Chapter 27 #2
“Only if you’ll let me see you in return. Stop hiding from me.”
“And if you don’t like what you see?”
It was her turn to pull him close, once again interlocking her fingers about his neck, turning her full gaze on him.
“You have to have faith in me; that I’ll choose you, over and over, even when you make it difficult.”
Her fingers dug into his skin and her words cut into his heart, “That’s what a commitment means. That I won’t give up on you just because you aren’t the Byronic hero I envisioned in my schoolgirl fantasies. I’ve wanted you for so long, Fitz; the real you.”
He crushed her to him then, creating a cage against her with his body.
His lips flicked and sipped at hers, flooding her senses.
Her slender hands grabbed his lapels and pulled him tightly against her.
Every time she kissed him like that, like she chose him, like he was all she wanted in the world, he almost went to his knees. It still wasn’t enough.
“Did you come alone?” He whispered against her lips. She shook her head, he swore.
He walked over to the mahogany door and shoved it until a small breadth of space kept it from being closed. Her eyes drank him in like a woman with a thirst only he could slake.
When he’d returned, he asked: “Has my lady looked her fill?” placing a hand at her waist.
She propped an arm on the back of the settee, “I can’t think of why I like you so much, it cannot be your humility.” The humor and adoration that danced in her gray-green-brown eyes gave her away.
“You make a blood sport of trying to wound me, but you should know it only makes me want you all the more.”
Noelle laughed: “Whyever so?”
He came to stand behind her, planting a kiss at the nape of her neck before dragging a finger lovingly down the length of her spine like a strand of pearls.
“Because…everyone believes you to be this bespectacled, shy, bookish creature, maybe even yourself. But this, this is who you really are,” he swept her hair away from her neck, punctuating his words with small, fiery, possessive kisses on her exposed skin, “Confident, teasing, humorous,
somewhat reproachful, a little cynical, entirely seductive.”
He turned her to face him, drinking in the whiskey-colored haze of her eyes.“You drive me wild, Noelle.”
He sat beside her and pulled her onto his lap.
His lips found hers, raking over her like fierce coals of desire.
She matched him, lacing her fingers through his hair.
She sat atop him as he guided her body over his hips with his hands grasping greedily at her backside.
A small, delighted gasp escaped her. The sound sang through his entire body.
She rode the ridge straining against his breeches as he fought to steal all her breath with his lips.
He’d give her all his air if she asked, and the thought didn’t scare him like it ought.
Finally, she pulled back with a gasp, but he kept her atop his lap, seated against his flagging erection.
Amidst her bunched skirts, her legs cradled him closer to her.
The fabric of the chair pressed against her knees, but she didn’t seem to care. Sitting atop him, flushed and hair falling from their pins and both hands on either side of his face, she was destroying him.
He wanted her to know it. To feel it.
He tipped her face up so that she looked him level in the eye.
“To hell with anyone who says you aren’t an incomparable beauty, spectacles or no. Do you hear me? You do this to me,” he ground her against the bulge of his lap, “because of your brilliant mind and your sensational body. My girl,” he breathed into her neck, wrapping his hands around her long hair,
tilting her so that his lips caressed her neck,“You’re bloody marvelous.”
She kissed him then, a kiss that left a trail of destruction in its wake, a kiss that left no doubt as to her feelings and her attraction. It swept them both up in its intensity, lengthening and heightening to a fever pitch that urged both of them to let go even as they held on.
When he finally pulled back, he could feel the imprint of her lips against his. He could try to replicate it all his days and never experience such a kiss.
“And you,” she said, slanting her forehead against his, “Fitzwilliam, my maddening and distracting viscount, are you ready to make good on your promise or do I have to torture it out of you?”
He scrubbed his stubbled jaw with one hand. “Torture, from you, sounds quite nice, actually.”
She smacked him on the arm with her palm. Toying with her until he got under her skin had become his favorite past-time. He leaned back in the chair as though considering. “Sorry, you’ll have to be more specific, not ringing any bells.”
Her thighs squeezed him in admonishment, likely the sweetest admonishment she’d ever given him. “The book, Fitz! The book you promised to publish.”
“Oh, that,” he gave her a wicked smile, “Well, I’ve already prepared the printer, he’s awaiting your direction on the final version, Princess.” He looked at her in amusement as she tilted her head back and laughed.
