Page 48 of My Darling Mr. Darling

Reality reared its ugly head, but it still took more than a few moments to tear his mouth from Violet’s. “Vi, this has to stop,” he heard himself say. And yet somehow he could not persuade his stubborn hands to release her. Even through his own gloves, he could feel the heat of her skin beneath his fingers.

Violet made petulant little noise in her throat, and when he steadfastly resisted her attempts to bring his lips back to hers, she settled instead for deftly unknotting his cravat, nibbling at the flesh she revealed. Christ, he hadn’t even realized how arousing such a thing could be. The tip of her tongue traced a delicate path from the hollow of his throat to his jaw, and his eyes closed as he shuddered against her, unable to banish wicked images from his mind of ways that tongue might be put to better use.

Her fingers plucked at the buttons securing the fall of his trousers, sliding into the tight space between them, and he realized, as she curled her fingers around his cock, that she had stripped off her glove. His head dropped to her shoulder, burying a groan in her soft, sweetly-scented skin as his hips jerked to hers.

She nipped his ear with those sharp little teeth, redoubling his torment. He could feel her, hot and wet, and it would be so easy just lift her a few inches, cant his hips, and slide inside her.

But he couldn’t.Theycouldn’t.

“Vi, no,” he said, though the words were raw and ragged, owing to the fact that he had had to force them out almost against his will. “We can’t. Not here. Notnow.” But he couldn’t stop himself from kissing his way up her throat, and he couldn’t help the way his hips rocked into the gentle caress of her fingers.

“Why?” she inquired, squeezing her thighs just a bit tighter, which only served to press them closer together, and for a brief moment he touched heaven.

“Because—” A number of reasons, none of which he could summon to mind when she was rubbing herself against him like that. “Because—because—it’s not done.” Good God, it was the middle of the afternoon. In herballroom. “There ought to be a bed.” And candlelight. Wine, perhaps. Roses, even. One didnotmake love to one’s wife for the first time up against a wall, fully-clothed, in the bright light of day, where they could be discovered at any moment.

“Why?” Violet asked again, and John found he had no answer for her.It’s not donehad hardly been sufficient, and his muddled brain was too slow to keep up with her. She had lived too long by the skin of her teeth not to seize opportunity when it presented itself, to let herself be dissuaded by something so inconsequential as social acceptability.

She infected him with her selfsame recklessness. She had made him over into someone he didn’t recognize; a man who wanted nothing more than to pound into her until they were both sweaty, exhausted, and utterly sated. And she wanted that, too—a storm of passion to quell the storm of wildness inside her. To surrender to an impulse that had no basis in logic or reason; just because pleasure, like opportunity, was something she had had to seize with both hands these last years, lest it be snatched away and lost to her forever.

He had never understood Violet half so well as he did at this moment; as if he had captured a tiny fragment of her true character in his hand. A terrifying prospect, since her particular brand of madness seemed to be catching. The prickle of her fingernails sliding over the nape of his neck elevated his pulse to a thunderous pound; the slick slide of her sex along the underside of his cock nearly unmanned him.

It wasn’t evenhimshe wanted, not really. She wasn’t even looking at him; as if his presence was hardly even germane to the situation. He was a means to an end—pleasure, passion, a few minutes of bliss that transported her mind away fromhere. She wanted tousehim, and he—

He could contend with being used. Just for the moment. Because regardless ofwhy, she had chosenhim. Maybe not forever—but for now. And for now, it was enough.

Chapter Eighteen

Violet’s legs trembled, no longer accustomed to such strenuous exercise. Her spine felt bruised where it pressed against the unyielding wall. Her fingers clutched at John’s hair, his coat—anywhere she could reach in the service of holding herself closer.

His private flesh was notched against hers, and she would have sworn she could feel his heartbeat pulsing through it. He was hard and hot, and every time his hips moved in those barely perceptible motions—as if he could not quite restrain himself—she grew wetter, her body readying itself for the intrusion of his.

Which seemed not to be coming anytime soon, to her chagrin.

She let fall the handful of his hair she’d clutched, sliding her hand once more between them. He groaned when her fingers brushed him, his hips jerking so sharply that the wall scratched her spine even through her dress, her chemise, and her stays. Her thumb rubbed over the broad head of his cock, where a drop of moisture had welled up, and she swirled it with the pad until he shuddered and dropped his head once more to her shoulder.

“Christ,” he said, his voice hoarse and dry as sawdust. “Don’t do that—I won’t last through it.” His teeth grazed her bare skin in a nip that made her legs tremble with something other than the exertion of holding herself up.

“Well, that hardly matters if you’re not going todoanything,” she heard herself snap in what was perhaps the most petulant tone she had ever employed. It seemed wrong, somehow, to chastise him given their situation, but she had had disappointments enough. This would be just one more to add to the pile of them which towered so high that it was in danger of imminent collapse already.

But he chuckled, as if her waspish tone had been amusing, and said, as if to confirm it to himself once more, “You really aren’t a virgin?”

Her busy fingers stilled. “No,” she said, but the word trembled awkwardly, because he hadsaidthat he didn’t care, and she wasn’t ashamedof it, because it truly had had nothing at all to do with him, and if he trulydidcare, then she—

“ThankGod,” he said with true feeling, and his hands clutched her hips in a fierce grip as he adjusted her, adjusted himself, and then began to slide inside her in a slow, deep glide. With a squeak of surprise, she caught his shoulder in one hand and held, kneading as he murmured soothing nonsense peppered with praise against her temple, the slight abrasion of the shadows of whiskers forming on his jaw coaxing out a shiver. And she absorbed his words—as she absorbed him—with a sense of satisfaction…then wonder…then trepidation. Her breath caught in her throat, and she swallowed down a gasp, her thighs tensing as she felt herself stretching to accommodate him.

“I’m not hurting you.” It was a question, but it held all the intensity of a command, as if by admitting any sort of tonal inflection, he could negate the very possibility of pain.

“No,” she agreed, although the pressure of his entry threatened it. “It’s just—a bitmuch.”

Something that might have been a laugh scraped from his throat, singeing her ear. “I’d thank you, but I don’t suppose you meant it as a compliment.”

How could itpossiblybe a compliment? Her confusion must have shown on her face, because he laughed again, the sound still raw, visceral. “My fault,” he said. “I should have prepared you. Three years is…quite a long time.”

Since she’d been with Edward, he meant, and her throat worked with an awkward swallow at the strange reality of being known so intimately. She didn’t know how he’d meant toprepareher, but certainly it was too late now. Now she had to cope with her own inadequacy, with the gravity of him attempting to make space for himself where she was positive no more existed.

She didn’t know what she was meant to be doing. Edward had never taken quite so long. Perhaps John simply wasn’t any good at it.

“Do you think you might…get on with it?” she inquired, wriggling a little in his hold to ease the pressure between her thighs.