Chapter 13 #2
“What do you need?” His thumb pressed against her entrance, circling the sensitive skin with maddening precision but refusing to enter. “Tell me.”
“You.” The word ripped from somewhere deep inside her, raw and unguarded. “Inside me. Your fingers. Your tongue. Anything. Please. I shall do anything.”
“Anything?” He asked from under her skirts.
“Yes.” She was beyond pride and beyond shame. “Yes. Anything. Just make me come. Please. I am begging you.”
“Good girl.” He slid two fingers inside her, crooking them forward, as his mouth returned to her center.
She shattered. There was no warning and no slow build. Just white-hot pleasure ripping through her as her inner walls clamped down on his fingers. Her whole body convulsed so hard she would have collapsed if his shoulder were not holding her up.
Kept licking, kept sucking, kept fucking her with his fingers while she screamed into her fist and sobbed his name and came so hard she forgot where she was, who she was, forgot everything except his mouth and his hands and the pleasure that wouldn’t stop cresting.
“One more.” He commanded against her damp skin, his pace relentless. “Give me one more.”
“I cannot.” She was crying now, tears streaming down her face. “It’s too much.”
“You can.” His fingers curled, hitting the spot that made her see stars. “You will. For me.”
His tongue flicked her, fast and relentless, while his fingers drove deep.
She broke again, harder this time, a scream tearing from her throat that she couldn’t muffle.
He worked her through the peak, finally gentling his strokes.
He used soft, soothing licks to ease her down until she was boneless and trembling, held up only by the strength of his shoulder beneath her thigh.
He withdrew his fingers slowly. Nell whimpered at the sudden loss of him, her body sagging forward.
He emerged from beneath her yellow skirts, his face glistening in the dappled light and his eyes dark with a savage satisfaction. He rose to his full height, steadying her by placing his large hands firmly on her waist.
“Sweeter than anything you’ve ever baked.” He choked the words out, lungs burning as his chest rose and fell in jagged rhythms.
She stared at him and found she couldn’t speak.
Her whole body continued to tremble, aftershocks rippling through her like waves on the lake.
No one had ever done that to her. Not Gabriel, who had taken and taken and never once thought to give, and certainly not the fumbling boy she’d kissed at sixteen.
“Nell.” He cupped her face, his thumbs moving to wipe the lingering tears from her cheeks. “Are you all right?”
“I didn’t know.” The words came out broken and full of wonder as she leaned into his touch. “I didn’t know it could be like that.”
Something fierce crossed his features, an expression tender and furious all at once. “It can.” He pressed his forehead to hers, both of them breathing the same cooling air. “It should. Every time. You deserve to be worshipped.”
She laughed, a wet and shaky sound that died in the quiet alcove. “I am a baker. I make tarts.”
“You are everything.” He said it simply, like it were a fact of nature, his gaze never wavering from hers.
She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to do with him kneeling in the dirt to pleasure her, looking at her as if she’d hung the moon herself.
“The others.” Nell finally found the breath to speak, the words emerging as a hoarse rasp as she forced her spine to straighten.
“They are still playing.” He smoothed the front of her skirts, his hand moving with a care as he checked to see if her legs would hold her weight. “We should go back.” He stepped back, giving her room to move. “Can you walk?”
“I don’t know.” Her fingers remained white-knuckled, still clutching the edge of the stone bench for support.
A flash of dark pride crossed his features, a shadow of satisfaction in his eyes. “Good.”
He helped her to the bench, letting her rest until the worst of the trembling subsided.
When he finally offered his hand, palm up, she took it.
He led her through the maze on unsteady legs, her body still humming, haunted by the ghost of his mouth against her skin.
They emerged behind the rose garden where the terrace was visible in the distance—yet he stopped, his hand dropping to his side.
“Go back that way.” He nodded toward the terrace, his features showing indifference. “You got lost. Martha never found you.”
“And you?” Nell smoothed her hair with a frantic, nervous hand.
“I shall come from the other side.” He released her, and she felt the loss like a splash of cold water. “I shall follow a few minutes after.”
She should go. The children were waiting. She remained rooted to the spot. “What are we doing?” Her eyes were wide and searching as she looked up at him.
“I don’t know.” He shook his head, his jaw tightening into a hard line. “I only know I cannot stop.”
“Neither can I.” The admission felt like a defeat, her gaze dropping to the grass.
“Go.” His hands curled into fists at his sides, his knuckles pale. “Before I drag you back into that maze and spend the rest of the afternoon between your thighs.”
Heat flooded her face in a sudden, scorching wave. She went.
She moved toward the terrace and the world she’d left behind. Martha looked smug with victory while the children were flushed and laughing. Daphne watched Nell approach, her eyes sharp and knowing.
“Mama!” Lily ran toward her, pigtails flying. “We thought you were lost forever!”
Nell smoothed the girl’s hair with trembling hands, her heart in her throat. “The maze. I got completely turned around.”
Daphne’s eyes swept over her. She lingered on the flushed cheeks, the swollen lips, and the way the dress sat slightly wrong on Nell’s shoulders. Her expression hardened, every trace of warmth gone. Martha watched as well, her dark gaze missing nothing.
“I couldn’t find you anywhere.” Martha folded her arms, her delivery as bland and flat as milk. “Or Lord Westmore.”
“The maze is treacherous.” Philippa remarked from her bench, fanning herself with a placid, rhythmic motion. “Dominic used to disappear in there for hours as a boy.”
Dominic appeared several minutes later, rounding the corner of the house. He looked casual and unhurried, not a single hair out of place.
“Where were you?” Philippa’s silver eyebrows rose in a silent, aristocratic demand.
Dominic shrugged, crossing the terrace to pour himself a glass of lemonade with a steady hand. “The far end of the grounds. I simply lost track of the time.”
Daphne’s eyes narrowed to thin slits.
“We should go.” Nell reached for Lily’s hand, her movements jerky and desperate. “The children are tired.”
“But the book!” Lily pulled back, her face crumpling. “He said I could hold it!”
Dominic set down his glass and nodded toward the house. “The library. We shall visit it before you leave.”
The library was a cathedral of leather and gold. Lily gasped and spun in a slow circle, her spectacles fogging with the heat of her excitement. Dominic crossed to a glass-fronted case and withdrew a single volume. He walked to where Lily stood and placed it carefully in her small, shaking hands.
“Careful.” His posture softened as he guided her fingers, his movements uncharacteristically gentle. “It’s older than this house.”
Lily held it like a holy relic. When the carriage was called, Philippa embraced Nell like an old friend, but Dominic stood apart. He kept his hands clasped behind his back, his glacial eyes fixed on Nell’s face with an intensity that made her skin prickle.
In the carriage, as Bramwell Park shrank behind them, Daphne leaned in close. “Your dress was crooked when you came back. And your lips are swollen.” Daphne folded her arms, one brow rising.
Nell stared out the window at the rolling countryside, her reflection ghostly in the glass. “I fell in the maze.”
Daphne said nothing for a long moment, her gaze heavy. “You are a terrible liar, Nell.”
Nell pressed her forehead against the cool glass and closed her eyes. She could still feel his hands on her and his fingers inside her, though god help her, she wanted to go back.