Chapter 6 #2
“Come back,” Arabella whispered from the shadowy spot beneath her arm.
He wrenched his waistcoat free and the shirt she’d destroyed in her earlier frenzy. The remaining bone button hit the floor and rolled beneath the bed. At the sound, she perked up and began to watch the proceedings. Her fingers clenched in the counterpane as she swallowed.
Nigel wasn’t shy, and her hot gaze only provoked.
He fenced, boxed, and swam in the Serpentine several times a week when weather permitted, an activity he and his father had been doing for years in the dead of night. A habit from Toby’s boyhood, when a lake was the only means of bathing.
Gliding his knife from the sheath strapped to his calf, Nigel tossed it to the floor.
Tugged one boot free, then the other. Unbuttoned his trousers and slipped them down his legs.
When he stood in his drawers, his cock an inspiring display of hunger, he paused, teasingly curving his thumb in his waistband.
She rose to her elbow, her smile crooked. “Are you waiting for my endorsement?”
He recorded the skip in his heartbeat with no small trace of fear.
Arabella held him in the palm of her hand, in a way no other woman had.
It was alarming and… astounding. Joyous.
Like the brief period where he’d been captivated by opium—a habit Macauley had crushed before it truly began—ecstasy cascaded through his bloodstream.
“Once I climb in that bed, you’re mine, imp. Mine . Remember my promise about no half measures.”
She giggled, a girl not acknowledged as silly in any way. “I’m already yours, Nigel Streeter. I always have been.”
Well, then. Ripping off his drawers, he strode across the chamber, the bed dipping with his weight.
Before she let nervousness claim her, he took her face in his hands, and kissed her as if life would cease without her.
The first touch of his skin to hers with nothing between them tore through him like a rogue wave across the sea.
In that second, he marveled at the realization that he couldn’t survive without her.
Bracing his forearm on the bed to hold off some of his weight, he settled atop her, and they joined in a frenzy, limbs intertwining, hands roaming.
He longed to discover every peak and valley of her slender body, every crease, every freckle.
Her scattered breath, her sprinting heartbeat, the ragged pulse beneath her skin.
She was sunlight, and he was dusk, but it worked, their merger.
On some mad level, they balanced each other in ways he’d heard about his entire life.
The Duchess Society, after all, were notorious for finding true love.
Only, Nigel hadn’t chosen Arabella. He hadn’t known .
Nonetheless, when he paused to gaze at her, in his bed, slowly creeping into his heart, he thanked the gods she’d found him.
She was soft from her release. Warm, moist, vulnerable.
Her skin sleek beneath his fingertips, her teeth bold as they sank into his skin.
The sensual moves he usually incorporated, he left behind.
Not by choice. Once they were swept into the act, he lost contact with that side of him.
The tense negotiator working on the practical exchange.
Nudging her legs open and slipping between them, his rigid cock finding her velvet folds, was the least practical place he’d ever found himself.
“I want?—”
“Not yet,” he whispered against the side of her breast. Taking her nipple between his teeth, he went a little rougher, a little deeper, than he had before. Out on the lane, glass shattered against cobblestones, and he’d never cared less what was happening in the world outside this bedchamber.
When she glided her hand over his waist, he lifted his hips, encouraging her.
“You’re so hard,” she murmured, her fingers circling his cock. “I hadn’t fully imagined. Whispers in parlors from the experienced ladies to the inexperienced ones can’t match actual touch.” She exhaled softly, her breath striking his cheek. “I wonder…”
“I’ll slide right in like you were made for me, imp, never fear.”
His hand covered hers, showing her, this time without cloth between them.
Long strokes, her thumb bumping the swollen head.
The pulse chimed between his shoulder blades and rolled down his back and into his buttocks.
“I warn you,” he whispered, ragged, his breath coming fast. “I won’t last long.
Not with the preliminary antics tonight. I’m halfway there already. ”
She looped her leg over his and lifted her hips, grinding against him. “That’s what second times are for, darling rookery man.”
Laughing in delight, he took her lips, tangling his tongue with hers.
