Page 24 of Between a Duke and a Hard Place (The Honeywells #1)
Chapter Twenty-Three
M ax strode through the corridors of Alstead Manor, his temper burning hotter with each step. The corridors felt too narrow, the walls pressing in around him as he fought to rein in his frustration.
Smythe. Nigel. Ethella. Eddington. Their names circled in his mind like vultures, each one an affront to his patience, an insult to his intelligence. The fabricated officer, the endless scheming, the brazen manipulations—all for the nefarious purposes of stealing the estate out from under James and undoing his marriage to Violet, reclaiming her as their pawn.
It was unforgivable.
And Nigel—spineless, conniving Nigel. That damned fool was playing at things he did not understand, aligning himself with men who would gladly slit his throat the moment he ceased being useful. If he had any sense, he would be terrified. Eddington’s sins ran the gamut from the banal to the truly monstrous. Ending the life of someone as tiresome as Nigel would not even warrant the batting of an eye.
Max reached Violet’s door and knocked softly. He didn’t want to disturb her if she was resting. When no answer came, he pushed it open without waiting, wanting to assure himself she was well.
And immediately, everything else fell away.
She stood at the center of the room, half-dressed, the buttons of her gown undone, the fabric slipping from her shoulders.
Max froze. His breath stalled in his chest, his pulse hammering in his ears as he took her in. Pale skin, soft curves, the faintest glimpse of lace at the hem of her shift.
His stomach tightened. His blood heated. He struggled to think past the sudden, blinding desire that gripped him. She hadn’t seen him yet. Her head was tilted downward, her fingers lingering at the laces of her stays, lost in thought.
And then, she turned. Their eyes met. And she knew.
The realization passed over her features in a single instant—the flicker of understanding, the sharp inhale of breath, the way her hands stilled against the fabric of her dress.
Max should have looked away. Should have stepped back, and offered an apology. But he didn’t. Because all he could see—all he could think about—was her. The way she had felt beneath him. The way she had moaned his name, clung to him, welcomed him without hesitation.
He would never get enough of her, he thought. Would there ever come a time when he could look at her thus and not be instantly aroused by the sight? Bloody hell. He didn’t even need to look at her. Just thinking of her was enough in most cases.
Taking in her expression, her softly parted lips and pink cheeks, heavy-lidded eyes, and then her gaze darted from him to the bed. Before he could think what she intended to do, she untied the stays she had just put on and shrugged out of them, letting them fall to the floor. Clad only in a thin chemise so transparent she may as well have been entirely nude, she lifted her hand and beckoned to him like a siren. And like so many mythical sailors lost to their wiles, he was powerless to resist.
Violet had known, from the second their gazes had locked, what he was thinking. She saw it in the way his body tensed, in the way his breathing had gone shallow, in the way his hands curled into tight, white-knuckled fists. And for one terrible, breathless moment, she thought he meant to walk away from her, from what they had shared. But then he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, his long stride eating up the distance between them.
He stopped just short of touching her, his breath fanning over her lips, his hands shaking at his sides. “You should tell me to stop," he rasped, voice low and rough with restraint. "Now, before I can't."
"Don't you dare," she whispered back, her own voice trembling.
That was all it took. His hands came up to frame her face, tilting her mouth to his. The kiss wasn't gentle—it was a claim, an unraveling. All the years of tension, of desire thinly veiled by manufactured hostility, simply ignited in an instant. Fierce. Hungry. Completely consuming.
Violet clutched at his coat, pulling him closer, needing the solid weight of him against her. When he broke the kiss to trail his lips along her jaw, down the elegant column of her neck she gasped with the riot of sensations that erupted within her. Then his mouth found the sensitive hollow beneath her ear and a ragged moan escaped her. And when his hands slid down, gripping her waist, drawing her flush against him, there was no mistaking his need. The hard length of him was rampantly evident and that knowledge, that he desired her so, only spiked the heat and the urgency she felt.
