He read her mind as he always did. He glanced over the too-sensitive blades of her collarbones, dabbled in the hollows of her shoulders. His fingers dipped beneath her bodice to trace fire over the tops of her breasts.
She jerked and strained against him. One leg hitched high on his hip to wrap around the back of his thighs. Her quim felt so wet and swollen, but when he fitted his hips to hers and pushed, it wasn’t enough.
It would never be enough.
He fumbled between them, haste making his fingers miss their goal.
Then she felt the thick, full pressure of his staff. He slid easily through her seam, pushing deliberately against her charged nerves.
He pulled his mouth away from hers, and she mourned the loss. So much easier not to think when he was kissing her.
The skin over his cheekbones was taut with strain. His full mouth had stretched wide and his teeth glinted white. “This?” he asked. His voice was rough and low. Tantalizing as it rumbled from his chest to hers. Her nipples tightened further, becoming burning centers of her need to go along with what curled deep in her belly. “Is this what you want from me?”
She hitched her leg higher on his hip as she went up on the toes of the foot that supported her. Anything to get closer. She drew in a long, shuddering breath when she felt his cock graze against her.
“Yes,” she hissed. She shoved under the collar of his tailcoat, felt the heat rolling through his thin shirt. “Always. Do you understand me? I always want you. Always.”
“You hide it well enough,” he bit out, but his mouth came back to claim hers anyway.
A harsh clash of lips and teeth. Not quite kiss, not quite claiming.
Sera pushed between them, ensnared his staff in her hand.
His whole body jerked against her. She’d never been so bold before, never taken the lead. It hadn’t been that she’d been content to be passive, but that she had feared what she’d unleash if she did so.
She could tell it was long and thick, but those blasted gloves got in her way. She stripped them off with her teeth, not caring when a pearl button flew wild.
She reached between them again. He was so hot. Silken. Wet with her juices. She couldn’t quite loop her fingers around his width. At the tip was a fold of skin before he flared into a thicker head. A drop of moisture slid under her fingertips.
He groaned and tucked his face into her shoulder. His breath feathered over her bare skin, sending enthralling tingles to her belly.
“No more,” he rasped. He pulled his hips back, out of her grasp.
That was their problem altogether. There wasn’t ever a point where they really meant no more. Just no more of that specific thing, before they shifted into other torments. Other teases.
He slid inside her in one long, jarring push. Filled her. Obliterated her fears. Her head ground against the wall, and she pressed her temple flat against the wallpaper, which was cool to her overheated skin.
His strokes in her were jerky. Angry. Taking and giving with a harsh edge.
It didn’t matter. It weakened her knees until only the weight of him pushing her against the wall was what held her up. She clenched her arms around his neck.
Her hips moved on his length. She needed more. Harder. Despite her new freedom, she couldn’t make herself ask for more. Her fingers digging into the thick roll of muscles across his shoulders had to be enough.
And it was. He came into her harder. More forcefully. As if he were trying to make her understand something.
Whatever it was slipped away on the throes of pleasure. This was no rolling wave. It was spikes and stabs of white-hot joy.
Then he slowed. Stopped. Drew almost all of the way from her, until her sheath barely clung to his tip.
She had to tilt her head to see him. “What? Why?” She couldn’t swim through the choking want that clouded her long enough to come up with a whole sentence.
He stared into her eyes with an intensity that bordered on frightening. His eyes weren’t only pale, they were gaslight ghosts of themselves. Haunted and empty at the same time.
She slicked her tongue across her lips and subtly angled, seeking him out. His palms squeezed her hips, a silent warning. His chest levered into hers, crushing her breasts in gentle roughness.
Did he want words? Was it not enough that she’d dared to take him in hand? “Please,” she whispered. She swallowed. “Please. I need you.”
He stroked into her once. Stretched her. She clung to him on his slow withdrawal. “Do you?” he whispered.
She nodded. At this moment, she needed him more than she needed to breathe. More than she needed the blood flowing through her veins. It all belonged to him anyhow.
He lowered his head near. She stared out at the room beyond his wide shoulder. Chairs, a few tables. Everything draped in soft cloths to conceal the awkward limbs of the furniture. She’d had tea in this room, sat with Victoria and Lottie as they laughed and played at embroidery.
Now she was getting rogered against the wall.
He pushed into her again, as if to remind her of the fact. “I doubt you, Sera. I doubt you need me for anything at all.”
She had nothing to say to that. The truth was clenching around him, trying to absorb his solidity into her very being. The hot length of him. His wide shoulders. His fierce determination to be more than they’d grown up with. If he couldn’t see it, that wasn’t her fault, was it?
He kept whispering in her ear. “The hell of it is, I need you more than I’ve needed anything in my life. More than I needed hope.”
He drew back to look her in the face. She was frozen, held still for his occasional slow-dragging thrusts.
Ferocity had become a mask over his rough-cut features. “Do you want to know why?”
No. Unequivocally no. They hovered over a point of no return. The end of the line, and she was absolutely not ready to accept a change of train. She said nothing. She could say nothing. Her mouth was dry and her bones liquid.