His fingers found her ready, dewy. Sliding a finger inside, then another, they matched rhythms, graceless one moment, faultless the next.
Thrusting, fondling. She experimented with relish, discovering new things about him.
He loved having his nipples sucked, an activity he’d never slowed down long enough to try.
And the tiny nips she gave him on a decidedly sensitive spot beneath his collarbone drove him mad.
Her hair flowing over his face and chest was an aphrodisiac, like a jolt of liquor firing through his veins.
When he was nearly undone, he took her hand and pinned it by her head, trapping her.
Her other was locked at his waist, urging him into a yet-unmet cadence.
She was close herself, cheeks flushed, chest heaving, eyes bright silver crescents he wanted to lose himself in.
“I desire you more than I’ve desired a damned thing in this life, Arabella Macauley.
More than safety, more than my next meal, more than wealth or respect or success.
” He tipped her chin, making sure her gaze was on his when he possessed her.
“Understand me because this isn’t merely another conquest. There is no one but you.
I’ve never had another woman in this bed. This is us . Only us.”
Before she could speak and conceivably say things he was terrified to hear, he laid his mouth to hers, fit her knee against his hip, and nudged inside.
It was a tender, tantalizing, languid glide, inch by delicious inch.
Silky skin surrounding his length, her heartbeat striking his chest in a feral tempo.
Her fingers tugging his hair, nails scoring his skin, body rising to meet his thrusts.
The bed, another cast-off from his family’s coffers, squeaked with the swelling movement.
There was a pause of resistance, her muffled cry against his lips, her shiver, then they were free. Climbing a mountain he’d never scaled.
Making love.
When before, it had simply been sex.
She bit his earlobe and whispered wicked things in his ear, sending his fever higher. Their skin grew moist; the air thickened with their scent. The sounds of pleasure rippled across the chamber. Sighs, moans, bodies meeting .
“Bell, ah, God , I want you. You are turning me inside out.”
She trailed her lips down his neck. “You have me, Nigel, you have me.”
From there, they raced to the finish line. Tangled arms and legs, furiously rocking into each other. Bumping, grinding, pulsing. Heat swept over him, prickling his skin. He shouldered a bead of sweat from his temple and realized, manage this, lad, or you’re arriving without her.
The bud at the top of her sex was swollen, flowering for his touch. He circled the bundle of nerves as he braked his thrusts, giving himself a few seconds. “Come with me, imp. Now, please. Please .”
She groaned, her body bending and knocking his hand off target.
Thankfully, she spiraled into bliss, shaking and shivering, pulling him into the most mind-numbing orgasm of his life. Lights flashed behind his sealed lids as his heartbeat exploded in his ears.
They trembled, grasping and groaning, locked together, clutching each other at the end.
Novel in every way.
When they’d quieted, he laid his brow to hers, holding his weight off her as best he could when he couldn’t feel his arms. “Am I too heavy?”
She blinked, yanking a strand of hair from her face. “Heavy,” she murmured as if she’d never heard the word.
Laughing weakly, he rolled and took her with him, until they were lying face-to-face on his shaky-arse bed. Now, he could see why the piece had been relegated to his parents’ attic.
She nuzzled into his chest, finding an ideal spot. Kissed his neck and danced her fingers through the hair on his chest. A part of him she seemed to like when he’d never given it much consideration past his adolescence—when every hint of maturation had been a gift.
She hugged him, squirming, bumping him from chest to hip to ankle. Her feet were slim and petite and cozying against his.
He hesitated slightly before pulling her in and completing the fit. Rain plinked off the windowpanes, lulling him into the most peaceful existence of his remembrance. The piquant scent of their lovemaking rode the air, and he breathed it in like nectar.
“Give in to me,” Arabella whispered, amused, her ability to see him fucking terrifying. A dash of moonlight cascaded across her lovely face, and his heart drifted away like a butterfly to her. “There’s no holding back now, Streeter. Not when I’ve seen you at your weakest.”
Nigel hugged her, the first time in ages he fell asleep with his heart absent of loneliness.
And the very first time while holding the woman he loved.