Page 16 of My Lord Rogue (Wicked Widows’ League #34)

He did not reply. He let his lips answer for him, moving down her throat, along her collarbone, lower.

She threw her head back, baring her throat to him like an offering.

He steadied her, at last, with both hands—one at the small of her back, the other cradling the side of her face.

Her skin was fever-hot under the silk, damp with the exertion of want.

For a heartbeat, Josiah allowed himself to simply look at the wild tumble of her hair, at the bruise his mouth had left at her clavicle, at the expression in her eyes—half-wild, half-terrified, utterly alive.

He should have claimed her then and there, torn the wrapper from her body and taken her against the shelves like an animal. It would have been easy, almost inevitable. But there was something ceremonial about the moment, a sacredness he dared not violate with haste.

He stepped back, breath ragged, and let his hands fall to his waistcoat. His movements were slow, almost theatrical. He shrugged out of the waistcoat, letting it drop to the carpet, before yanking his shirt over his head.

He caught her watching, lips parted, chest heaving beneath the thin wrapper. The fire cast her in shifting gold and shadow, an idol on the verge of revelation. He wanted her to see him, to know him as something more than the baron, more than the mask he wore for the world.

When he wore only his trousers, he paused. “Your turn,” he said, voice so hoarse it was barely a voice at all.

She did not flinch. Her hands went to the knot at her waist, untying it with the ease of habit. The wrapper parted, silk slipping away from her shoulders, then lower, exposing the pale slopes of her breasts, the pink tips gone dark and tight with cold or hunger or both.

She let it fall to the desk, pooling around her hips. Beneath, she wore nothing—no chemise, no stays, only the bare, curvaceous body he had been dying to see.

She sat before him, chin high, daring him to look and not to flinch.

He looked.

Every part of her was beautiful, and none of it the way he had imagined. Her hips were rounder, her belly soft. Her thighs, strong from years on horseback, were open, begging for his touch.

She was trembling, but her eyes were steady on his face.

Josiah could not breathe. He had been with dozens of women, in half the countries of Europe, and yet this moment felt more perilous than any duel, any seduction, any act of war. He wanted to go slow, to savor, but he was so hard he ached.

He reached for her, but did not touch.

“Theodosia,” he said, and her name was a prayer.

She leaned into him, arms wrapping around his neck, the heat of her bare skin sending a jolt up his spine. He buried his face in her shoulder, inhaled the wild, animal scent of her, and let his hands wander, reverent, up her back, down her sides, across the generous curve of her arse.

She pressed into him, desperate, and he could feel the slickness at the inside of her thigh, proof of her want. He shuddered.

“God, you’re perfect,” he said, and meant it.

She laughed, low and vicious. “You’re a liar, but I like the way you lie.”

He slid his hands down, gripping her thighs, lifting her until her legs locked around his waist. She was heavier than he expected, and he relished the effort, the way her nails dug into his shoulder as he staggered them both toward the fire.

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 eyes were 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.