Chapter Fourteen #2
The crude honesty sent a bolt of heat straight between her thighs. She was trembling now, but not with fear. “What if I want you to stop being careful and just—”
She didn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t. Because Adrian’s mouth had found the curve of her neck, teeth scraping against her pulse point with enough pressure to make her gasp and arch into him.
“Hmm…” he murmured against her skin, “You’re driving me mad with wanting you.
” His hand slid down to grip her hip, fingers digging in with delicious possession.
When he pulled her against him, Cecilia felt the hard evidence of his arousal pressing into her belly and made a sound that should have mortified her.
Instead, it seemed to inflame him further. “Feel that?” Adrian’s voice had gone guttural. “That’s what you do to me. Every time you walk into a room. Every time you challenge me with that sharp tongue. Every time you look at me like I’m worth your affections.”
“I feel it.” Cecilia’s hands found his chest, feeling his heart hammer beneath her palms. “God, Adrian, I feel it.”
Then, with effort that nearly cost her everything, she pressed him back gently, creating space between them. “Adrian, wait.”
He froze immediately, concern flooding his features.
Cecilia drew a shaky breath, “I need… I need to know this isn’t just desire… That you’re not only kind to me when you want me in your bed.”
The words hung between them, sharp, but necessary.
Adrian’s expression cracked open—guilt and shame flashing raw across his face. He stepped back fully, giving her space. His hands curled into fists at his sides.
“Christ.” His voice came out ragged. “You’re right.” He dragged a hand through his dark hair, and when she looked at him, there was something raw in his eyes. “The way I’ve treated you these past weeks, that’s not the man I want to be. Not with you.”
Cecilia felt tears prick behind her eyes.
“I’m asking,” Adrian’s voice cracked. “No, I’m begging you to give me another chance. To prove to you that I want you, not just in these moments when desire makes it easy to be tender, but always. If you’ll allow me.”
“You have it,” Cecilia whispered.
When his fingers found the tie of her wrapper and tugged it loose, Cecilia didn’t protest. The garment slid from her shoulders, pooling at their feet and leaving her in nothing but the gossamer-thin nightgown that hid precisely nothing.
Adrian pulled back, his gaze raking over her with such raw hunger that Cecilia felt it like a physical touch. “Christ,” he breathed. “You are ravishing.”
His hand came up to cup her breast through the sheer fabric, and Cecilia’s head fell back with a moan she couldn’t suppress. The sensation was overwhelming—his palm hot against her sensitive flesh, his thumb finding her nipple and circling it with maddening precision.
“Oh… oh!” Whatever she’d been about to say dissolved into a gasp as his mouth left hers to trail down her throat, her collarbone, lower to the neckline of her nightgown. When his lips closed over her nipple through the fabric—hot and wet and utterly devastating—Cecilia’s knees nearly buckled.
Adrian caught her, one arm banding around her waist whilst the other hand found her other breast, kneading and teasing whilst his mouth worked magic through silk that was rapidly becoming transparent with his attention.
“God, the sounds you make.” He transferred his attention to her other breast, teeth scraping lightly before his tongue soothed the sting. “Just for me.”
Cecilia’s hands fisted in his hair, holding him to her.
The pressure building between her thighs was becoming unbearable—a sweet ache that demanded satisfaction she didn’t know how to name.
When Adrian’s hand slid lower, skating over her hip to grip her thigh through her nightgown, she heard herself make a sound of pure desperation.
“That’s it,” he encouraged roughly. “Tell me what you need. Tell me what you want me to do to you.”
“I…” Cecilia couldn’t form words. Could barely breathe.
His hand moved higher, bunching the fabric of her nightgown as he explored the curve of her thigh with possessive intent. When his fingers brushed the junction of her legs—barely a touch, barely anything at all—Cecilia cried out and instinctively rolled her hips, seeking more.
“Oh…” Adrian murmured with dark satisfaction. “My beautiful wife, so desperate for—”
A door slammed somewhere in the house.
They froze, eyes flying open. The sound of footsteps echoed in the hallway beyond the library—distant but unmistakably approaching.
Cecilia stumbled backwards. Her nightgown was askew, dampened and transparent where his mouth had been, her hair completely destroyed where his hands had tangled in it.
Adrian moved with lightning speed, positioning himself between Cecilia and the door while she frantically retied her wrapper with shaking hands. His hair was dishevelled, his lips visibly swollen, his arousal still evident despite his attempts to will it away.
The footsteps passed without pausing. Just a servant on some late-night errand, oblivious to the crisis they’d narrowly averted. Silence crashed over the library, broken only by their ragged breathing.
“You should go.” Adrian’s voice emerged hoarse, carefully controlled. He wouldn’t look at her, his jaw clenched so tightly Cecilia feared it might crack. The dismissal landed like a physical blow. Cecilia’s throat constricted, humiliation flooding through her veins like poison.
“I’m sorry.” The words scraped past her lips. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t.” The command came out sharp..
He finally turned to face her, and what Cecilia saw in his expression made her breath catch. Not disgust. Not regret. But something far more dangerous—raw hunger barely leashed, desperation warring with iron control, and beneath it all, a vulnerability that made her chest ache.
“Go,” he repeated, but this time it sounded like a plea. Like a prayer. Like the last desperate defence of a man whose walls were crumbling. “Before I forget every reason why I shouldn’t make you mine right here on this floor.”
Cecilia ran through the darkened corridors like a woman pursued, not stopping until she reached her chambers and could lock the door behind her.
Only then did she allow herself to collapse against the wood, pressing trembling fingers to her swollen lips.
She could feel the ghost of his touch on her skin, taste him on her tongue.
Between her thighs, she ached with an emptiness she’d never known before.
Something between them had changed forever tonight. She’d felt it in his kiss, in the way his hands had trembled as they learned her shape, in the desperate hunger that had consumed them both. But what that change meant, she couldn’t begin to guess.
All she knew was that sleep would be impossible now. She pressed her palm against her racing heart and whispered into the darkness of her empty room:
“God help me…. I want him, despite everything.”
And this time, the confession didn’t terrify her quite as much as it should have.