb and feel it stiffen as I touch her.
She moans and grips the edge of the island.
‘I’m glad my lady is bare for me.’ I sink down to a squatting position behind her, sliding my hands down the sides of her body as I do, and circle her stockinged ankles with my hands before they travel lazily up, hitching her skirts up as I go.
My hands glide over silk until they strike gold and hit her garters.
I rise to my feet again, keeping the fabric bunched up in my hands, and lift it high enough for me to see her bare ass.
Oh, Jesus fuck. Look at those perfect white globes: they are so fucking perfect.
‘So beautiful,’ I murmur as I run a finger lightly between them, right between her legs. God, she’s wet. ‘Good girl. So ready for me. Have you been like this all morning?’
She whimpers as I part her with my fingers and slide a couple inside of her.
‘Yes, Your Grace.’ She shuffles her legs wider.
‘I am ready for you, too.’ I slide my fingers in and out of her tight, wet heat as I desperately tug at the buttons on the pouch-like opening at the front of Dom’s pants.
Freeing myself, I fist my cock. Jeez, am I ready for her.
I slide my tip up and down the crack of her fine ass, leaving a wet trail as I go, and she moans for me and bends over further so she’s laying her upper body over the breakfast bar.
God. I have her skirts the whole way up and I take a moment to worship the view of her ass in silence.
Waiting for me. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I grab a condom from the welcome basket (I definitely made sure I had that to hand as soon as I left Elle’s trailer the other day) and tear it open, rolling it over my super sensitive, impatient cock.
I know she wants this as bad as I do, but I need to make sure she’s gonna be able to come. I fist my cock and run it down her wet centre to where I know it’ll feel good for her, and she rewards me with a moan and a shimmy of that gorgeous ass.
‘Josh. Get inside me.’
I bend and kiss the very base of her spine. ‘Your Grace,’ I whisper. For her own protection, and her own satisfaction, she needs to stay in character.
‘Your Grace. I need you.’ Her words, and the shudder in her voice, are all I need to hear.
I position myself at her slick entrance and push home, hard.
My hands caress her ass as she rolls her hips to accommodate me.
I’m biting down on my lip, holding my breath and manoeuvring myself deeper into her tight channel.
And when I bottom out, she makes an animalistic sound deep in her throat that almost sends me spiralling out of control.
I fix one hand on her hip to hold her in place and my other reaches around and slides between her legs so I can max out her pleasure.
Knowing Elle needs release, and knowing it’s me who’s heated her up to this feverish state, and knowing it’s me who’s gonna give her that release, has my head spinning.
My finger circles her gently as I keep up a steady rhythm, pulling out almost the whole way before thrusting deep inside her.
I’m breaking a sweat from the effort of holding off from blowing my load too soon, and her breathing is getting more ragged, too.
Every time I bottom out in her, she makes a little noise that, I swear to God, is the best sound I’ve ever heard.
She pushes back against me. ‘Harder.’
I smile to myself behind her back. There’s no way Georgiana would say that, and I could care less.
Her desire is stronger than her inhibitions, and she’s letting me in right now, in the only way she’s capable of.
And it’s far more than I deserve. I increase the pressure of my finger and drive harder into her, slamming her against the edge of the island, but she doesn’t seem to care.
One hand scrabbles on the wood and the other comes back to claw at the fabric over my hip and pull me closer.
Elle’s noises become a string of obscenities, and she turns her head to one side and lays her cheek on the wood.
I wish I had a spare hand to stroke the hair off of her face, but I content myself with grunting out exactly what I think of her.
I tell her how beautiful she is, how fucking amazing it feels to be moving inside her, how much it turns me on to have her bent over for me, and how I’m gonna make it so good for her.
I wanna tell her she’s mine, but even in my far-gone state, I know I can’t tell her that.
Ask her to acknowledge that.
Because she’s not.
She’s gasping and thrusting back against me, and I watch in awe as her eyes squeeze shut and her lips part and she pretty much screams my name from there on the island.
She convulses under my finger and around my cock, her muscles shuddering and fluttering so beautifully that I let go, too.
I go rigid and pump into her as deep as I can and I see fucking stars as my orgasm seizes my body and robs me of my sight.
I stand there, shaking with effort and overwhelm as she goes limp beneath me and the side of her face I can see breaks out into a smile.
There is nothing I want more than to pick her up and take her to the bed, and slide in next to her so I can hold her tight and feel her skin.
I haven’t even gotten her naked yet. Fucking costumes.
But I can’t do any of that, so I bend over her and put my weight on top of her, and finally, I get to smooth back that intoxicating blonde hair from her beautiful face, and I lick up her neck to her earlobe before whispering in her ear:
‘You’ve fucking shattered me. I am a broken man.’
‘Mmm,’ she says sleepily. ‘You’ve broken me, too. That was incredible.’
But I know she doesn’t mean it how I mean it.