Page 162 of The Ladies Least Likely

That ever since she’d told him about her lovers, he’d tortured himself to orgasm with the image that it was he, not them, penetrating that beautiful body and driving her to climax.

He couldn’t tell her that he’d failed with the courtesans and the prostitutes and everyone else he’d tried to pay because the flesh and blood woman wincing at his feeble prods or frowning as he came too soon wasn’t Harriette.

She was the only woman who could rouse him.

The shame of his failures reared up, the fear that he would fail to please her when she was at last here before him in the flesh, every glorious, perfect inch of her, grinning at him as she shifted on her knees and took his straining cock in her hand.

He groaned and bit his lip, but he didn’t wilt.

He didn’t falter. He stayed long and hard in her hand, and he groaned again as she swept her thumb over the tip of his cock and the bead of moisture there.

He sucked in air as she closed her fingers around his length and brought him to her slit, dipping the head of him into her quim, then rubbing him around her mound, spreading the moisture.

His breath grew short, but his body didn’t fail him.

Harriette watched his face intensely, her eyes dark, her lips parted, and her small gasps fed his ache, his need to bury himself fully inside her.

His cock swelled and strained toward that promised end, pushing inside as she brought him back to her slit, nudging slowly, slowly, as she grew wet and stretched around him, her body welcoming his.

She stared steadily into his eyes as he worked inside her, inch by exquisite inch, and the fire caught the flush on her skin and the gleam in her eyes, until they fluttered closed when he sheathed himself to the limit.

She was warm, tight, and wet, and he was home .

He was inside of Harriette Smythe, where he’d always wanted to be. The wonder of this stunned him for a moment, even as his cock pulsed in a rampant demand for more, more.

He opened his eyes and found her staring at him, her eyes wide, her mouth curved into a wicked smile. “So far, this isn’t disappointing in the least,” she purred.

“Rhette,” he rasped. “Have your way with me.”

She threw back her head in that laugh that he’d fallen in love with eleven years ago, the moment he met her. No wonder he’d been no good for any other woman. He’d been lost to this woman for half his life and there never would be, never could be anyone else.

The knowledge soared through him as he surged inside her, claiming her in the most elemental way, in the primal dance of pleasure. She met his thrust carefully, as if learning his body, seeking the rhythm they would share together.

“Slow?” she questioned. “Hard? Like this?” She rocked back and forth, as if on a wooden horse. “Or this?” She leaned forward and moved straight up and down, as if posting.

The pleasure nearly lifted off the top of his head. He grabbed her hips, smiling into her laughing face, awash in wonder, drowning in need. “All of it,” he said. “Right now.”

“Greedy Renwick.” She placed a hand on his chest and found her rhythm, riding him gently. He feared he would explode too early and yet at the same time he was eager to savor this with her, to sustain the ecstasy of being inside her, to drive her to the peak of pleasure, too. “Greedy, greedy earl.”

“I’m swiving the squire out of you,” he growled, thrusting his hips up to meet her as she moved.

“I’m erasing him. That horse’s ass.” For certain there must be something wrong with him that he wanted to bring her former lovers into this moment, but the jealousy made his pleasure brighter, made him hard and fierce.

“He’s gone,” she breathed. Her head fell back as her breathing quickened. “No squire.”

“And the military man, whoever he was,” Ren whispered. He held her hips and ground deep, filling her. “Tommy Atkins, that limp noodle.”

“He never felt like this,” she gasped. Her breasts rose and fell, taunting him. “Oh, Ren.”

“And the bloody margrave,” he said. His own greed alarmed him.

He wanted no other man in her head, in her memory, no imprint on her body but his alone.

“I’m fucking him—out—too.” He thrust on every syllable, and she cried out.

She melted against him, her breath coming like sobs, and he dug his fingers into her hips and lifted his to drive into her.

“No one but me, Rhette,” he said through gritted teeth.

He was reaching for his orgasm, felt it close, but he wanted one more thrust—then one more—whatever it would take to drive her over the brink into madness, into oblivion.

