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ELEVEN

Briar

“So what can I do to stop that—to get me out of your system?”

It was a stupid thing to say, and I’d said it—but I didn’t want to take it back.

Wasn’t this what we’d been skirting around for days? Hadn’t this been something top of mind, even if we hadn’t wanted to admit it, since the first moment we’d met? The moment I’d taken Peregrine, the Duke Markham back to my townhouse, my actual home, and allowed him to worship my body?

“No full names, no expectations, no hearts getting involved—definitely not broken.”

I’d had the best of intentions: I hadn’t wanted to get my heart involved, and so I’d put all these rules in place to try and stop Peregrine becoming important to me.

And how well had that gone?

Working for me. Living with me. Kissing me whenever our guards were down, unable to stop ourselves from taking the pleasure we knew we wanted.

Why not just admit it? Why not enjoy each other, rather than pretending we didn’t want this?

I could see in Peregrine’s eyes that he wanted this. Wanted me. Wanted everything I could offer him, and I shivered to think what he could offer me.

Perhaps it was the shiver that rushed through me that pushed him over the edge. I wasn’t quite sure.

All I knew was that all of a sudden, Peregrine had stepped forward, his nose grazing mine as he stared at me intently.

“Are you sure?” he said, his voice low, almost a growl.

I whimpered as his fingers brushed up against mine. His heat, his warmth, it was so visceral I could feel it emanating from his body into mine.

I wanted?—

“Briar,” Peregrine said quietly, slipping his hands away from mine as I attempted to entwine my fingers with his. “I need to know—I need you to say it.”

I swallowed. Admitting to such a thing…it was pretty much as vulnerable as I ever wanted to be. Revealing my helplessness, showing him what I wanted, how I ached for him…

And not just his body. Peregrine may know what to do with that tongue, but not only when he was kissing me. He’d been so open with me, so exposed. I was certain I had seen parts of Peregrine no one else had.

The guilt. The regret. The determination to do better.

What was that, if not affection?

My heart skipped a beat. “Peregrine, I want you.”

“That’s not enough.”

I gasped at the sudden absence of him. Peregrine had taken a step back, his face rueful but determined.

What had I done? Had I just ruined it, this moment I had been sure had been leading to?—

“I want more,” Peregrine breathed, unable to look at me as he took another step back. “Damnit, Briar. More than this, more than making love. And I know you can’t?—”

“Peregrine,” I interrupted, my heart soaring. “Peregrine, I?—”

“And I would never want to put you in that position, where you didn’t feel you could say no,” Peregrine said fiercely, still not looking at me. “I may have made mistakes in the past, but I would never?—”

“I know you wouldn’t,” I said breathlessly, hope soaring. More? He wanted more? “Peregrine, I'm trying to say?—”

“So perhaps it’s just best if we go back to your townhouse and?—”

“Peregrine!” I said forcefully, taking his hand in mine.

It was an electric moment. I’d crossed some sort of line, a barrier, a boundary between us. Now I was holding Peregrine’s hand, something intimate in a way we had never shared before.

I could feel his pulse. It was racing.

“Look at me,” I said quietly, trying to keep my voice level.

Finally Peregrine did, but it was a fierce look, one that was determined not to get hurt.

Determined not to get hurt…

Of course. Wasn’t it easier for Peregrine just to push me away before he got close to me? Before I could hurt him, reject him, tell him he wasn’t enough? Before he could make another mistake, as he so clearly thought he would?

“You want more?” I repeated softly.

My words echoed in the large bedchamber, and Peregrine’s cheeks flushed.

“Yes.” His voice was a growl but it was enough.

I smiled shyly. We were stepping into unknown territories, but that there was only one person I wanted to step into them with.

“Peregrine, I want more,” I breathed, my hand squeezing his. “I want—don’t get me wrong, making love with you is…but I want more. There’s something between us, don’t you think?”

His uncertain grin warmed my chest, pooling heat between my legs. “You do?”

I nodded, conscious of how intimate the words were. Almost like a—“I do.”

And then he was kissing me. Peregrine was kissing me, and it was unlike any other kiss I had ever known.

This didn’t just warm me—it burnt me yet I craved the pain, the agonizing delight of connection. His hands had already reached my buttocks and I leaned into him, feeling the hard bulge of his manhood struggling to break free of his breeches.

But it was more than that. Though raw animal heat pulsed through us, taking and giving in equal measure, there was something deeper.

Something softer.

