Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The feel of Delilah…of being inside her…the press of their naked bodies slicked with sweat against each other…her sex tight around him…her hips angled as if she couldn’t get enough…
In his bed.
Now that he had her here, he might never let her leave it.
She was so potent a temptation that she brought out the medieval warlord in him.
Claim…possess… That was one way to have her—as bodies designed solely to pleasure one another.
But he wanted her as more than her body.
He wanted all of her—and he wanted it given freely.
This act of mutual pleasure was a giving—not a taking.
So much of their relations with one another felt rooted in the physical. But it was the feeling beneath pleasured nerve endings that gave the act true satisfaction. It wasn’t simply a meeting of complimentary body parts. It channeled deeper to a place inside him that had ever remained untouched.
Until this summer.
And as he plunged in and out of her, he poured all that feeling into the act. This wasn’t claiming and possessing—well, it was that, too. But it wasn’t only claiming and possessing. It was also wooing and winning.
Her teeth found one of his nipples and bit lightly. Sparks lit through him, and his mouth found her neck and sucked as he plunged harder, deeper. “Oh, Sebastian,” she groaned.
Sharp fingernails were now scraping down his back, demanding more of him—all he had—deeper…faster.
Sometimes wooing and winning looked remarkably like claiming and possessing.
Felt like it, too.
Her legs wrapped around him, heels digging into the muscles of his arse. Her eyes closed, her head arched back; she was close, he felt it in the tension of her body. She was on the hunt for release, straining toward its promise as it taunted and tempted her just out of reach.
And seeing her so close brought him close. He wanted to prolong this union of their bodies—never wanted it to end, in fact. A nigh impossible feat with her reaching for climax with him inside her.
Perhaps Delilah had the right of it, and it would be best to get this tup out of the way.
No.
He tempered the rhythm of his hips and began entering her with slow deliberation. Her eyes flew open in outrage. She’d been so close and now he was denying her.
But he wasn’t.
This wasn’t a denial of pleasure.
This was a prolonging of it.
In and out of her, he moved, every part of themselves mingling—their breath, their sweat, their sexes. A taking of pleasure in the journey, not the end.
That was what beds were good for.
For taking one’s time, and doing it right.
The outrage drained from eyes, and in its place he detected surrender to sensation. She had much to learn about this act—this union—its ebbs and flows…the possibility that reached far beyond the shore.
But—too soon for his liking—his body’s demands would be put off no longer, and he found himself driving into her with focused intensity. Her body responded instantly, her hips angling to receive more of him. Greedy for it, in fact. “You’re a wanton, Lady Delilah.”
“Were you ever in doubt?” she asked between moans of pleasure.
Actually…“No.”
Some part of him had known these last few years that it would be like this between them. Greedy…insatiable…unquenchable.
An appetite ever unsated.
A thirst never quenched.
That was what existed between him and Delilah.
And ever would.
Relentlessly, he drove into her, pushing her to the brink of release.
Then she tipped over just when he was certain he could no longer hold off his own climax.
Mindlessly, he plunged in and out of her, shouting his release to the rafters beyond the coffered ceiling. They likely heard it in the ballroom.
He cared not.
He was Ravensworth.
And the woman beneath him presently floating outside her body in the exquisite ether of satiety was his future duchess.
His eyes drifted closed for a moment…
A faraway clock chimed one, and Sebastian’s eyes flew open in a sudden panic only assuaged when he registered Delilah’s body beside him. Her mask was gone.
“You drifted off,” she said, a little smile fluttering about her lips.
Lips that looked very much like they wanted to be kissed. He knew that look in her eyes.
And so did his cock, which was already at half-mast.
No.
Not yet.
He rolled away from her and off the bed, then unhurriedly crossed the room and grabbed his trousers. His half-mast cock must be put away for the talk he and Delilah needed to have.
She sat up and pulled the sheet over her breasts. He supposed it was necessary that they, too, be hidden from view.
He took a seat in the chair he’d vacated not an hour ago, sitting back lazily, legs sprawled.
When he’d last sat here, he’d been exclusively focused on the carnal.
Now, he had a different intent. “The door’s there,” he said, pointing across the room, as if making idle chit-chat.
He pointed the other direction. “And another one over there.”
Sebastian hadn’t realized until this very moment an anger toward Delilah had been simmering inside him.
Knowledge shone in her clear azure eyes. She knew—and understood.
Still, he couldn’t seem to let it go. “In case you want to run, of course.”
And there it was as concrete as a boulder in the space between them. The source of his anger…
She’d run.
And not toward him.
“I’m not going anywhere, Sebastian.”
A measure of tension released from his body. But it wasn’t enough. How he wanted to believe her—but he wasn’t yet sure he could. “Are you certain?”
They both understood the question held multiple layers. It wasn’t simply about staying in his bed for one night. It was about staying in his life…forever.
Was she sure?
She gathered the sheet about herself and moved to the foot of the bed, her blond curls tossed wildly about her head. She looked deliciously sleep- and love-tousled, and it was all he could do to remain still.
But this wouldn’t work between them if he followed his body’s urging and made love to her now.
She must come to him.
The other could come later…if…
“It occurs to me that you likely think I run because I fear consequences.”
“The thought has occurred to me.”
“In truth, I never minded a spot of trouble.” A dry laugh escaped her. “A Windermere trait, to be sure.”