Max lifted her then, carrying her across the room to the bed as though she weighed nothing at all. He laid her down gently, reverently, and then stood back for a moment, his gaze devouring her.
"You're going to ruin me," he said, his voice ragged. "And I won't thank you for it."
"Liar," Violet said, breathless, tugging him down to her.
“It’s true. You could bring me to my knees, Violet, with naught but a glance, a word. And with you like this, nearly naked, warm, willing… a perfect blend of wantonness and innocence? No man could resist you. And I no longer wish to.”
Those words had cut through to the very heart of her. She’d never felt beautiful. Not truly. But he made her feel that way. And so she smiled up at him, raising her arms in invitation. “Then we are of an accord… because I have no desire to resist you.”
His clothes were shed with haste. And as he stood beside the bed, tall, proud—with ample reason—he looked at her in challenge. “Let me see you, Violet. All of you.”
Sitting up, Violet shrugged out of her chemise, the straps falling down and then the garment pooling at her waist. As she lay back, he reached for it, tugging it over her hips and down her bare legs until it could be discarded with his clothing. Then he looked his fill, his heated gaze moving over her from head to toe.
She was not so used to being naked in front of him that she didn’t feel the urge to hide herself, to shield herself from his unbearably intimate perusal of her. But she did not. She forced herself to simply lie back and allow him to study her.
“Perfection,” he declared, settling on the bed. He lifted one of her feet, kissing the inside of her ankle. Then he began to work upward, his teeth and tongue moving over tender flesh in a way that had her gritting her teeth to hold back desperate pleas. She needed him. To feel him moving inside her, filling her up and easing the unbearable, longing ache that she now felt. But those thoughts fled when he knelt between her parted thighs and pressed a kiss against her mound.
She’d heard of it. Whispers and giggles from serving girls had not given her a clear picture. It was beyond overwhelming to have his mouth on her, his tongue lapping at the hardened bud until she could do nothing but strain beneath him. With her heels pressed into the mattress, she lifted her hips, pressing against his questing mouth. And that bold gesture spurred him on.
It was not gentle. It was not faint and delicate, not loving and playful. It was only need. Pure hunger. The tension in her built to new heights and when it broke, she sobbed his name brokenly as wave after of pleasure racked her body.
Then he was moving up, levering himself over her and fitting himself between her parted thighs. In a desperate tangle, hands and mouths exploring skin longed for in silence. He kissed her like a man starved, worshipped her like a man who'd finally found something sacred.
And when he entered her, slow and deep and shaking with the effort to hold back, Violet's gasp turned into a moan of his name. The pleasure that had begun to recede simply reignited, leaving her trembling against him. Max stilled, forehead pressed to hers, eyes locked on hers.
"You're mine," he said hoarsely. "Not just tonight. Always."
“I’ve always been yours… even when you didn’t know it,” she whispered. “Are you mine?”
Max dropped his head down, his forehead resting against hers. “I don’t know how to be anything else.”
He moved then, thrusting deep with a deliberate rhythm that gave no quarter. Violet met him with equal fervor, her nails scoring his back, her legs wrapped tight around his hips. The world narrowed to the heat of their bodies, the sound of their breathing, the way they broke apart together—shattered and remade in each other’s arms.
After, with the sweat cooling on their skin and their limbs tangled beneath the sheets, Max brushed a kiss to her temple and whispered, “I have so many regrets, Violet. So many things we’ve said to one another over the years, how we have needled and tormented one another.”
Violet smiled, gloriously sated and entirely his. “I have only one regret… we waited so unnecessarily long to face the truth of our feelings. I can’t go back, Max. Not ever. And though my pride balks at being the first to say so, I have to tell you what you likely already know. I love you. I’ve loved you for all my life, And I will never stop.”
He rolled over onto his side, his fingertips skimming over the sensitive skin between her breasts. “What was it you said earlier? Then we are of one accord? I am wholly and unrepentantly in love with you. And I would not change it for all the wealth in England or beyond.”