Chapter 12 #2
A wave of raw lust channeled through her, and she was acting before she could think. She pushed forward, coming to her hands and knees, moving to the edge of the bed, reaching for his hips with one hand and for his manhood with the other, her fingers wrapping around his thick and, yes, hard length.
“Amelia, I…” he began and couldn’t finish as she tugged him forward. Her gaze lifted and met his. His eyes had gone opaque, the pupils pushing his irises into silvery rings.
“’Tis I who shall be ravishing you tonight, Your Grace.”
Her gaze holding his, her tongue stretched forward and stroked up the length of him. A long, animal groan poured from his parted mouth, and his head arced back. He tasted of salt and the musk specific to him. Again, she licked him. Again, he groaned.
Driven by instinct, she took him into her mouth, or as much as possible.
There was just so much of him. His fingers wove through her hair, and his hips gave a shallow thrust. Gratification streaked through her at this giving of pleasure.
How unexpected that it would make her body hum with wanting, too, but—oh—how her sex ached for this to be inside her as she stroked him with her mouth, his slick length sliding in and out.
She’d never felt so empty in her life, so aching to be filled.
She groaned from the denial, but it was the denial that stoked this desire into a lust like none she’d yet experienced.
She sucked him in deeper, and his hand began guiding her head. This give and take of control between them was unexpected, but not unwelcome. Only with him was she able to climb out of her mind and center her entire being in what was happening between her and another.
“Amelia,” he muttered as if in pain, so great was his pleasure. “You must stop.”
Her tongue swirled around the head of his manhood, and another groan poured from him. “Must I?”
He released her hair and reached beneath her chin. “I must stop,” he said, and pulled away from her mouth, slowly, inch by inch. Oh, so many inches.
She rose to her knees, so they now faced each other. Dark intention in his eyes, he said, “Lie on your back.”
Pure, animal lust shivered through her as she did as she was told.
He grabbed her hips and pulled her to the edge of the bed, his hard manhood so slick against her quim she couldn’t help squirming, leaving her legs no direction but up his body, a foot to either side of his head.
He angled his face and kissed her instep as his hands tightened on her hips and he plunged inside her with a long, deep, possessive stroke.
Oh, how he filled her. Desperate fingers clutched at the covers above her head, and she moaned.
He stretched her to the point of pain, yet she angled her hips to receive more of him.
“You have the most perfect legs,” he murmured against her ankle.
Nearly mindless, she squirmed against him, bringing him deeper, driven by a need that was now clawing at her.
A need only he could satisfy. He met her gaze, and the playfulness fell away.
He understood what her body craved as he began to drive into her with deliberation and intention, stoking this flame inside her higher and hotter.
“Oh, yes,” she cried, the feeling catching her in its grip, winding her tighter, making her wild for him, her legs now wrapped around his waist, demanding more, demanding she give herself over to—to him. “Like that.”
Of a sudden, all the world went dark and all its elements condensed where his sex met hers, provoking her to new heights of sensation. She met his gaze and, more profoundly, met connection there. All she felt, he felt, too. Not just the physical, but the spiritual, too. To the core of their souls.
One, then another stroke of his slick, long manhood, and she broke, all the light in the universe shot through her, sending stars through her veins, as her quim pulsed its climax around him.
“Amelia,” he shouted, before pouring his release into her, his hands controlling the movement of her hips, the muscles of his chest and stomach contracting with the effort.
It was the most erotic view of Amelia’s life.
Her view.
Hers.
That was who this man was.
Hers.
She wasn’t sure who had claimed who, but the end result was the same: they belonged to each other.
He gathered her into his arms, remaining as one with her as they floated within the ether of satiety together.
What they two shared…it was only for them.
She never wanted to leave this place that only they knew.
The rest of the world, with its demands and expectations, held no meaning in comparison.
And to think she’d convinced herself they did. To think she’d almost thrown all this away on a stubborn idea that held no true substance. The feel of this man in her arms… the weight of him pressed against her…the beat of their hearts one…
It was all that would ever matter.
He shifted his weight to the side, and they were no longer one. Her body already ached for him. He slid idle fingers through her curls, watching them slip through. She’d never felt more right. Her future was here, with this man. Forever.
She met his gray gaze, seeing the same satiety in there. “I never knew coupling could involve acrobatics,” she said on a laugh. “My legs in the air like that.”
A lazy half-smile tipped about his mouth. “Coupling can involve any number of acrobatics. We’ve only just started.”
Twin frissons of desire and daring crept through her. She wouldn’t mind adding to that number in a minute.