Sebastian remained silent while she worked her way up to saying what was on her mind.
“This is difficult to explain, but when I feel something, I feel it exceedingly deeply. Passionately. Too passionately, really,” she said on a self-deprecating laugh.
He wished she wouldn’t do that, but he kept his silence.
“And when something that I want goes all to hell, I have great difficulty bearing it. It’s as if the disappointment crashes down onto me like an avalanche and utterly overwhelms me.
” She exhaled a shaky breath. “So, I run and find something else to occupy me for a time, until the feeling passes, which has been known to take weeks, even months.”
“You ignore your feelings?”
Delilah nodded. “I do quite a bang-up job of it, in fact. No one wants to see a mopey Windermere.”
And like that, Sebastian’s anger drained away. “You can’t ignore your feelings forever.”
“So I’ve learned.” She bit her bottom lip between straight white teeth. “The night of my lead performance, I ran again.”
“I noticed.”
“But not because Oliver Quincy exposed me and denied me what I wanted. That was my excuse.”
“Pardon?”
“To play the lead role on that stage wasn’t what I’d come to truly want.”
“Delilah, it was everything you ever wanted.”
She shook her head. “No longer. What I truly wanted was you.”
“Me?” The next instant he was giving voice to a cynical thought. “That’s been well established.” He jutted his chin. “In that very bed tonight, in fact.”
He refused to consider another meaning.
Not unless she spoke it.
“You, Sebastian. Not your body—well, that too—but you. I’d come to want you with such a passion that it overwhelmed me. So, I ran.”
“You were running from me?” he asked, just to be clear she was saying what he thought she was saying.
She nodded.
“How is that better?” He failed to see it.
Her face became utterly transformed with fervor. “Because I had to run from you to discover that you were my destination all along.”
Her words—the raw sincerity of her voice—provoked a feeling inside him. A feeling that wanted to take wing. After all, she’d just spoken the very words he’d been wanting to hear. But… “Delilah, be careful with your words. Once you consent to be mine, you’re mine forever. There’s no more running.”
She appeared to be weighing his words. “I’ll always need to feel free. The mistress and orchestrator of my own fate.”
“I know.” And he respected and admired that about her.
“But I’ve learned I need something else equally as much.”
“Which is?”
“A partner…you,” she said simply. “What’s the point if you’re not by my side? It would only be a life half lived.”
She slid off the foot of the bed, her bare feet padding silently across the carpet, step by deliberate step, sheet held to her throat, dragging on the floor behind her.
Sebastian’s heart raced in his chest, anticipation rioting through him.
The tender look in her eyes spoke greater volumes than words ever could.
In a way, this was her running again…
Toward him…
Her destination.
She straddled his legs and lowered to a perch on his thighs, her light scent of rose and Delilah swirling through the air. Nothing separated them now.
“Every part of me is yours, Sebastian.” Her gaze shone clear and direct and honest. “I’m your wildflower.”
“Does that make me your sun?”
She gave his arm a light swat. “Arrogant man.”
A novel thought struck him. “And you love that about me.”
A seriousness entered her eyes. “No.”
Sebastian’s stomach plummeted to his feet.
“I don’t simply love that about you. I love you.”
He reached out and took her face in his hands, her cheeks soft beneath his rough palms. “And I love you, my wildflower.”
She nuzzled into his touch, then said, “About the document you sent me.”
He’d been wondering when that subject would be broached. He’d also been wondering if he would hold to its implicit demand—that she marry him—in the face of her opposition. He suspected it wouldn’t take much for her to convince him to live in sin with her forever. Still… “Before you say no—”
“Who says my answer is no?”
“Is it yes?”
“Not yet.”
“I shall not force you.”
“You couldn’t if you tried.”
“Not even if I promised you that we could do what we just did in that bed every day for the rest of our lives?”
“Perhaps then.”
“Well, I’m not promising you that.”
“Then the answer is definitely no.”
“Delilah…”
“We can be Sebastian and Delilah. And Seb and Lilah. And…” She slid off her perch on his legs and sank to her knees beside the chair and took his hands in hers, her head tipped back so she could hold his gaze “And we can be duke and duchess, if you’ll have me.”
It took a moment for Sebastian to grasp the meaning behind her words. “Are you proposing marriage to me, Delilah?”
Eyes suddenly bright with a sheen of unshed tears, she stared up at him, imploring, and nodded. Her passion was there for him to see. She wanted him—a life with him—with all her being—and it scared her. But she didn’t run. She’d planted her feet and remained. Her passion was a gift.
“In three days, at two o’clock in the afternoon, at St. Paul’s Cathedral,” she began, each phrase emerging staccato, “I’ll be standing at the head of the aisle with the archbishop—”
“The archbishop?”
“He’s a close friend of Amelia’s mother-in-law,” she said, impatient, as if it were beside the point. “Will you join me there? And pledge your troth to me forever?”
Sebastian joined her on the floor. She reached her arms around his neck, and he gathered her close, their mouths only inches apart. “I shall.”
The serious look in her eyes told him she had something more to say. “But be careful, Sebastian,” she muttered against his lips.
“Why is that?” he rumbled.
“Because once I make you mine, there will be no end of earth that you could run that I wouldn’t pursue you.”
And as Sebastian pulled his future duchess tight against him, in the moment just before he pressed his mouth to hers, he said, “I can’t think of a fate I would rather suffer.”