Page 25 of Goodbye, Earl (Ladies’ Revenge Club #4)

Mercifully, he appeared equally unprepared, and froze in place, his voice falling off into silence, eyes widening.

For a second, they just stared at one another, Claire in her disarray and Freddy caked in confection.

“Claire?” he finally managed, shaking his head like he was casting off whatever net had captured him in place. “What are you doing?”

“I smelled …” She trailed off, looking around the room again, some of the dreaminess of the scene, some of its otherworldly abstraction, falling away in favor of a sharper focus. “Whatever it is you are doing in here. Freddy, are you … are you baking?”

“No, I’m just having a bath,” he replied sharply. “Of course I’m baking. I couldn’t sleep.”

“You’re baking,” she repeated, still not quite believing it. “Why can you bake? What are you … what is this?!”

“It’s cherry sauce,” he replied, his voice soft as his eyes skimmed over her, taking in her state of disarray, lingering over the thin material of her nightgown. “For Oliver. I made too much, so I am putting the rest in a crust.”

“A crust,” she repeated again, dumb as a mockingbird. “You are … you are making …”

“Pie,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Yes. Do you want some?”

“Pie,” she repeated weakly, certain now that this must actually be a dream. “You made a pie.”

“Several,” he confirmed, chuckling at her bafflement. He gestured to the windowsill, where a neat rack of half-moon-shaped crusts were cooling behind a row of open glass jars, filled to the brim with red preserves, gentle whirls of steam dancing above their open mouths.

“Good Lord,” she said, in the absence of anything else to say.

“Those first ones might be a little tart, actually. This batch will be sweeter.”

She turned back to see him adjusting a little crock of glossy, cratered butter and a bowl of sugar cubes, many of which he had crushed beneath a spoon.

He took up the spoon, the silver glinting through the sugar that still clung to it, and crossed over to his bubbling pot, dipping it inside to retrieve a sample of its bounty.

He tasted it first, blowing on it and taking a gentle sip. He paused, tilting his head, considering.

She stared because this was so beyond the scope of anything that the wildest parts of her mind might have conjured that it was impossible to do anything else. She stared and she stood in place and stared some more.

He dragged his thumb along the inner scoop of the spoon, gathering the sauce and a single, soft cherry half onto it, and walked over to her, holding out his hand toward her lips. His thumb shone like a glazed ruby, coated in the sauce.

“Try it,” he suggested, a little breathier than he’d been before.

She tried to harden her gaze, tried to summon outrage. She did look him in the face, expecting a challenge, a gloat. Instead, she only saw hope, fragile and sweet, too soft to rage against.

She would try anyway.

She gripped his wrist, drawing herself closer, holding his eye as he lowered his thumb toward her lips. She scraped it with her teeth, dragging her tongue along the pad of his thumb with deliberate control, hoping she was giving him nothing at all. Nothing.

But oh, God, it was perfect. It was sweet and smooth and warm.

She wanted to moan at how good it was, to let her eyes roll back, to soften her knees and seal her lips and suckle his thumb. She wanted to do those things, and she did not mean to follow through, but it was only that she was so very tired. So exhausted from the trip.

It had already happened before she could think to stop it.

She made herself open her eyes again, her fingers still circling his wrist, still holding him in place.

She made herself open them. She made herself look at his face, at his mouth half open, his tongue pressed to his teeth, and acknowledged that she had done this.

That this time, it was her fault entirely.

“Well?” he asked, his voice gone hoarse.

“Good,” she said, releasing his wrist one finger at a time, holding his bright blue gaze despite how hot it burned. “I want more.”

“Fuck,” he bit off, a quick, harsh little syllable before she found herself snatched up and spun, her backside pressed into the table as the bowl of cherry pits went tumbling to the floor, scattering and bouncing in all directions.

She caught him as he fell into her mouth, fisting her hands in his hair, wrapping a leg around his waist as he shoved and tugged at the skirt she wore. They shared the taste of cherry, their tongues clashing, lips scraping together, hungry and urgent.

He lifted her just a breath, pushing her skirt away, up around her waist, before seeing to his own confines, tearing away the ties at the band of his trousers. He had left fingerprints on her thighs, white smears of flour where he had touched her.

He freed himself, pulling his cock free with a little grunt of relief. He held himself in one hand while he used the other to run his fingers along the seam of her pleasure, to test her. He found her wet and ready for him.

He groaned, shaking his head like he couldn’t quite believe it, pushing his hips forward in intent, brushing their want together.

“Freddy,” she breathed, dropping her grip from his hair to his shoulders. “Please.”

“You should have stayed in bed,” he told her, a gruffness in his tone as he pushed into her, as he claimed her. He hissed, his pleasure sending color into his throat and cheeks, his eyes flickering shut as he filled her completely. “You were safe in bed.”

She locked her ankles around his thighs, her mouth falling open in sensation, her lungs ceasing to function.

She moved against him, met him with every stroke, every pulse of want.

She thought perhaps she was no longer fully solid, no longer fully real under the rushing force of how it felt, of the need that was finally being sated.

She had already climbed so high in her want, in her need, that the summit felt very close already, its electricity bouncing and crackling over her skin. She fell back, her hands flat against the table, her body tense and in harmony with his.

He made a sound, reaching forward to take her by the waist, his warm, golden fingers sliding up her body, traveling over her breasts, lingering there.

He pulled her back, dropping his mouth into the crook of her throat and wrapping her hair around his hand, pulling her head back so that he could taste her, could nip at her in this delicate little place.

He never slowed. He never stopped.

His body turned hot with the exertion, beads of sweat dappling his brow, adorning his throat as he pulled back to look at her, to watch her, to make sure she understood what was happening to her and who was delivering it.

She fisted her hands in his shirt, realizing too late that he was still entirely clothed. Realizing that this wasn’t at all what she had imagined or intended or … oh!

She cried out, quickly muffled by the falling pressure of his lips as she rocked wildly against him, as her body exploded in a thousand incandescent colors, bathing the room in a light so blinding that she had no choice but to squeeze her eyes shut, to block it out as it washed down in a heavy fall of sensation.

“Claire,” he said, soft and thick against her mouth, dragging her hips closer as he followed her over, as he let her be the one to temper the cry this time, flooding her with the evidence of his satisfaction.

Still the movement did not stop. It only slowed. It slowed in agonizing, gradual decline until finally he shuddered and his grip eased, his fingers gone soft and slack over the bruising hold on her flesh.

For a long time, they did not move.

They did not speak.

They did not separate.

For a long time, they held together like this, as one.