“Because I love you, Seraphina Thomas. I love your perfection. I love the way you melt under my hands. I love you.”
She shook her head. Denied everything. Denied his words.
It wasn’t possible. So huge a risk he took. She was weakness personified. She couldn’t handle the world that he handed her. His heart, laid out on a silver salver.
She’d drop it. Crush it.
She shook her head again. Tears burned her eyes, and she blinked them away.
“I do,” he insisted. His head bent low over hers. Breath fluttered over her ear. The breath of life and love. “I love you.” He punctuated the declaration with a hard thrust. As if he could take her by siege. Those awful words slipped from him like a beast loosened from its chain. Every one was matched with fierce thrusts. He wanted to shove his love into her heart.
She broke under the assault. Pleasure and joy wove over her skin, throughout her body. Her fingers tingled with the need to take hold of what he offered. She strained back against him.
The wall behind her held her pinned no more than his hard pounding or his soft words.
Every reiteration in her ear was a torment. He loved her.
Her. Orphaned, bastard girl that she was.
She broke open on a surge of feeling and pleasure. Wanton. He’d take it. Her crisis was everything beautiful and terrible, white bursting across her squeezed-shut eyes. He thrust, his motions jerky as he spilled inside her.
If he’d pulled away to look at her, he’d see her heart written upon her. Take it, since it was his to claim. Her legs trembled with after effects, and her skin felt like sun-warmed gold wrapped around her. He kept his face tucked in the crook of her neck.
Her lips tasted like salt. Tears. She’d lost control. Of everything.
She took a deep breath, trying to rewrap herself in what she knew. It was difficult when he’d stripped her soul bare.
She couldn’t bear to be owned. Nor to own another. Such a huge responsibility was more than she could handle, and t
here were no guidebooks written for the task. Nothing she could consult. No rules.
Just them. Together. For an eternity that would stretch beyond the world crumbling around them.
She couldn’t do it.
She wiped her cheeks furtively. Such tears were only a sign of her weakness.
He’d felt her. He pulled back, then replaced her hand with his own. His thumb stroked over her cheek, taking away the tears. Or spreading them wider.
“What’s this?” he whispered. For such a hard man, he could become so open around her. Without shields. It wasn’t safe to walk through the world like that. Who knew what dangers abounded.
For a long-spun minute, they stared at each other. At their hips, they were still joined. Moisture seeped from her, marking him. His and hers. More togetherness.
Maybe. Maybe she could reach out and take hold of everything he offered. The recklessness wouldn’t matter if it were only them together. If she always hungered for him, if he truly loved her, he’d be there to sate her.
The door to the parlor swung open abruptly.
Victoria squeaked and clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t— That is, I was looking—”
Sera jerked her leg off Fletcher’s hip, then yanked her skirt down. Fletcher didn’t move away from her. He couldn’t. His pants were open, and he still sported a state of dishabille that wasn’t easily repaired.
A shocking, violent rush of jealousy overtook her vision with red, that Fletcher might be seen half dressed, even by her best friend.
“I’m so terribly sorry,” Victoria said again. She left and swung the door shut, her glimmering eyes and half-hidden smile promising she’d be after details. Details Sera could never give. What happened between her and Fletcher thrived in privacy and darkness.
Normally.
Slick wetness pooled in her bloomers. She passed hands over her bodice and her slamming heart. Her dress was quickly neatened, but not the rest of her. If her limbs had been loose from climax a moment ago, now they were positively shaking from fear.
Fletcher’s head was bent as he put himself to rights. He tucked his shirt into his waistband, then buttoned his trousers. He’d never taken off his jacket, so all he had to do was slip the buttons.
She’d thought to see the same raging embarrassment writ on his features. They’d been caught having relations in her friend’s house. A duchess’s house, for that matter. Relations was hardly the word.
This had borne no resemblance to their late-night visits. This had been sex. To drag forth a word from long ago, fucking—but for his terrifying declaration.
They’d been caught. Outside every possible bound of good society. Not just breaking the rules, but flaunting them. Only the most depraved couldn’t withstand their urges to the point that they must indulge in another’s house. It had taken years, but she’d finally proved herself as the charity case unworthy of her largess.
To be caught nearly in the act made it worse.
But no embarrassment colored his cheeks. No humiliation contracted his features.
In fact… She dipped her knees, the better to see his lowered head.
He was holding back a smile. His eyes twinkled.
Bloody twinkled.
While she was more humiliated than she’d ever been in her life. Mortification turned her cheeks cold and locked her neck into a vise.
And he was on the verge of laughing.
He lifted his eyes, looking up at her from under his heavy brow. “I know you’ll be mad,” he choked, “but I can’t help it.”
Her hands curled into fists with her fury. She pushed it down, pushed it away. Quick motions shook her skirts into place. She walked to the door—slow, careful steps, as the evidence of their wickedness made itself known with a slickness across the tops of her thighs.
He stepped up behind her then curled his big hands around her upper arms. He bent over her shoulder, decorating the top with light kisses. “Don’t be mad. The look on your face…”
That he’d found her humiliation and terror amusing did nothing to ease the steely length of her spine. Even her corset had nothing on keeping her back rigid. She vibrated within herself.