“It’s time for the next phase of my plan.” He sank down, lifting the skirt of her dress above his head.
“Fitz?” she called, “Where are you…” and then as realization dawned, he planted a kiss to her inner thigh, causing her to let out an emphatic, “Ohhh, I think I rather like your plan.”
“Not as much as I do,” he said, moving the layers of skirt to look up at her, “But you’ll have to tell me, Noelle. Do you want my mouth-”
“I want your mouth exactly where you think I do.”
Fitz felt the shake of her thighs against the stubble of his face as he laughed darkly.
“And where is that, Princess?”
“You want to hear me say it, you wicked man?”
Fitz twisted his mouth into a moue. “There are so many places my mouth could torture you. I’m definitely going to need you to say it, love.”
“My-”
Fitz rewarded her bravery with a kiss to her very inner thigh, which caused her to gasp.
“Your what?”
She tilted her head to the ceiling on a laugh. Narrowing her eyes on him, a flush crept into her cheeks as she said: “My…quim.”
Fitz’s tongue edged around the edge of her drawers. “This quim right here, Princess?”
From beneath her, he felt her arch her back as she let out: “You wicked man; you know exactly which ‘quim’ I mean.”
Squashing a laugh, he licked her once, twice, just to tease her.
He heard her let out another sigh before giving over to her his mouth, his energy in lavish strokes.
She leaned her back against the chair as he lifted one leg over his shoulder.
He pulled his head out from her skirts to ask, “Do you want more, Miss Honnimers?”
She didn’t pause to consider, there was urgency in her voice as she rearranged the cushions around her, “You know that I do, you evil rake.”
His tongue dipped inside again, finding the source of her, circling it in figure-eight patterns before retreating again.
“How much more can you take, Princess?”
“That feeling that you gave me the other night…I want to…to reach the other end of it.” She was sheepish, and he suddenly adored her even more. She had words for things she hadn’t experienced, which seemed to fit her well somehow. He looked at her as though he’d grant her any request.
“I can make you come apart in my arms; God, I want it, Noelle. I can scarce think of little else.”
“Then do it,” she commanded, taking his mouth in a kiss that scorched him from the inside, only with effort did he pull away. His desire, his curiosity for the feel of her sex compelled him.
She grabbed hold of his hair, pulling him closer to where she ached for him.
A growl was ripped from his lips, “I’ll give it to you, everything you want, Princess, it’s yours. I’m yours.”
“Do you ever stop talking?” She said, with a small laugh, positioning herself more comfortably in the chair. The muslin of her dress, the linen of her underskirt, hissed against his skin.
He responded by gifting her a rhythm of more languid, affectionate strokes of his lips, his tongue stripping away her resolve.
She gave herself over to him, trusting him to give her what she sought.
He was drawing her up, up, higher into a crescendo, an explosion of relief.
He added a finger, stroking in and out, making circles and patterns until she bubbled over with the warm, sweet pleasure he offered. She was so warm, so soft against him.
“Fitz. William.” She groaned.
He placed her fingers in his hair, luxuriating in the way she teased them through the curls at the nape of his neck, his name snatched from her lips. Finally, after untold moments of bringing her up into the clouds, she fell. She crashed back down to earth in his arms. Depleted but not sated.
He looked up at her, placing his head on her thigh after draping her skirts over her exposed flesh.
She seemed to have caught the air back into her lungs, her breathing nearly evened. The look in her eyes, locked on him, God, he could get drunk on it. Her, he amended, it was her who intoxicated him like some drug both innocent and wicked. “Satisfied, my lady?”
“Never,” she shook her head, and laughed, pulling him to her mouth. He gave her a kiss with softer, less urgent strokes than before, then rested his forehead against hers.
“Patience, my lady, there’s still plenty of time for that.”
She bolted upright, as though something he’d said earlier had caught in her memory.
She almost dislodged him from his position underneath her.
“Wait, you called me ‘Miss Honnimers.’ Who on God’s Green earth is ‘Miss Honnimers,’ you cad?”
Her hand rested on his chest, but he could hear the apprehension in her voice.
He pulled her in for another, maddening, dizzying kiss before answering.“You are, dear girl, and that is the next phase of my plan.”