The way he was kissing me…full of passion, yes, but also full of something else.

Reverence.

It wasn’t the right word, but as pleasure roared through me, I couldn’t think of anything else. Peregrine had a way of making all thought impossible.

“Peregrine,” I breathed as he broke the kiss to look deep into my eyes.

“Briar,” he said, and a wicked grin curled his lips. “Come here.”

I would have followed him anywhere, head dazed with desire, but as it turned out Peregrine didn’t want to take me far. Just to the end of the bed.

Taking my hands in his, he lifted them up, each stretched out to my side. He curled my fingers around the posts at each end of the bed, and with his foot, gently eased mine out.

Now I was standing like a star at the end of the bed, and my heart was racing, and I wanted him but he wasn’t kissing me and I didn’t know why.

What was all this about?

Peregrine grinned, that wickedness still glowing in his eyes. “Now stand there…if you can.”

If you can? Why on earth wouldn’t I be able to?—

“Peregrine!”

I didn’t shout his name, I moaned it. It was impossible to do anything else. Peregrine had dropped to his knees and slipped his head under the hem of my skirt.

It was then that he gave out a whimper much like my own. “Briar, you’re not wearing anything under here!”

I shivered as his warm breath met my thigh. “N-No.”

Not that I had known what today would bring, but…well. I had hoped.

Recently, I was always hoping.

“God, you’re so beautiful, and so warm, and so kind,” Peregrine murmured, trailing kisses from my knee slowly up my thigh, as my legs quivered. “And you taste so good…”

His mouth stopped just by my slit and I found myself leaning down, just to feel his lips against mine, and?—

“No,” Peregrine said firmly, his hands grasping my hips and pushing them up so I was standing once more. “I’ll kiss you there when I want to.”

My voice whimpered. God, I wanted him. The ache between my legs was growing to such a pace, I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to stay here with him so tantalizingly close.

“Though I do rather like the idea of you riding my face,” came Peregrine’s light words as he kissed my other thigh. “Remind me to indulge in that later.”

I moaned, my fingers gripping the wooden posts, wondering how on earth I was going to bear this.

Peregrine’s tongue slowly licked up my thigh until it ran, inch by inch, over my secret place. “God, you taste good, Briar. And you’re wet. Wet for me.”

My back arched but I tried to obey and keep standing, desperate for him to go further, go deeper. I craved him, needed him, needed?—

“Peregrine,” I groaned with relief as his tongue slipped inside me.

Oh God, this was a man who knew what he was doing. Peregrine didn’t hold back now he had entered me; his tongue delved deeper, darting in and out with a slow rhythm that made the ache in me deepen with every movement.

Movement that grew swifter, and swifter. Soon I was shaking, the waves of pleasure sparking through me as his tongue twisted over my nub. Jolts of sensual delight I had never known before were building, building, and eventually my head tilted back and I let out a cry as I came.

Shards of myself were peeling away, I was on fire, yet I wanted to burn like this forever. Everything about me shook and Peregrine held onto my hips, bearing my weight, allowing me to collapse into the pleasure.

Markham

Hell’s bells. If she wasn’t careful, I was coming to come into my breeches without savoring any of the relief I needed.

Any of Briar I needed.

She was magnificent. When was the last time a woman had just let herself go, accepted the worship of my mouth, and just taken all the pleasure she could?

I couldn’t remember. Perhaps no one had. Perhaps what I was sharing with Briar right now was something I had never experienced before—and never would again.

Her taste was still in my mouth and I savored it, licking my lips as I emerged from under her gown.

God, what a view.

From this angle, kneeling at Briar’s feet, I could see her flushed cheeks, her bright eyes, the swell of her breasts, the curve of her waist.

But despite the multiple tantalizing parts of her, it was Briar’s eyes that caught my attention the most.

Trusting. Eager. Honest.

Everything I wasn’t. Everything I wanted to be.

She was so far beyond anything I thought I could ever deserve, yet she gave herself willingly to me. She wanted me, for me—knowing who I was, what I was. Knowing my greatest failures, my biggest mistakes.

And what had she said?

“Markham, I want more. I want—don’t get me wrong, sex with you is…but I want more. There’s something between us, don’t you think?”

“That…that was…”

I grinned. “Just a taste. Just a taste of you, Briar, and it wasn’t enough.”

She shivered, my hands on her hips still keeping her steady.

Damn, it did something to a man to know just his tongue could bring a woman to such ecstasy. To give pleasure like that with no expectation of reward.