A seriousness entered his gaze, an inscrutability. It only made him more attractive. “I have a question for you.”
Her breath caught in her chest. Here it was. The question she’d been waiting for him to ask—again—the answer—a different answer—poised on her lips. “Ask away,” she said, breathless.
“Do you expect this to be a regular occurrence?”
A little laugh full of nerves escaped her. It wasn’t quite the question she’d expected, but he would get there. “Oh, yes,” she said.
Now if he would only ask that other question, for another yes was poised on her lips.
“How would you like to arrange it?” he asked.
Her brow crinkled. “Arrange it?”
What a strange way to ask her to marry him.
“That is generally how one manages a love affair,” he said. “With an arrangement.”
All the breath left her body. She wasn’t sure she would ever be able to breathe again.
“Of course, there’s another way to make it a regular occurrence.”
“Which is?” she was somehow able to ask around the knot in her throat.
“Marriage.” His gaze narrowed on her. “But I won’t be asking you to marry me again.”
“You won’t?” Tears threatened. Oh, the shame.
He shook his head.
“Why not?” she asked. She might have demanded.
“It isn’t what you want.”
Knowledge landed on her with all the violence of a piano fallen from a great height.
He wouldn’t be asking her to marry him.
Despair streaked through her. It was unreasonable, of course. She had refused him in Italy. But now they were in England. Now…
Oh, matters were different now.
She was different now.
“Unless…” he began, slowly, as if an idea was only now occurring to him.
“Yes?” she asked, impatient. The balance of her life felt in jeopardy.
His gaze bored into her, intense and questioning. “Unless you want me to ask you to marry me again.”
Oh. She’d bungled everything. It wasn’t Tristan who should be doing the asking.
It was she.
She gathered the coverlet still warm from their bodies and scrambled to her knees before sitting back onto her haunches.
Tristan, on the other hand, gazed up at her from his prone position, unapologetically naked, slightly arrogant, and most definitely questioning.
The urge to climb on top of him and make love to him again nearly overwhelmed her.
After.
She had to fix this—fix them—first.
“I have something to tell you,” she said, “and I think it’s best if we’re both sitting for it.” So I don’t ravish you again, she didn’t say.
He pushed to a seat and reclined against the headboard, pillows propped behind him. “Is this better?”
He reached for her, and she shook her head. “I can’t be touching you and keep from ravishing you.”
He chuckled. She didn’t. It was only the truth.
She inhaled a deep, bracing breath. “I thought I wanted this one kind of life, and it was all I could imagine,” she began. “I thought I wanted to be the ton’s darling.”
“I’m aware.”
“I cared too much what others thought. That I only had value as long as I was valued by them.”
“You hold so much more within you than that, Amelia.”
The way he spoke those words—as statement of fact—burrowed deep inside her. She would never let them go as long as breath filled her lungs.
“It was you, Tristan, who showed me,” she said. “You allowed me a glimpse of a different sort of life, one of possibility, and art, and desire, and acceptance, and… love.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “I love you, Tristan. I only want to be your darling.”
He took her hand and brushed the back of her fingers against his mouth. “You challenge me. You frustrate me. But never doubt this, Amelia. You are my love. You are my darling.”
But she had more to say. “I only care what you think, and I love that you don’t care what anyone in the world thinks.”
He shook his head. “You are wrong there.”
“I am?”
“You taught me to care what one other thinks. You.” He sat forward and caressed her cheek. “Until you, I cared for nothing of value. Until you taught me the value of loving. I only want to adore you. I only want to love you. I only want you, the rest of the world be damned.”
The freest laugh of her life sprang from Amelia. “The rest of the world be damned.”
He pulled her close. But Amelia drew back from his kiss.
It was time.
“Tristan,” she began.
“Yes?”
“I’ll take you any way I can have you—as your mistress…as your slave.”
His thumb brushed away the tear that broke free and rolled down her cheek. “As my wife will do.”
She wasn’t sure her heart could take much more. It was already so full. “Will you marry me, Tristan? Will you live in infamy with me for the rest of our days?”
Her heart in her throat, she waited for his answer.
“Being married will make us slightly less infamous,” he said, conversationally, “but together we’ll find a way.” A laugh rumbled deep in his chest. “I think you’ll take to infamy once you get the hang of it.”
“You’ll marry me?” He hadn’t yet said yes.
“Yes, my love,” he said. “You only had to ask.”
And when he gathered her into his arms, and her lips met his, she knew that all they took on—life… love… making love—would be as art, because they made it so, together.