Chapter Eighteen
You little liar,” Henry groaned against her shoulder.
It had been impossible to restrain himself even a moment longer, but even as his hips had punched up, as he’d let her sink down on him, he’d known he’d hurt her.
She’d flinched as he’d driven home, and though she’d tried to suck back the small sound of pain, the shreds of it had hissed through her teeth anyway.
He could have spared her that. Probably. Maybe.
“It’s not so bad.” Her hands stroked through his hair as if he required soothing more than she did, and she wriggled to relieve the ache he knew must be lingering still. “Really. It’s just…a bit uncomfortable.”
Because she was tight as a damned fist around his cock, and he’d plunged into her with a vigor and a ferocity that had surprised even him. His chest heaved like a bellows, and his thighs tensed with the effort not to come this very moment.
He should have known she’d lied. He would have known, if he had thought to watch her face. And now she was hurting, only because he’d let her tear shreds in his self-control in the same manner her cat had torn shreds in his damned curtains.
“I just need a moment,” she said, and her velvety inner muscles caressed him as she shifted minutely in an attempt to ease the discomfort.
Henry’s heart thudded against his ribs. His teeth ground together as he held himself still, let her writhe and squirm and inflict the purest of torture upon him, convinced he’d died and gone to hell.
That he was paying for sins he’d not yet committed; that some capricious god had cursed him to this torment.
At last, a subtle relaxing of those tight muscles which had staunchly resisted his invasion. A sigh of relief slipped through her lips as her head fell back once more.
“All right?” He would never know how he’d managed to get the words out from between the grit of his teeth.
“Yes,” she said, those soft little fingers raking through his hair. “Yes.”
Good. He withdrew slowly, and his heart pounded at the silken slide of those delicate inner tissues that rippled around him, tried to hold him within her. A shiver raced down her spine, and those soft lips parted on a ragged little breath.
Slow. Careful. Gentle, he told himself, as he eased forward once more, fighting the instinctual urge to drive into her.
And she—she glanced down. Watched him take her with something like amazement etched across her face.
Watched herself take him, her gaze riveted to his cock as he fed himself back into her, an inch at a time.
Watched him hold himself back inches short of completion, her fingers kneading his shoulders. “Don’t stop,” she breathed.
“You flinched.”
“Henry.” One hand slid down his shoulder, fingernails scratching the wool of his coat before coming to rest above his heart. “I want all of you.”
Christ. The tatters of restraint he’d managed to cling to shredded.
He surged inside her, his mouth blanketing hers as he swallowed the gasp of surprise she gave.
Self-control gone as if it had never existed to begin with, he plunged.
Again, and again. Hard and deep. He was helpless to resist the tight clutch of her around him, welcoming him back within her with each hard drive.
Her lips broke from his on a low moan. Not in pain, thank God—her eyes had gone heavy-lidded, those brilliant green cat’s eyes hazy and unfocused.
A flush glowed in her cheeks, spreading down the long line of her throat and across the mounds of her ample breasts, which bounced with each jarring thrust.
It wasn’t the way a gentleman was meant to treat a lady, and most especially not one who had been a virgin until moments ago.
But she had wanted this, exactly this—she had asked for it, lied to get it.
She could get beneath his skin like nothing and no one else.
Already she was there, swimming in his blood.
In every vein, in every muscle, in every beat of his damned heart.
A jab of his hips, and her back arched, thrusting those magnificent breasts toward his face. “Don’t ever lie to me again,” he ordered.
“Why?” The question emerged on a sensual purr of pleasure, her voice sounding faintly drunken. “Will you spank me again?
“No. You’d enjoy it too much.” Eventually. He hadn’t missed the tremble that had slid through her on that last slap, the way her thighs had squeezed together. “You”—a sharp snap of his hips—“don’t lie”—a thrust so hard she gasped his name like a prayer—“to me.”
Her nails bit into his shoulders; her teeth bit into her lower lip. A whine built in her throat as her thighs tensed, as she tried to claim what small range of motion he granted to her to drive herself down upon him. A whimper slid from her lips. “Henry, please.”
“Promise me.” God, he was so close, now.
Another thrust and she clenched around him, casting her head back with a sharp cry.
