12. Fallen
FALLEN
“Yes.” Lord Reginald’s voice was little more than a growl.
Rose forced herself to stay calm, despite the thunder roaring in her ears.
The ache between her legs had become a throb now. Steady and demanding. So strong she could scarcely remember why she was doing this.
“I want you to kneel before me.”
For one dreadful heartbeat, Rose thought she had gone too far.
He was the son of a duke. A captain. A man accustomed to command. Men like him did not kneel before a woman like her.
But Lord Reginald only looked at her, his pupils widened until only a thin ring of silver remained.
Then he lowered himself to his knees.
Rose’s breath caught.
His hands rested on his thighs. He did not reach for her.
He waited.
Rose had undressed before men countless times. Slowly. Artfully. Calculating exactly how much each revealed inch was worth.
This felt different.
“Because it is,” a little voice taunted in the back of her mind.
She ignored the taunt.
Because the most captivating man she’d ever known was on his knees, staring up, staring into her eyes.
Her fingers trembled when she lifted them to the last ties. For a moment, the gossamer fabric clung to her breasts, her waist, her hips. Then it floated down, joining everything else at her feet.
Rose stood before him in silk stockings and garters.
And nothing else.
The air crackled and if felt like lightning could strike between them.
But then he blinked and focused. His gaze moved over her body in a way that she swore she could actually feel.
Her bare breasts. The curve of her waist. The soft swell of her belly. The golden curls between her thighs.
She pressed her thighs together before she could stop them.
Lord Reginald saw that too.
When his breath finally left him slowly, it was as though he’d taken a blow.
“Rose,” he said.
Only her name.
“You see then, do you not? How it excites me to see the want in your eyes?”
“Yes.”
She waited just a few seconds before trailing her fingertips over her belly.
“Kiss me then,” she said. “Here.”
He edged forward on his knees. And keeping his hands down at his sides, he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to her navel.
There was no hiding the shiver that followed.
“Lower,” Rose said.
He complied, trailing his mouth to the spot just above the soft little triangle at her apex.
Rose reached forward, grasping his arms, sliding down to guide his hands. “Here.”
When his palms gripped the soft flesh of her behind, her knees nearly buckled.
“I won’t let you fall,” he said, gripping the backs of her thighs now.
He inhaled against her, long and deep, and the sound that left him was almost a groan.
“I dreamed about tasting you.”
He’d dreamed too…?
Rose’s hands were in his hair now, threading her fingers through the thick strands.
She had allowed him to believe this was entirely for her. Now, with his hands holding her so carefully and his mouth exploring lower, she could scarcely remember why it wasn’t.
Hold fast, Rose…
She deliberately loosened her grip on his hair and forced her breaths to slow.
He looked up at her then, still on his knees. “Tell me what you like.”
There was something not quite innocent in his expression. Not uncertainty, precisely, but an intentness—as though every sound she made mattered. As though he had never done this before but meant to learn it properly now.
The thought was absurd.
He had spent years traveling from port to port. Women would have noticed him everywhere he went. Wanted him. There would have been taverns, willing widows, brothels in every harbor.
But he despised brothels.
And yet the garden returned to her again. His startled pleasure. His shame afterward. Her heart squeezed, leaving a strange, soft ache.
Then his tongue touched her, and thought became impossible.
Rose’s breath caught hard.
Just a light stroke along her slit.
“This?” he asked.
“Yes.” She barely managed the word.
He did it again.
Slower.
Her head tipped back and her eyes closed.
This was pleasure so sharp she forgot the room, the house, the reason she had brought him here. She had meant to draw him in. To make him helpless with wanting her.
Instead, she was the one gripping his hair.
The one trembling in his hands.
“Again,” she begged.
More pressure. Slower.
Rose had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.
He was not practiced. But he listened.
When she tugged at his hair, he pressed closer. When her thighs shook, he held her more firmly.
There was no shame in him now.
He was willing. Wanting.
“My lord.”
He made a rough sound and kissed her again. The scrape of his unshaven jaw brushing tender skin sent a shock through her. So fierce she couldn’t help but jerk her hips forward.
Let him want this. Let him want her.
