Chapter Twelve #2
“This is very improper,” she managed.
The truth was that his arms wrapped round her had a calming effect, especially when she felt so ill.
“Breathe. Someone will be down soon. It won’t be much longer.”
Nevertheless, the corridor outside remained silent.
But as he held her, she stopped shaking. Her pounding heart slowed. And she began to experience—other emotions. Besides fear.
She beat away those thoughts. This man did not think of her in that light. She needed to remember that.
“Perhaps you should stand,” he said, after a moment, in a strangled voice.
“Oh, God, I’m hurting you, aren’t I?” She knew, of course, that she wasn’t a small woman.
“No, no,” he said quickly. “It is not that.”
“I just … I still feel faint.”
It was true. She wasn’t sure if she had the ability to stand. Especially without the fortification of his strength.
“Of course,” he said, sounding slightly out of breath. “It is only—”
He shifted underneath her. And then she felt it.
It was unmistakable. She hadn’t spent much time in intimate embraces with gentlemen in her life. But even if she had been more missish than she was, she wouldn’t have forgotten what his hard length felt like underneath her. She had gotten a good sense of it two nights before, after all.
He had a cockstand. And it was currently pressing against her arse.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I—It is … the position—”
Of course, she thought, he wouldn’t want her to think that his natural reaction to the proximity of a woman meant that he felt any particular attraction to her.
“It is fine,” she snapped. “You can’t help it.”
“I am sorry—I know you wanted me to not trouble you any longer and—”
“Well, here we are anyway.”
“Yes,” he said on an exhale.
They had no choice but to sit there in the dark like that.
And that arousal, which had flared in her before, now beat within her double time.
She grew hot and wet between her legs. His length did not appear to be flagging and, through her summer dress and petticoats, it provided a pleasant pressure.
She tried to perch away from his body, but, if anything, it made the pressure worse.
Her core clenched and then clenched again. She had no choice—her body acted of its own accord. She had been deprived of such a touch for so long. Not since Thomas Garrison had a man held her so close, and that was years ago now.
She couldn’t help it.
She arched herself against him.
“Christ, Scarlett…” He gasped. “Don’t do that.”
“I am sorry,” she said, repeating his line back to him.
He brought a hand to her stomach, as if to steady her. But then she realized he was pressing her into him, making the pressure deeper. She gasped. It wasn’t much, through their clothing, but it was somehow enough.
“I am sorry,” he panted.
“This is ridiculous.”
She turned around, brought her hands to his face, and kissed him. He gasped again but did not protest. He tasted, strangely, of cinnamon, and the taste was so good and so pleasant that she moaned.
Feeling bold, she opened her mouth and traced her tongue around his bottom lip. He accepted with eagerness, groaning.
She was nearly straddling him now, which was indecent to say the least. But since she was here, in some kind of fever dream, she did not hesitate to grind herself into him once more. It felt so good that she heard herself gasp into the dark air. “Please.”
“Please what, darling?”
Darling.
No one had ever called her that before.
“I-I don’t know.”
She really didn’t know. Or she did and she didn’t. She wanted him to give her release. To give her what she found alone in her chamber. But she had no notion of how to ask for such a thing.
But it appeared that she did not need to.
He grunted in response, turning her so that she had her back to him once more, that position where she could feel his length so delectably. And then she felt his hand on the hem of her skirt.
She bit her lip. She should object. But she couldn’t. Her desire was too high, her body too thick with what she wanted.
He raised her skirts and thin petticoat. His hand went to her thigh and, wantonly, she opened her legs.
Her open drawers did not impede his access to her core. His fingers brushed against her wetness.
“Oh, God, yes.”
He gave a murmur of approval.
And then continued stroking her. His strokes were not as practiced as her own, she could tell that, but it didn’t matter. She needed very little it turned out. And his fingers were large and strong and gentle, and she was so slick that every touch was to great effect.
It helped, too, that he was growing harder beneath her.
“Christ, Scarlett,” he murmured.
She had to agree. “Please,” she repeated.
Which she hoped he understood to mean, Don’t you dare stop.
He didn’t.
She couldn’t help it.
He was the most handsome men she had ever laid eyes on her, and she was a plain spinster whom men never looked at twice, and his hand was between her legs.
She couldn’t be expected to withstand such temptation.
It wasn’t humane. She had no idea of his motive—but she suspected that she was just the lucky woman who had gotten trapped in a closet with him.
And he was too virile to have a woman so near and not succumb to temptation.
Well, there was already one secret between them, she thought, desperately.
What was another?
She was nearing her peak. “Oh God.” She sobbed. “Please.”
He groaned. “Scarlett.”
She came, her gasps echoing in the closet, her core clenching and unclenching over his fingers, hot and terribly needy. He might scorn her later for her wanton nature, she thought, but right now, he was hers.
He gave his own shout of pleasure, taking his hand from her core and steadying her between his arms.
She couldn’t be sure, but his own breathing sounded so wracked she wondered if he had—was it possible that he, too, had found bliss?
Before she could contemplate the question or even come down from her own high, there was a bang of a door in the hallway. And then voices.
The others had arrived.
She was saved.
No, she thought darkly.
Saved in one sense.
And utterly wrecked in another.