Page 12 of Much Ado About Hating You (Second Chance Season #2)

Eleven

W ho was Beatrice to deny the man who looked at her like she was everything he’d ever dreamed of? She sat on the edge of the bed, and he immediately placed a knee beside her. She fell backward onto the mattress, and he blocked her in with palms on either side of her body. He was poised above her, all those muscles she’d admired earlier in the woodshop taut and ready.

To ravish her.

Finally . Thank God.

She scooted farther onto the bed, and he followed, eyes locked on her as his other knee made it onto the mattress. Such intent in his gaze. Such control in his body.

She’d thought his ministrations in the study had eked every bit of arousal out of her body, leaving her drained and sated.

She’d been wrong. Her body buzzed back to life, needy and focused entirely on him.

As he was on her.

She lifted her arms to trace the line of his collarbone, to stroke the muscled mound of his shoulder, to explore the valley at the bottom of his bicep. A short flight to his chest where she flattened her palm and felt his heart beating fast. So fast, like the patter of rain on the roof, one beat almost indistinguishable from another. She surged up to kiss the plane of muscle over that beating organ.

And then he growled and stole her lips, his body falling on top of her, rolling to the side and gathering her close as he kissed her thoroughly. Her heart like his now— patter, patter, patterpatterpatter.

Nothing to distinguish the beats from one another, his from hers.

His hand on her breast, kneading, his face between them, kissing the soft, sensitive flesh.

“These,” he murmured against her skin, “are astounding.”

“They are ordinary breasts.”

“You’re wrong.” He laved her nipple.

“Richard!”

He nipped her neck, sucked the little stinging bite.

She moaned his name this time.

“Keep saying it, sweetheart. I want to hear my name from your lips in every tone you possess. Angry, happy, amused, frustrated. Aroused. Needy. For me and only me.”

“Richard,” she sighed.

“Just. Like. That.”

He flattened his palm between her breasts and dragged it down over her belly, lower, over the curls at her center. He cupped her sex, and she bit her lip. He was so proprietary. So confident. So gentle. He was everything she needed in a lover. Everything she admired.

But she urged his hand away.

His head shot up. “You do not like this? I could have sworn you did.”

“I do. I do.” She cupped his cheek. “But I want this right now.” She slipped her hand between their bodies.

And pressed her palm against the bulge straining the buttons of his fall.

He cursed, then groaned. His shaft throbbed.

“I want this inside me, Richard. I want to know what it feels like.”

“Have you imagined it?”

She closed her eyes, nodded. “Please.”

“Not yet. I want to watch you shatter one more time.”

“Another time. This now.” She squeezed.

He cursed and moved so quickly her eyes leapt open. He was on his knees, his hands at her waist. He flipped her, swatted her bottom, the slap of skin against skin an echo that tingled throughout her entire body. She yelped, and he pressed down on top of her, his chest against her back, his trouser-chained erection nudging against her bottom. His lips were warm against her ear, whispering, “Will you fight me even here? Even now?”

“It appears so.” Difficult to speak while breathless. Her skin still sparked where he’d swatted her. She bit her lip, trying to keep back the request, but in the end, it escaped, sounding more like a plea. “Do it again.”

“Do what?”

She reached around behind her, found his hand, placed it on the curve of her bottom where he’d swatted her.

“Ah.” His chuckle shot straight between her legs. Then so did the smack of his hand against the side of her bottom. “Like that?”

No words. She might melt. She had melted.

“What about this?” The heat of his body disappeared for a moment, and then she felt the perfect softness of his lips, the slight stubble of his chin on one globe of her backside. A kiss. Then a bite, sharp yet gentle and stealing her ability to breathe.

Her body became an ocean wave, rolling toward that explosive place only he could take her. She used the power to flip back around and roll her hips against him, to pull him up for a crashing kiss.

“Do it. Please.” Begging now, certainly. Pride thrown to the wind. All that mattered was him inside her now.

“I want it,” he said against her lips. “But I want you wild and begging first.”

“Is this revenge?”

“Maybe. You’ll love it.”

She kissed him hard, destroying his promise, raking her hands down the ridges of his abdomen.

“Vixen.”

“Donkey.”

He laughed. “Donkey?”

His laughter left her floating, a wave of happiness snapping tears into her eyes. “A like-minded animal for you.”

“I see.” His chuckle this time was softer as he nuzzled his nose into her neck just behind her ear. “You and I cannot woo peaceably.”

“What fun would that be? You like the fight. Admit it.” She snuck her hand around the back of his neck, and she squeezed, scoring fingernails into his skin.

He hissed. His shaft throbbed between them. “God, yes, Beatrice. I do like it. I like you .”

“Never say so, Mr. Clark. I shall never believe it.”

“Shall I show you, then? Prove it to you?”

She exhaled, an overly dramatic sigh. “ Finally .”