She held up a hand. “Stop.” Her voice was cold. “Not now. Not here.”
She wouldn’t compound her sins with beginning an argument. She wasn’t sure if she knew how to begin to describe her upset.
It wasn’t him, so much as what he tempted her into doing. Into being.
Violations piled on temptations and poured over wickedness.
How would Victoria ever be able to step foot in this room again? For God’s sake, how would her friend ever look at her? All because Sera had been absolutely unable to say no to Fletcher.
He would always have that power over her.
If anything, it would only get worse. To take the last few weeks as indication, she only became weaker around him. Weaker to him.
Sera floated through the rest of the evening in a haze, though it was mercifully short. They made their farewells to first the hostess, then Victoria and Lottie. Victoria grinned at her. Confusion washed over Lottie’s face as she looked between them all. Lord Linsley and his wife waved from across the room as Sera and Fletcher waited for the carriage to be brought around.
Through it all, Fletcher never lost his happy attitude.
His shoulders were thrown back, and a smile lurked at his mouth. Smug satisfaction of a job well done lifted the angle of his chin.
The bloody, goddamned bastard.
Despite spending the entire ride home trying to think of epithets, Sera couldn’t think of any more. Her education was sorely lacking in that realm.
When the carriage bumped to a halt at the curb, Fletcher leapt out and held his hand out for her. She couldn’t stand to take hold of his fingers, not when one look recalled how unyieldingly he’d gripped her less than an hour ago. She descended unaided.
A tight frown crossed his mouth but was shaken off by the time they stepped in the house side by side.
Hareton stood ready to wait on them. Fletcher assisted her with taking off her cloak, grazing her bare shoulders. She was fairly sure it was a deliberate provocation.
The man was a provocation to her just by breathing. Seeing his big chest lift against the finely cut waistcoat and jacket only made her think of the powerful muscles underneath. The same ones she’d explored in the dark.
She walked away up the stairs without waiting for him. She couldn’t even begin to know what to say anyway.
So much tumbled inside her. She could hardly pick through the threads long enough to make sense of any of it. A tangled, snaggled ball of embroidery thread had taken her body. The bloody red of the lust she shared with Fletcher. The cold blue of her fear. The pink of her humiliation. All of it swirled hopelessly together. Atop it all was a thick layer of ice, keeping her numb.
Sera’s room was empty. A fire crackled in the grate. Her nightdress and gown draped over a clotheshorse next to her dressing table. Mary was likely downstairs, nodding off on a kitchen stool, waiting to be called. There was no way Sera would yank the bellpull.
The silence in the room already crashed against her ears.
It only got worse when she clicked the lock on the doorknob.
Her feet shushed over the thick carpet across the room. The snick as she locked the door to Fletcher’s adjoining room sounded as loud as cannon fire.
She should have known it wouldn’t be so easy.
She barely had time to strip free of her bodice. The buttons marching up her back made it difficult to wrench free without assistance, but she managed. It cost the lives of a few pearls, but in her current mood she couldn’t care. Let Fletcher absorb the expense.
He certainly seemed ready to absorb everything else. He didn’t care about anything. How could she believe his declaration of love when he seemed to thrive on insouciance for every other social stricture?
She pushed the dress down to a puddle,
then untied her bustle. It dropped to the floor to pile with the silk in a brace of wood and padding. Her petticoats had just fallen in a fluff of useless cloth when a quiet click alerted her to the door she shared with Fletcher.
She turned and looked at it. The knob wiggled, then paused. Wiggled again as he was obviously confronted with the locked door. She could imagine his confusion. She’d never thought about locking that door before.
He knocked.
She didn’t answer as she shoved her arms into her dressing gown. Though he couldn’t see her, she felt exposed in her current state of undress.
He knocked again. She pulled the sash tight enough that it bit into her waist.
His voice came through the door, low and harsh. “Open this right now, Sera.”
She gulped. “No.”
A long pause spun out. “Sera, please. I’m sorry I laughed. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it.”
If he thought that was the extent of her problem, he had no idea. But then she could hardly fault him when she could barely untangle the mess of her own thoughts.
“Please open it,” he said.
She couldn’t stand to hear him beg. She was across the room, brass latch twisting under her cold fingers, before she could think it through.
That was always her problem with him. No more.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Once the door swung open under his hand, Fletcher couldn’t seem to make himself step through. He wrapped one hand around the cool wood of the doorjamb.
Though she’d already undressed from her evening fineries, Sera looked as beautiful as ever. A purple robe skimmed over her curves. Her hair was parted down the center and arranged in the style her maid had created earlier. Only he—and Victoria—knew the pink color of her perfectly shaped lips was because of him. Because of the things they’d done together, finally without feeling like he was hiding them both.
How clearly she said that she didn’t want to speak to him, all without once opening her mouth. She’d wrapped her arms over her chest. Graceful fingertips traced the squares of emeralds still at her neck—then dipped to curl around her mother’s locket.
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