Let him come to understand that The Domus was not only sin and silk and coin changing hands. It was comfort. A place for pleasure without cruelty.
Let him want it enough to question himself.
Let him want her enough.
His jaw moved against her intimately, and Rose shuddered, letting out a fluttery cry.
He stopped at once.
“Don’t,” she said quickly. “Don’t stop.”
“You like that?”
“Yes. The feel of your face. Your whiskers.”
She opened her eyes just enough to see him watching her closely.
“Again,” she said. “More.”
He obeyed, dragging the roughness of his cheek against her, then following it with his mouth. The scrape of his jaw. The heat of his mouth.
Her knees weakened, but he kept her upright.
“I have you,” he said again.
She hated how much she liked hearing that.
“There,” she whispered, guiding his hand higher, spreading her thighs wider. “Yes.”
There was no hiding how ready she was. No hiding the heat, the wetness, the unapologetic eagerness of her body. She had meant him to want her. She had not meant to show him quite so plainly that she wanted him too.
“Rose.” The broken sound of her name slipped beneath her ribs.
His fingers moved.
A slow stroke. Then another.
Too light.
She laughed once, breathless and uneven. “You are trying very hard not to be wicked.”
His gaze flashed up.
“I am trying very hard not to hurt you.”
Oh.
Rose’s fingers loosened in his hair.
“You will not hurt me if you listen.”
“I am listening.”
Yes.
He was.
That was the problem.
Rose forced herself to look down at him.
“Do not be overly gentle. I want to feel you.” And then she added: “Please.”
His eyes darkened.
For one suspended moment, he did not move. Then his hand tightened at the back of her thigh, and his fingers returned to her with more certainty.
Rose gasped.
“There,” she said. “Yes. Like that.”
His mouth followed.
He learned quickly. Too quickly.
Rose leaned back against the edge of a small table, her legs threatening collapse. He moved with her at once, one arm around her hips, holding her steady as his mouth worked between her thighs.
His fingers thrust deeper, and the pleasure that had been building inside her gathered suddenly, sharply, until she could not pretend she was in command of anything at all.
“Reginald.”
His name broke from her lips.
His hands tightened, and then—
The room vanished. Everything vanished.
For several bright, shaking seconds there was only his mouth, his hands, and the terrible sweetness of being held while pleasure swept through her.
May the stars help her.
She couldn't say how long it went on, but when Rose finally returned to that room, she was weaker than a kitten.
Trembling.
Lord Reginald remained on his knees, his forehead resting against her hip. His breaths ragged.
Only when she felt his gaze lift to hers did she gather the strength to open her eyes.
A mistake.
There was wonder in his expression. Satisfaction too. But beneath both was something softer—and softness made her chest ache.
He rose slowly, and she saw at once how much he still wanted her. His trousers strained with it, even as his hands flexed helplessly at his sides.
Normally, she would have taken care of him.
Normally, she would have dropped to her knees and made certain he left the room believing there was no pleasure in the world like the pleasure she could give him.
Not yet.
Instead, Rose reached for a silk robe. She didn’t bother trying to hide that her hands were shaking.
Lord Reginald watched her.
“Rose,” he said, his voice rough.
She slipped her arms in the sleeves and pulled the fabric around her front.
Then she met his eyes. “You wished to please me, my lord,” she said softly. “You have very much. Thank you.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth.
Rose smiled, though her heart was still beating far too hard.
“Next time,” she said, “I shall please you.”
He shook his head. “I was Reginald a moment ago.”
“But you are my lord, are you not?” Rose asked.
For one moment, he did not answer.
He only looked at her.
Then his expression changed, the tenderness she’d seen, and what she’d thought might be affection… It drained away.
“This changes nothing.” His voice suddenly sounded loud in the small room.
Rose drew the robe more securely around herself.
“You may tell yourself that,” she said, ignoring the stinging in her eyes.
Because she knew men. She knew wanting.
Passion, Rose knew, could change everything.
“I want you. More than I have ever wanted anyone. But this will not happen again.” His jaw tightened. “I am going to close The Domus.”
It surprised her. His honesty.
Rose lifted her chin.
“Then you still don’t understand it.”
His eyes came back to hers.
“No,” he said quietly. “And I never will.”