He grasped one of her legs and lifted it, hooked her knee over his shoulder. Then he undid a button of his fall. Another. And another. The strained fabric gave way, released his shaft.

Que bruto. What a beautiful beast. She supposed the size of the man correlated to the size of his manhood, but she’d not been prepared. Perhaps because she’d never truly thought she’d see it.

He was falling back onto her, kicking his trousers to the floor so that not a single stitch of anything came between them. “You look shy suddenly, hellcat. Tell me.”

The size of him… But no. Not that truly. More what he could do with it were they not careful. “Do… do you have a letter ? I brought one with me, but I… I did not intend to use it today. Here. It is at Slopevale.”

His brows pulled together. “A letter? Oh! No, Bea. I do not. I do not make a habit of bringing women into my home or lovers into my bed.”

“You… go to your lovers’, then?” She felt a pang of jealousy, and she shoved it down. He may have had other lovers, but he was hers now. She’d demanded it. He’d promised. Yet she pressed her palm into the mattress to keep from rubbing at that little scoop in her chest that suddenly felt rather hollow.

“I have, yes. There have not been many. One woman in London I’ve visited from time to time. I haven’t had need of one in months. If I’d known you were coming, I might have secured one, hopeless though I would have considered it.”

She bit her lip, a bit disappointed. Yet somehow more aroused than before. The way he spoke with her, frankly and sensibly, not shying away from details but trusting her to understand. This man treated her like an equal. Always had. In his barbs and now in his bed.

“I’ll not spend inside you, sweetheart,” he said. “I will not risk a pregnancy.”

Of course he wouldn’t. She nodded, opened her arms to him.

And he jumped off the bed.

“Richard!” She propped herself up on her elbows.

“One second!” He threw open a drawer on a nearby wardrobe and rummaged around, then grabbed something and slammed the drawer shut. “Found it.” He returned to her, straddling her, taking her leg like he owned it and slinging it over his shoulder again as if it belonged there.

It might. She should feel mortified by the position, by how open and vulnerable it left her. It only made her a bit shy. And a lot excited. “What have you found?”

He shook a small glass bottle at her, then undid the cork stopper. “Oil. Hold out your hand.” Not even an inch of space in the command for disobedience.

She raised an eyebrow but did so. She’d promised to trust him.

He poured a thin line of the oil into her hand, then stoppered the bottle and tossed it aside. “Now rub it on my cock, love.”

Her eyes must be saucers. Her jaw most certainly slack. He laughed and guided her hand to the appendage hard and long between them.

She shook off his help and did the rest herself, wrapping her hand around his length, spreading the oil all over him, rubbing her thumb over the silken head of his shaft as he hissed and moaned. “Brazen Beatrice. Christ.”

When he was well covered, she asked, “Why?”

He dropped to his palms so their foreheads almost touched. “You’re wet for me, sweetheart, but I don’t want this to hurt you. It might. But the oil will help.”

It might hurt. She’d heard that before. Oil would help. A new bit of information. She’d better test it out. “Not so dull after all, are you, Mr. Clark? In fact, you are quite beautifully cunning.”

He winked. “At your service, Miss Bell. In every way you can imagine.” His voice, growly and rough, ripped shivers down her spine.

Gripping her courage to her heart, she used the leg still slung over his shoulder to squeeze him closer.

He paused one full moment of heavy breaths as his gaze roamed all over her, wide-eyed and wondering, and then he broke through and was everywhere all at once—lips on lips and neck and breasts, hands kneading and cupping and squeezing, sliding up her thigh, then down it to swat her bottom again as he rolled his hips against her. Each touch drove her pleasure higher, drove every thought but for him and more and mine out of her mind.

He slipped a finger inside her, then another, curling and stroking until she was squirming again.

Still not what she wanted. Not everything she wanted.

So she took it, wrapping her hand around his length and positioning him at her entrance.

“Slow,” he warned.

She nodded, ceding control to him as she flattened her palms on his back. Skin felt this way—smooth fire stretched over marble, a jubilation of sensation for her fingertips to explore as he entered her, stretched her. Heart beating wildly, her entire being panicked. But ready. An odd contradiction.

“Shh.” He kissed her softly as he inched into her, sliding smoothly but testing her limits. “Tell me if you don’t want it. Damn me to hell if you need to.”

Holding her breath, she shook her head, held him more tightly.

Still kissing her, still softly, he inched into her, filling her, stretching her. She focused on the kissing as she’d focused on hating him these past years, with every determined bone in her body. She memorized with her fingertips the rough silk of his hair and the outline of each muscle as she’d previously memorized his every taunt and tease. And there, between this moment and those, between loving and hate, she slipped quietly past hesitance and discomfort, and back into the pool of pleasure. Her hips rolled against him, and with her body’s surge forward, not his, she welcomed him fully into her.

