Page 28 of My Lord Rogue
They crashed down onto the carpet, a tangle of limbs and heat. She rolled on top of him, pinning his arms with surprising strength. Her hair fell across his chest, a golden curtain. She bit at his jaw, at his throat, at the line where shirt gave way to flesh. She seemed to want to leave a mark, and he would have let her flay him if she’d asked.
He gripped her waist, slid his hands up to her breasts, palmed the weight of them, thumbed the dark nipples until she moaned. She arched, grinding down, and he felt her bare and hot through the thin linen of his trousers.
“Take them off,” she said, voice half threat, half plea as she moved to allow him.
He did, tugging off his boots then kicking free of the fabric while she watched, unashamed.
When he was as naked as she, he lay back, let her look her fill. She ran her hands down his chest, across his stomach, lower. Her fingers circled his hard length, stroking slowly, and he nearly sobbed.
“Is this what you want?” he managed, barely coherent.
She grinned, feral, and mounted him in a single, graceful motion.
He cried out, not from pain, but from the shock of being inside her, the heat and slickness and sheer reality of her. She moved slowly at first, rocking her hips, bracing her hands on his chest. The fire painted her in living gold, every inch of her alive with motion.
He let her set the rhythm, let her ride him until she was gasping, until her hair stuck to her cheeks and sweat beaded at the hollow of her spine. He wrapped his arms around her, held her close, let her take whatever she needed.
When she broke, it was silent—her mouth open, her eyes shut, her body seizing around him. He followed, helpless, undone by the pleasure and the privilege of being the one she chose.
They lay there after, tangled on the carpet, the fire dying to embers, the library silent except for the wreckage of their breath.
For a long time, neither spoke.
At last, she propped herself up on one elbow, hair wild and face marked with his stubble.
“Are you ruined?” he asked, unable to keep the laughter from his voice.
She smiled, slow and dangerous. “Not yet,” she said. “But I hope you’ll keep trying.”
He pulled her in, and this time the kiss was gentle, almost chaste.
It was supposed to be enough. The first fall to the carpet, the violence of want transmuted into sweat and breath and the messy completion of flesh. But Josiah knew, even as the last tremors faded from his body, that he was not sated. The need was still there, a hunger deeper than his own skin, gnawing at the inside of his ribs.
Theo seemed to sense it too. She sprawled beside him, her body marked with new blushes and the old, faint scars of living, her hair a corona of gold gone wild in the fire’s updraft. Her eyeswere hooded, but not with sleep. She watched him, mouth curled at one corner, as if she too had known all along that this was only the beginning.
The idea terrified him. She wasn’t the type of woman he wanted for a wife, and he couldn’t insult her with the offer to keep her as his mistress. He needed to leave at dawn, something at which he had plenty of experience.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The next night, the house was colder. The rain had set in sometime before supper and drummed against the windows with an insistent, animal persistence, as if the world outside wished to break in and root out every secret within these walls. Theo sat at supper, silent and preoccupied, while the other guests gossiped about the weather and the prospect of tomorrow’s hunt. Verity, as always, sparkled—her laughter filling the air, her gaze flicking between Theo and Teddy like a chess player calculating the endgame.
When the meal was over, the guests drifted to the drawing room for sherry and games. Teddy vanished, and Theo felt the loss of him as an ache, a deprivation as intimate as thirst. She endured an hour of parlor amusements, her body present but her mind half-gone, distracted by the memory of the night before and the knowledge that he would be waiting for her.
At midnight, she excused herself, pleading a headache. The lie tasted bitter, but it was necessary. She climbed the stairs slowly, feigning fatigue in case any of the servants lingered in the hall. At the landing, she paused, listening, the low humof conversation from below, the rattle of rain at the glass, the steady, seductive beat of her own heart.
She did not hesitate at the door this time. The library was as she remembered it, though now the fire had burned down to a bed of coals and the lamp on the desk glowed with a pale, dreamlike clarity. The air was warm, but the shadows were colder, pooling in the corners and beneath the shelves.
Teddy was waiting, of course. He sat in the high-backed armchair by the hearth, a book in his lap, though his attention was wholly on her. He had changed into a dark dressing gown, and the sight of him—barely formal, entirely at ease—set a new, more dangerous pulse thudding in her throat.
“You came,” he said, a statement more than a question.
Theo closed the door behind her and leaned against it, as if the wood might anchor her. “I couldn’t sleep.”
He stood, crossed to the drinks table, and poured two glasses of brandy. The ritual was slow and deliberate, each movement measured, as though to remind her that in this room, time obeyed a different law.
He handed her a glass, his fingers grazing hers. The touch was thrilling—her nerves flared, skin prickling under the thin shield of her wrapper.
She sipped, the brandy burning its way down. “I’ve been thinking about our situation,” she said, hoping to steady herself with the sound of her own voice.