Chapter 10 #2
The heat flared between them as it had the first time, crackling and instantaneous. Margo thrust her fingers into Henry’s hair and held him, locking his mouth to hers.
It was the same and different too, this time—edged with anger and hurt and something she could not contemplate. His mouth was seeking, his fingers pressed hard into her back, and without thinking she sucked his lip between her teeth and bit him.
He groaned, a hot, torn-off sound. Desire spilled inside her, pooling in her lower belly, and she arched up into him. His hands found her buttocks, lifting her against him, and she felt the hard press of his arousal.
“Yes,” he gritted out. “I’m wrecked. I’m out of my head. I want to check every inch of you for a scratch or bruise, and at the same time I want to pull you down into the dirt and swive you senseless.”
Damn him. He had her panting again, pressing her breasts against his chest, desperate for friction.
Her dress felt rough and cold, and she wanted his hands, his mouth, anything to ease the ache that had started between her legs then spiraled through her body.
Her nipples were tight, and it hurt, all this wanting.
“Tell me to stop.” His hands pressed into her backside, kneading harder. His breath was in her ear. She felt the scrape of his teeth. “Tell me it’s over.”
In answer, she fell to her knees on the leaf-covered soil and pulled him down with her.
He swore and took them the rest of the way to the ground.
Margo felt everything. The chalky stone at her back, the leaves that brushed her cheek. Henry’s weight on top of her—pressure, friction, yes and more—and then the small pops of her bodice hooks as Henry yanked them free.
He had her bodice pushed down to her waist, the neckline of her chemise tugged open. She scrambled for the edge of his shirt, his falls, needing his heated skin under her hands. Then her nipple was in his mouth, hard, sweet, shocking pleasure. She pushed her head back into the dirt.
He sucked and licked, and Margo lost track of everything but sensation—feeling it, chasing it, demanding more.
Her hips rocked up against him, and she tried to curl one leg around his body, bringing him to where the ache was deepest. But he pressed back, pressed her down.
His hand came to her knee, holding her leg open.
There was no relief from the ache then, only the empty space between them. Her muscles felt strung tight. Desire was a wheel, spinning her down into some place hot and desperate. She dug her fingers into the loam at her sides, feeling cold earth on her burning skin.
“Henry, please.” She didn’t recognize her voice. She sounded drugged, mindless, lost in animal need.
He lifted his head, and she caught a glimpse of his eyes, his pupils wide, his gaze unfocused. He looked as he’d said—wrecked.
He looked how she felt, consumed by lust and happy to drown in it. “I like that,” he said thickly. “When you beg.”
“Please, please—touch me. I can’t stand it, I’m going to die if you don’t—”
Her skirt was shoved up now, one of his hands at the line where her garter held her stocking up. He massaged the place where fabric ended and skin began. She felt the press of those blunt fingers on her thigh and tried to twist her body into him, but he held back.
“Say my name.”
“Henry,” she whispered, “Henry, please.”
“Tell me what you want.” His thumb brushed her curls, a whisper of sensation against her quim. Her hips jerked.
“You. Touch me. Oh God, please. Touch me and never stop.”
In answer, he kissed her again, and then his tongue was in her mouth, and one thick finger was inside her, the heel of his palm pressed against the apex of her sex.
Oh God, it felt as good as she remembered—better—his finger crooked forward, touching a place in her she hadn’t known existed. She couldn’t control the way her hips pumped against him in short, rhythmic jerks, and he must have liked it, because he groaned into her mouth.
“Fuck,” he said. “Fuck, Margo.”
And she was not a good girl, she would never be a lady, because she loved the filthy words in his mouth, and she turned her head to lick up his neck. “More, please. I need more.”
He pushed another finger into her, grinding his palm down, trapping her between the soft ground and the sweet almost-pain of her release just out of reach. She was shaking all over, her body drawing taut, her back arching.
“Perfect,” he said, “fuck, you’re perfect—”
And then she came hard around his fingers, her body clamping down in rhythmic waves that felt as far out of her control as the waterfall’s distant thunder in her ears.
He pressed his face against her neck as she twisted and writhed against his palm, her body shuddering, and, oh God, the pleasure shattered her apart.
He gave her no time to recover. As soon as her body stopped fluttering around his fingers, he flipped her over and dragged her hips up with one hand.
She gasped, pressing a hand to the leaves near her face. The scent of earth filled her nose.
Her skirts were at her waist now, and she felt cool air on her buttocks, on her still-quivering sex.
She twisted her head back to look at him. He’d freed his shaft from his trousers, and he took himself in hand. The sight made her moan—Henry, proper and upright Henry, undone with desire, his hand fisting his cock, his eyes black as he stared at her.
He saw her looking back. “If you don’t want this,” he ground out, “tell me now.”