“Christ,” he groaned, sounding gutted, sounding something else. No time to wonder what because he was moving now. No hesitation from him either, and she was scoring his back with her nails as he rocked in and out of her, building waves inside her. She was lit tinder ready to ignite.

And then he pressed a flame to her, rubbing his thumb over that pulsing button at her center. Pleasure drowned her, took her under. What a lovely way to die. He thrust one more time into her, hard and fast, and then pulled out and spent upon the bed, his face pressed between her breasts. She’d become sensation. She’d become thoughtless.

She was quite terrified she’d become his.

Hearts racing, arms clutching, he pulled her to the head of the bed and shuffled her under the covers. She tried a bit to brush his gentle hands away but found herself covered to the chin anyway, his large body curved protectively around her from behind. His face was in her neck, and he pressed little kisses along the entire length and curve of it.

“Mine.” Kiss. “Mine.” Kiss. “Mine mine mine .” Kiss kiss kiss .

She laughed. It tickled. She swatted him away, but he’d become something of a wet shift, clinging to her everywhere.

“Speak to me in Spanish.”

“No.”

“Thank you. Well done.”

She laughed.

He nipped her ear. “It’s the only word I know. Except for que bruto. That’s me. Your brute.”

He sounded so happy, and that emotion curled up in her chest, purring like a cat. “My brute would be mi bruto.”

“Good.” He yawned against her neck. “Now say Peterson is an ars?—”

“Richard!” She rolled in his arms, pinned him with a glare.

“Arse. He’s an arse.”

Was he jealous? Worried? The confident man she’d always known? But perhaps she did not know him. Not as well as she could. With more reluctance than she should feel, she left his arms and left the bed.

“Beatrice!” Her name a whine. “Come back.” That a demand.

“No. I’m going to look around.” She wanted to discover more about him. She yanked the top blanket off the bed and wrapped it round her body, then walked a circle round the room. Walls mostly bare but for generic paintings. She pulled curtains back on one wall to find large windows looking down into a garden. A wardrobe, a small desk, the rug beneath her toes thick and new. Then she was back at the bed, on the other side, standing before a small bedside table and the book laid carelessly atop it. An old book, faded and… familiar?

Richard had pushed up to lean against the headboard and folded his hands behind his head. He watched her quietly, his dark hair a heavenly mess.

Almost trembling, she picked up the book, turned it over to read the spine. Quixote . Her Quixote . She recognized it now, and when she opened it, there—her name in her own hand. Now she was trembling.

“Come here, sweetheart.” He held out a hand.

She took it, sat on the edge of the bed, and let him lay his head in her lap. She stroked those messy locks out of his eyes. “Why do you have my book?”

“Because I never hated you.”

She wished she could say the same, but she could not. She had hated him, been furious with him. For so terribly long. But perhaps only because she’d liked him so much before that.

And as she set the book aside to stroke the line of his nose and kiss him softly, sweetly, she realized how very easy it was to like him, how very easy it would be to feel more than that.

“We should return,” she said. “The others will begin to wonder. Selena will worry.”

He groaned but left the bed, picking up her ruined clothing and handing them to her. Then he whipped open his wardrobe and rummaged around for clean clothes of his own. Lucky man.

She wrinkled her nose at her gown and shift. It would be unpleasant to put them on, but no other choice. Taking a lover would be a challenging enterprise. “Oh.”

He looked up from buttoning his fall. “Something wrong?”

“You… we… are we lovers now?”

He barked a laugh and had his arm hooked around her waist in two steps. “If you have questions about that, I haven’t done my job.”

She rested her chin against his chest, feeling quite satisfied. “Lovers then. Until the party ends.”

He scowled. “No. Not until the party ends. Longer.”

“I don’t see how?—”

“I’ll figure it out.” He returned to his fall, his shirt, his waistcoat, his jacket, and cravat. “Or you will. We will. But we are a we now. No arguments, hellcat.”

Oddly, she couldn’t think of a single one.

She stepped into her shift and did up her stays as best she could. Richard was tying her tapes when a loud banging made them both jump.

“What the hell?” he stepped into the hallway.

Beatrice followed. “They’re probably looking for me.”

More banging.

“Stay here.” Richard started down the stairs.

No arguments there either. She peeked around a corner and over a banister, though, where she could only just see the door.

It flew open as Richard reached the entry hall. A man stood wobbling in the doorway, a lightning strike behind him casting his features in shadow. And then he fell into the house.

Richard caught him, froze, cursed.

Beatrice rushed down the stairs, slamming to a stop when she saw… “Daniel,” she breathed.

“It seems you were right after all,” Richard said. “The prodigal son has returned.”

Daniel’s face was ashen, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, his body limp. But his eyes fluttered, then opened. His lips parted for a shaky breath before he said, “Home. And shot. Careful, brother, or I’ll get blood all over your waistcoat.”

Richard pulled an arm out from under his brother’s body. His white sleeve now red and glistening.