“Promise me, and mean it.” Because he couldn’t take another incident of finding her in a place like this when she’d been meant to be elsewhere.
When she’d promised she wouldn’t come. From this moment forward, she was going to honor her word to him.
“I promise!” It was the plaintive wail of a desperate woman. Her breath came in frantic little pants as she squirmed in his arms, fighting to get closer still. “Henry, I promise. Please.”
And that—that was enough. Enough for now. Henry drove feverishly for fulfillment, praying she would find hers first. He could feel his balls tightening, feel his seed rising in his shaft.
Withdraw, he told himself. You have got to withdraw. Now. It must be now.
Those first tiny flutters were the end of him. She tightened around him in delicious little pulses, squeezing him within the clench of those hot, velvety inner muscles. Her arms clutched at him as she made soft gasping sounds near his ear that scrambled his senses.
That was it. He came so hard, so fast, it drove every thought from his head except the need to be inside her. To stay inside her. Forever, for always.
An eternity later, Grace murmured, “Henry?”
He’d been waiting for his heart to recover its normal rhythm, working out the best, most efficient way to get her from here to the bed. “Hmm?”
“I’m not sorry I came here tonight,” she said, draping her arms around his neck and settling her cheek upon his shoulder with a sigh. “But I am sorry I lied about it.”
He muffled a huff of disgruntled laughter against her temple and buried a kiss in her tousled hair. Good enough.
∞∞∞
Mistakes.
It wasn’t the first time Henry had ruminated upon them, and he doubted it would be the last. For the vast majority of his life, he’d kept them to a minimum. Tiny little ones of no particular consequence, without lasting impact upon the rest of his life, or anyone else’s.
Perfection was an impossible goal, but one he had striven for nonetheless. And if he had always—would always—fall short, well, then, no one could say it was because he hadn’t tried. Tried, in all ways, to be the perfect son. The perfect brother. The perfect earl. The perfect gentleman.
At least until recently, he’d thought he’d been doing a damned fine job of it.
And then his life had caved in, and so had his principles, his morals, his scruples, and everything else besides.
How many mistakes had he made of late? How many life-altering decisions that could, at any moment, have ruined him?
One misstep, one mistake after another. First carelessly, and then willingly. What had he become, just lately?
He dressed quickly and quietly, shrugging into his coat with a carelessness that would have given his valet conniptions.
His cravat was a loss; his fumbling fingers hadn’t been able to wrench the wrinkled linen into anything even approximating the sort of intricate knot that a gentleman was expected to wear.
He located his boots tucked beneath the bed, beautifully-shined leather reflecting the low light of the lamp.
Grace dozed still upon the bed in a glorious sprawl, one knee hiked up, the gold of her tumbled hair catching the flickering lamplight.
She looked like the subject of some Renaissance master painter; lovely smooth skin bared—a Venus in repose, all lush curves and soft swells.
He flexed his fingers in an effort to resist the impulse to sweep his hands across the silken globes of her plush arse, to press his thumbs to the sweet little dimples carved into her flesh just at the small of her back.
Her arm cradled the fulsome weight of her breasts, exposed her rosy nipples.
He swiped his trembling fingers over his mouth. Already he wanted to be between the luxurious softness of her thighs again, to hold those generous hips in the grip of his fingers as he sank himself within her.
He’d done that quite enough already. In the glow of the lamp, there was a sheen of moisture sliding out from that shadowed cove between her legs. His spend, seeping in a slow trickle down her thigh. It satisfied some primitive part of him he’d never suspected existed to see it.
It also provoked a deep and instinctive panic.
He collected her clothing a piece at a time, retrieved the pins he’d plucked from her hair and discarded.
It was still late; but not yet early—he hoped, at least. But she would be missed, eventually, and the sun rose early this time of year.
They couldn’t pass a full night here, in a wretched, run-down little tavern in Whitechapel.
He had to get her safely home. Now.
Dumping the clothing onto the rumpled counterpane, he took a seat at the edge of the bed and curled one hand around her hip. Warm flesh beneath his fingers, so damned soft and giving.
“Grace,” he said, hearing the strangled tenor of his own voice. “We have got to go.”
She made a small sound of discontent, turning her face into the pillow. “Half an hour more,” she mumbled, her muffled voice slurry with sleep.