Chapter 20 #2
Her throat tightened before she could stop it.
He drew in a slow breath, as though the words had to be forced past old habits and older pride. “You were trying to protect Aaron. I saw it, and I snapped at you because I did not know what to do with the shame of it.”
Emmeline looked up at him, her pulse still wild from the kiss, from the nearness, from the sudden ache of hearing him speak so plainly.
“You hurt me,” she said quietly.
His expression tightened. “I know.”
“No,” she whispered. “I need you to understand. It was not only that you were angry. It was that you made me feel as though every kindness I had offered Aaron was an intrusion. As though I had imagined my place here.”
Rowan’s eyes darkened, but he did not look away. “You did not imagine it.”
The words moved through her with a force that left her briefly silent.
“Then why do you make me fight for it?” she asked.
His hand flexed once at her waist. “Because I do not know how to let anyone stand inside what I have spent years keeping locked.”
The honesty of it struck her harder than an excuse would have done.
For a moment, only the muffled music from the ballroom moved between them.
“I am sorry,” he said, lower now. “For what I said. For making you bear the punishment of my past.”
Emmeline swallowed, feeling the last of her anger loosen enough for breath to enter.
“I accept your apology,” she said softly. “But I will not stop caring for him.”
“I know,” Rowan said. His gaze held hers, grave and fierce. “And I do not want you to.”
That nearly undid her.
Another burst of laughter sounded from beyond the doors, closer this time.
Rowan’s head turned sharply toward it. When he looked back at her, the heat had returned to his eyes, but now it was threaded with purpose.
“We are leaving,” he said.
Her pulse thudded. “Now?”
“Now.”
By the time they reached the house, Emmeline felt so tightly strung that the simple act of stepping down from the carriage nearly undid her. Rowan’s hand closed around hers to help her, and the contact was unbearable.
He led her inside. A footman appeared, and Rowan dismissed him with one quiet order. Emmeline’s heart hammered as they climbed the stairs toward his chamber.
Rowan shut the door behind them with a quiet thud.
He stood there for a moment, his back to the door, watching her. His gaze traveled over her with a hunger so naked that it stole the breath from her lungs. It made heat spill through her so quickly that she swayed where she stood.
Rowan crossed the room, stopping inches from her, his gaze locked on hers.
His fingers brushed the side of her face with such unexpected gentleness that her throat tightened. This was worse than the balcony. Worse than being lifted, kissed, consumed. This gentleness had no defense around it.
“You looked beautiful tonight,” he said.
The praise entered her softly. “Rowan—”
“No.” His thumb traced the curve of her cheek. “You will hear me.”
Her breath caught.
“You looked beautiful in that room,” he continued, his voice low, “and every man with eyes knew it. And I stood there like a damned coward pretending distance could make me want you less.”
Her heart struck hard against her ribs.
He leaned closer, not kissing her yet, letting his breath warm her lips. “It has not.”
Then his mouth touched hers.
This kiss was different. It was slow and deep and unforgivably tender.
Emmeline’s hands rose to his chest, and beneath her palms his heart beat hard. The discovery made her whimper softly against his mouth. Rowan answered with a low sound, one hand sliding to the back of her gown.
His fingers worked at the fastenings with unexpected patience, each loosened hook making the gown relax around her body. The blue silk slipped from one shoulder, then the other, pooling slowly downward until cool air touched the upper curve of her breasts above her stays.
Rowan looked at her and the silence of that look undid her.
“You are shaking,” he murmured.
“So are you.”
For the first time that night, something almost like a smile touched his mouth. “Yes.”
He bent and kissed her bare shoulder.
Emmeline’s eyes closed.
His mouth moved slowly along the exposed skin, each kiss deliberate, reverent, as though he meant to learn her by inches and punish himself with every discovery.
His hands settled at her waist, not rough now, not demanding, but sure.
He lowered the gown farther until it fell in a whisper around her feet, leaving her in her chemise, stays, stockings, and jewels.
His gaze felt too hot.
“Do you know,” he said, voice roughening as his fingers traced the edge of her stays, “how often I have imagined this?”
Her breath trembled. “No.”
“Too often.” His eyes lifted to hers. “Never properly enough.”
He loosened her stays slowly, refusing to hurry though she could see the strain in his jaw, the tension in his shoulders, the effort it cost him not to tear every ribbon apart.
That restraint made the heat inside her worse.
He was unwrapping her. Watching every breath, every swallow, every small betrayal of want.
When the stays opened, her chemise shifted, thin fabric clinging to her breasts.
His palm covered her breast through the chemise, and Emmeline gasped, arching into him before she could stop herself. His eyes flared. Slowly, he brushed his thumb over the tight peak beneath the linen. Pleasure sparked through her, bright and shocking.
“There,” he said softly. “That is it. Let me hear you.”
Her face burned, but when he touched her again, she could not silence the sound that left her.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. “God, Emmeline. Beautiful.”
He kissed her as he lifted her, carrying her the few steps to the bed. The mattress dipped beneath her when he laid her down, and for one panicked instant, shyness rushed in where desire had been. She was in his bed. Half-undressed. Hair loosened, skin hot, mouth swollen from his kisses.