She twisted and thrashed and he kept reaching, as far as he could go, holding her so he rubbed against that place she was pressing against him.

“You,” she cried. “You—Ren—oh— Oh! ”

With the last cry he knew he had her and he arched his back to drive deep, and at the shudder and clench of her tight heat about him he let go at last and let his climax consume him.

They pulsed together, joined flesh, flung together at the edge of being, and then she lowered to press herself against his chest, skin to skin, and he rubbed his hands over her lovely, sweaty back as they began the long, slow, floating drift back to earth.

A long, long time later, when at last she stopped pulsing around him and their heartbeats had settled to beating in rhythm, Harriette extracted herself and stretched out at his side. She propped herself on one elbow to study his face.

“You led me to believe there would be difficulties,” she accused him.

He smiled, satisfied at his performance, at knowing he had satisfied her. “Ap-pp-parently not with you.”

Harriette didn’t make him uncomfortable or self-conscious. She didn’t make him intensely aware of his deficiencies. She didn’t care about his deficiencies. She made him feel whole, complete. She looked at him with admiration. She treated him with love.

And he loved her. He loved her, he trusted her, and he knew she cared for him. That, it seemed, made all the difference, at least for him.

“Who knew you were the jealous type?” She drifted her hand over his chest, tracing the fine hairs. “Been sulking about my misspent past, have you?”

“No more than you grudging me my courtesans.” He hugged her to him with one arm and kissed her forehead. “It’s never been like that for me, Rhette. They weren’t you.”

“It’s never been like that for me, either,” she said. “In fact, I didn’t know I could—well.” She skated her finger along his ribs one by one.

A possessive thrill went through him. “You’ve never had le petite morte ?”

“Not with anyone else,” she said. “And it’s not the same when I do it myself. Not nearly as—everything.”

He knew what she meant. The pleasure he gave himself was functional and felt meager, somehow, compared to the full, rich, resonating climax he’d just had. Because of her. Because he was with Harriette.

She shifted, making a face. “Not nearly as—sticky, either.”

He laughed. Laughter in bed, shared laughter, joyful laughter, instead of one partner making fun of the failures of the other. He’d not thought he could ever have this sweetness.

“Shall we clean ourselves up?”

She smiled impishly. “I believe I left some rose water in the kitchen. Do you fancy more wine?”

He wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “I fancy keeping you here always. In this bed. Never letting you go.”

She stilled, the laugher leaving her. Her dark eyes lost the gleam of joy the firelight had just reflected. “Don’t, Ren. You know we can’t.”

“We could,” he said stubbornly. “Stay hidden away. Never emerge.”

She slid out of the bed, leaving it cold and empty. She swiped her shift from the floor and pulled it over her head.

“Our excuse tonight is my mother’s funeral, and there were riots.

” She turned to face him. He tried to focus on her face, not the distracting shape of her revealed by the candlelight.

“At least, that is what I shall tell myself for losing my head and throwing propriety to the winds. But neither of us can hide, Ren. I have promises to keep you, and you have?—”

“Nothing,” he said roughly. He sat up in the bed, making no attempt to hide himself. She’d seen everything. She might as well see his naked heart. “I’ll have nothing when you leave, Rhette. There w-won’t be anyone else. Not for me.”

“You can’t say that,” she said, her voice anguished.

“You have to marry. For the estate, for the title, so you have an heir—so there is someone to care for your sister if you…” She lifted a hand to her face, shielding her eyes.

“We both have people depending on us,” she went on, forcing her voice to be steady.

“You matter to me more than any of them, Rhette,” he said. “I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear it. But it’s true.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, turning away and searching for slippers. “And it can’t be true.”

“You can’t make something so just by wishing,” he called after her, but she was already out of the room, a whisper of fabric, the soft pad of feet on the wooden floor.

The room felt cold, the light bereft of warmth, the candles dancing without heat. So his life would be, empty and lifeless, when Harriette left him.

If he could, he’d wish for a way they could be together forever. But of course they couldn’t.