“I want it.”
In answer, he pressed the head of his cock at her entrance, and she gasped, trying to shove back against him and take him in. His palm on her hip held her still, and she shuddered.
“Henry,” she said, since he seemed to like that. His hips jerked in response, his erection pushing just inside her.
“Henry,” she said again. “I want your cock inside me.”
“Oh fuck,” he managed, and then he thrust hard.
Her face was in the dirt. Henry’s hands dug into her hips. The air was cold on her breasts and thighs, and her hair was tangled in her mouth, and Henry was deep inside her, and it was the most painfully, wildly erotic thing that had ever happened to her.
“More,” she gasped. “Harder. Until you can’t think.”
He gave her more, and harder. He pounded into her, his fingers pressed into her flesh, his hands holding her still so he could drive into her. He set the pace. He took his pleasure from her and wrung soft, helpless moans from her throat.
“I can’t ever think around you,” he said hoarsely.
She whimpered. Her body trembled. He was so hard inside her, his rhythm steady and strong, filling her body.
“You like that? Knowing what you do to me?”
She arched her back, feeling helpless, unable to do anything except absorb the pleasure of his relentless thrusts.
“Do you like driving me out of my mind, Margo?”
“Yes.” She hardly knew what she was saying. “Yes, yes.” If she was to be frantic and ragged with need, then he should be too.
“Christ,” he growled, and then he shoved one hand down between her legs and found her pearl. Her release, which had been coiling in her belly, spun closer, and she cried out.
“I don’t want this to end.” His fingers took up a hard, circling rhythm, his thrusts never slowing. “But when you come around me, I don’t think I can stop myself. Oh God, Margo, you feel—so good.”
She didn’t want it to end either. She wanted to stay like this, her face pressed into the ground and Henry taking his pleasure greedily from her body, until she died of bliss.
But he was driving her past the point of no return with his fingers and cock, and the moans that came from her lips were low and uneven.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s my girl,” and then she was clenching around him, her vision going black, her climax an explosion that rocked her whole body, ravaged her with pleasure.
He was beyond words then, his breath harsh and erratic, and he withdrew, pressing her legs together and thrusting between her thighs with a hoarse shout. She felt his spend, hot and flooding, and she squeezed her legs tight as if to keep him there.
He groaned, shuddering, and pressed his face into her back. He let her hips fall, his full weight coming down on top of her for a moment. She relished it—his body covering hers. Then he rolled to his back and pulled her facedown atop him, and she found she liked that as well.
For long minutes, they did nothing but breathe. Her skirts had mostly fallen back down, but Henry’s hand had made its way underneath. He traced a pattern on the bare skin of her hip.
“What are you writing?” she asked. Her hand, where it rested on his upper arm, had a line of mud across the back.
“Hmm?” His finger stopped, then started again. “Your name, I think.”
And why now would she feel trepidation? A small fragile leap in her chest at his words.
“I should be sorry,” he said a few minutes later. “Your hair is full of leaves. I can scarcely see the freckles beneath all the mud on your face.”
“Henry, I—”
“I’m not sorry.” He laughed, a deep vibration in his chest beneath her cheek. “That was the best thing that’s ever happened in my life.”
She lifted her head to look at him. She didn’t know what she wanted from him now, but she wanted it desperately. Her heart was in her throat, hope and fear and—
“Ever?” she asked.
He smiled lazily at her, black lashes heavy over his dark eyes. His fingers dug into her arse. “Oh, to be sure. But I’m willing to try harder, darling, if you have advice. Another four or five minutes and I’ll be at your service.”
She laughed into his shirt. “What a peacock you are! I would never have guessed.”
He hummed, a low amused rumble of assent, and then threaded his hand into her hair. One by one, he plucked out the damp leaves and laid them beside her. “Do you have advice, then? I’m listening.”
He was so good at listening, so patient and diligent and earnest. And more, she was learning, much more than she’d known, more playful and relentless and demanding. So many facets of him, newly brought into the light and shimmering in it.
“I’d thought—” she began, and then hesitated.
He tipped his head up. “Yes? Tell me, Margo. I want to know.”
“I’d thought to take the lead, you know. Next time.” She made herself say the words. “If you want there to be a next time.”
He dropped his head back into the dirt and squeezed his eyes closed. For a long terrible moment her heart plummeted. She bit down hard on her lower lip.
“More than I want air,” he said.
She took a quick gasping breath.
“There’s nothing I want more on this Earth, Margo. Except—except I—
A clear cool voice cut off whatever Henry was about to say. A voice as familiar to Margo as her own.
“Margo?”
She toppled off Henry and landed in the pile of leaves he’d collected from her hair. She yanked at her bodice, hurtled to her feet, and stared into the flabbergasted face of her twin.