Rowan saw the change at once.
He knelt on the edge of the mattress and cupped her jaw. “Look at me.”
She did.
“I am going to make you come apart for me,” he said, his thumb brushing her lower lip.
The words sent a shudder through her entire body.
His gaze dropped, and something dark and satisfied moved through his eyes. “I know you like hearing me say it.”
She bit her lip and nodded.
He kissed her once, briefly, almost sweetly. Then he moved lower.
Emmeline’s breath caught as his mouth found her throat, her collarbone, the upper swell of her breast above the loosened chemise. He tugged the linen down with his teeth and hand together, baring her breast to the firelit room, and the first stroke of his tongue over her nipple made her cry out.
Rowan groaned.
“Again,” he said against her skin.
She did not know whether he meant the sound or the movement, but he drew both from her.
His mouth closed over her breast, hot and slow, while his hand shaped the other with devastating patience.
Her back arched. Her fingers tangled in his hair.
He praised her between kisses, low words against damp skin, telling her she was soft, perfect, lovely, telling her he had thought of her until thought had become torment.
By the time his hand slid beneath her chemise, she was trembling so hard she could hardly breathe.
“Rowan,” she whispered.
His fingers moved along her thigh, slow over the stocking, then higher where the bare skin began. Emmeline’s knees drew together instinctively, but he kissed the inside of one and murmured, “My wife.”
The shame and want tangled until she could not tell one from the other.
He kissed her knee, her thigh, the delicate skin above the garter.
Every inch higher made her breath shorter, her hands tighter in the bedding.
When he reached the place where she ached most, he did not touch her immediately.
He pressed his mouth to her inner thigh and breathed there, as if he were steadying himself.
“You have no idea how beautiful you are like this… all undone, just for me.”
Her eyes flew open, and he looked up at her from between her thighs.
The sight nearly stopped her heart.
His dark hair was disordered from her hands, his gray eyes burning, his mouth still against her skin as he knelt before her.
His hands slid beneath her knees and opened her gently.
The first touch of his mouth made her gasp so sharply she nearly sat up. Rowan held her down with one hand spread over her stomach, while his tongue moved slowly against her through the wet heat of her own desire.
“Oh,” she whispered, then broke into a sound she did not recognize.
Rowan groaned as though the pleasure were his.
“Sweet,” he murmured against her. “You taste so sweet.”
Her eyes closed, head falling back.
He took his time.
He kissed her there as though he had all night to ruin her, slow licks and soft suction, his fingers tightening on her thighs when she moved restlessly against him. Each stroke of his tongue made the tension coil tighter, low and bright and unbearable.
Then one finger slid into her.
Emmeline cried out.
Rowan stilled immediately. “Pain?”
“No.” Her voice was broken. “No, please.”
His control snapped enough for her to hear it in his breath.
He moved again, slow at first, his finger pressing deep while his mouth found the aching point above. Her body clenched around him, shocked by the fullness, the rhythm, the heat. Then another finger joined the first, stretching her carefully, and his praise grew rougher.
“That is it,” he murmured. “Just like that.”
Pleasure rose too quickly then, terrifying in its force.
Emmeline grabbed at the sheets, at his hair, at anything that might keep her from flying apart, but Rowan would not let her escape it.
His mouth worked her with relentless tenderness, his fingers moving inside her in a slow, sure rhythm that made the whole world reduce to firelight and breath and the sound of her own helpless cries.
“Rowan,” she gasped. “I cannot—”
“You can.” His voice vibrated against her. “Let go for me.”
The command broke her.
The climax tore through her in a wave so intense she lost the room entirely.
Her back arched, her hands clenched in his hair, and his name left her mouth again and again as pleasure pulsed through her, hot and shattering and endless.
Rowan held her through it, mouth gentling, fingers slowing, drawing every last trembling aftershock from her until she collapsed back against the bed, boneless and stunned.
For a long moment, there was only the fire, her breathing, and the feel of his hands smoothing slowly over her thighs.
Then Rowan rose over her.
His mouth was wet. His eyes were almost black.
He looked undone.
Emmeline reached for him without thinking, and he braced himself above her with one hand beside her head. She touched his face, thumb brushing his lower lip, and watched his eyes close for one brief, tortured second.
“Stay,” she whispered.
He opened his eyes and something flickered there.
He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her with the taste of her still on his tongue, and she shuddered beneath him at the raw intimacy of it. His body was hard against her thigh, his restraint brutal and shaking.
But when she reached for him, his hand caught her wrist gently. Then he pressed his mouth to her forehead, so tenderly that it hurt more than avoidance.
“Sleep. You deserve rest,” he said.
She nodded, too softened by pleasure and warmth to argue, and let herself fall back against the pillows as he settled beside her.
His body remained tense, his restraint still there beneath every breath, but he stayed close enough for his heat to wrap around her, and for tonight, with her skin still trembling and his kiss still lingering on her mouth, that was enough.