Page 119 of The Heir

“I see. You are otherwise occupied.”

“I will be. I think you will enjoy my mother’s hospitality, and my sisters will love you.”

“Morgan adores them,” Anna said, her smile brittle. “Mourning has left them in want of company, and Morgan is lonely, as well.”

“And you, Anna.” The earl’s hand went still. “Will you be lonely?”

She met his eyes in the mirror above the vanity, and he saw hunger there. A hunger to match his own.

“I am lonely now, Westhaven.” She rose and turned. “I am desperately lonely,for you.” She pressed her lips to his, the first they’d kissed in weeks, and though his arms came around her briefly, he was the first one to step back.

“Anna, we will regret it.”

“I will regret it if we don’t,” she replied, her expression unreadable. “I understand, Westhaven, I must leave tomorrow, and in a way it will be a relief, but…”

“But?” He kept his expression neutral, but his breathing was accelerated from just that brief meeting of lips. And what did she mean, leaving him would be arelief?

“But we have this night to bring each other pleasure one last time,” she said miserably. “What difference can it make how we spend it?”

He had been asking himself that same question for days and giving himself answers having to do with honor and respect and even love, but those answers wouldn’t address the pure pain he saw in Anna’s eyes.

“I do not want to take advantage of you,” he said. “Not again, Anna.”

“Then let me take advantage of you,” Anna pleaded softly. “Please, Westhaven. I won’t ask again.”

She desired him, Westhaven told himself. That much had always been real between them, and she was asking him to indulge his most sincere wish. That it was his most sincere wish didn’t mean he should deny her, didn’t mean he should assume, with ducal arrogance, he knew better than she what she needed.

“Come.” He tugged her by the hand to stand by the bed and slowly undressed her, taking particular care she not have to move her right shoulder and arm. When she was on the bed, resting on her back, he got out of his own clothes and locked the door before joining her.

“We will be careful, Anna.” He crouched over her naked, his erection grazing her belly. “You are injured, and I cannot go about this oblivious to that fact.”

“We will be careful,” she agreed. Her left hand cradled his jaw and then slid around to his nape to draw him down to her. “We will be very careful.”

He remained above her, his weight on his forearms, even as he joined his mouth to hers and then his body to hers.

“Westhaven.” Anna undulated up against him. “Please, not slow, not this time.”

“Not slow, but careful.”

“Not that either, for God’s sake.”

He laced his fingers through hers where they rested on her pillow and raised himself up just enough to hold her gaze.

“Careful,” he reiterated. “Deliberate.” He slowly hilted himself in her and withdrew. “Measured.” Another thrust. “Steady.” Another. “But hot,” he whispered, “Hard… deep…”

“Oh, God,Gayle…” Her body spasmed around his cock, clutching at him just as hot, hard, and deep as he’d promised her. She buried her face against his shoulder to mute her keening groans of pleasure, and still he drove her on, one careful thrust at a time.

“I am undone,” she pronounced, brushing his hair back from his brow. “I am utterly, absolutely undone.”

“I am not.” The earl smiled down at her, a conqueror’s possessive smile. “But how is your shoulder?”

“You can even think to ask? My shoulder is fine, I believe, but as I am floating a small distance above this bed, I will have to let you know when I am reunited with it.”

“You are pleased?” he asked, lacing his fingers with hers. “This is what you wanted?”

“This is what I needed,” she said softly as he began to move in her againcarefully. “This is what I sorely, sorely needed.”

“Anna… When you leave tomorrow…?”