Page 49 of His Wicked Little Christmas
Finally, splendidly, her climax ripped through her. Dimming her vision, snatching her breath. Her hands flew to the counterpane, fisting, body bowing. Her cry was savage, and he seized her lips, swallowing the sound lest it rouse the household.
He tangled himself around her, grinding, moist skin and fury, his release claiming him. They gasped and panted, bumped and shifted, sighs, groans, murmurs filling the dark night. Drawing forth every last bit of pleasure.
Finally, his weight settled upon her in surrender.
It was the most animalistic experience of her life. Incredible and tumultuous. She felt turned inside out, like a piece of clothing ripped from one’s body.
She was ruined. In the best way possible.
“Remy,” she murmured against his temple, a bead of sweat streaking down his jaw to her cheek.
He took her with him when he rolled away, tucking her against his side. His lips dusted her brow, a haphazard caress. His chest rose and fell in a mad rhythm. “Remy,” he repeated in a sleepy, sated murmur. Stretching, he sighed in gratifying contentment and hugged her close.
She sought to ask him if lovemaking was always like this.
Life-altering. Crushing. So, so beautiful.
Adorable, troublesome man, exhaustion claimed him before she could.
Chapter Nine
Where a Recalcitrant Viscount Broods
“Why are you so grouchy?”
Chance bit into an apple he’d pilfered from the kitchen during his foray for food and art supplies an hour ago, chewing slowly. He was trying to come to grips with the sentiments swirling through him—and the effort was affecting his mood. He’d never been much for Christmas, and here it was, dawn of a new one. And his emotions were tangled in knots. “Is that the American term for vexed? Who says I’m grouchy?”
Franny smiled, a winsome, knowing curve of her lips and licked her thumb, then swiped it across a stroke she’d drawn on the page.
Chance’s belly quivered, his fingers curling around the fruit. Discomfited, he glanced to the window. They had at least two hours before daybreak, when she’d need to return to her chamber. Katherine would be up soon after, excited about the holiday, and her governess couldn’t be found sketching the master of the house in his drawers. The artist in a ripped chemise and nothing else. Her hair untamed, flowing down her shoulders and back in a crimson-threaded bounty. Her nipples, which he’d found were the shade of a dusky sunset, strainingagainst silk and calling to him to suck them. The bed behind them an utter disaster. The room smelling marvelously of carnal delight.
He’d bottle the scent if he could. Lifting his hand to his nose, he drew her—them—in.
“You should be happy,” she said cheerfully and drew a swift set of lines, glancing at him once to make sure she was capturing him correctly. “I did what you asked. Now you do whatIask. Getting you on paper is why I ended up here, you know. This was the deal. Consider this my Christmas present. I want to capture that little crook on your nose. The scar on your lip. That lank of hair that juts out no matter how hard you try to contain it.”
He sank back against the settee, vanquished. Trying very diligently to avoid looking at the dark thatch of hair between her thighs. Flattered to his soul that she’d studied him so well. And feeling a bit clever that he had her atruepresent shoved in his cupboard across the way. Shehaddone what he asked. The second time. When he’d awoken to find her circling his nipple with her fingernail. Climbed atop him without a hint of apprehension, in fact. Worked his shaft inside her with only the slightest clumsiness. How his thumb had ended up between her lips, he couldn’t say. Just the tip, a gentle suck and nip. He’d about come then and there.
Since when did he likethat?
Breasts bouncing, calling him Remy in that breathy voice. In crisis mode, he’d flipped her over and resorted to some fancy finger work to make sure she came before he did.
“Quit fidgeting, my lord.”
“I said I would pose. I’m posing.”
Pose. Bloody hell, was he in deep trouble with this chit.
Her gaze flicked up, taking him in. She was resting against an armchair enough of a distance away to keep him from easily touching her. With his toe if he stretched perhaps. Her eyes were a painfully vivid shade of gold. Her cheeks ruddy from stubble-burn, lips plump from abuse. He let his attention meander down her body. Amazing breasts, slender, graceful feet—and everything in between made for pleasure. Made forhim. She really was unfairly endowed.
Duly appreciative, he wanted her with an intensity he’d never imagined. Not since his boyhood had he been less in control.
With her soft smiles and tender touches, she made his world shrink until it was merely them filling it. When he’d always occupied the largest, loneliest of worlds.
The difference between lust and love circled, bringing a leaden ache to his chest. A tightness to his breathing. A clamminess to his skin.
How to tell, he wondered? How to tell?
Because he feared this was happiness he was suffering from, or more confusing, contentment. Of that, he was fairly bloody sure. Bits of the wall he’d built around his heart tumbled when she was near, the barricade getting lower and lower. Like she’d taken a pickax to it.