Page 74 of The Lady is Trouble

He jerked the settee as his hips rose from the carpet, her papers a snowy spill around them. “Stop, love, I—”

But Piper being Piper, she followed her own course, her wicked mouth and coming-into-experience fingers driving him to the brink. He wassoclose. His hand rose to sink in her hair and guide her when she needed no guide. His skin felt like it was being stripped from him and reattached. How to finish, he wondered while his body turned against him.

This, he decided, and pulled her atop him. They tangled as she struggled and swore, rolling them over. She laughed as he yanked her shift high and slipped inside her with gentle splendor that stole both their breaths.

“Yes,” she whispered against his nape.

He wanted to be tender, take it slow, make it last, but the feel of her mouth wrapped around him had left a fiery imprint that was only going to allow for modest sensation before pleasure overwhelmed him. Already, he was lightheaded and gasping for oxygen. All body, little mind.

He shifted his hips, and she moaned, curving into him. “That? Okay.”Good. She liked it. So, he did it again.

“There.” Her words were an urgent caress. “Rightthere.”

He complied, plunging as determinedly as he dared. In response, she ground against him, having learned,oh, God, what drove them both mad.

She whimpered, and he urged: “Come with me, Yank. I may not be…able to wait…for you.”

He gazed at her as she tossed her head, struggling to find her release. She was the most sensual vision he’d ever seen; her beauty astounded.

Her breath ripped from her, her cheeks flooding with color. “I can’t—”

Reaching between their pumping bodies, he found the sensitive bud of her sex. “You can.” One gentle manipulation, barely a touch really, and she shattered. Her cry reverberated as she clenched around him, ending any hope he had to prolong their pleasure. With a final, deep stroke, he ripped free and came in a wild gush in his hand.

Collapsing beside her, he groped for his shirt. With his vision graying at the edges and not enough air entering his lungs, he cleaned his hand, then turned to find her turning toward him, a rueful smile curving her lips. “You’re going to kill me with this pace. I fell asleep during a meeting with Humphrey today,” he said, drawing her to his side, where she fit like a piece of his puzzle. “Scrupulous opponent, Piper Scott is not.”

“Every chance I get,” she mumbled, gliding into slumber. Her lids drifted, lashes a dark sweep across her skin. His hand flexed around her hip, bringing her closer, the movement utterly possessive, conveying in action what he could not in word.

“I love your hair”—she twisted a strand around her finger, sending a blind rush through him—“most of all. So unruly when you’re not.”

Then she slipped into sleep.

Perhaps she was right. Perhaps hehadbeen closed to her, fighting what they felt for each other. But they’d been so damn young, with so many impossible circumstances stacked against them. He could be persuaded by her clever hands, her winning smile, to refute his reservations and pitch his promise to the earl to hell.

But his gift had the power to destroy.

And not in the way of a broken love affair.

Even after all these years, he didn’t understand his ability well enough to determine his level of risk, much lesshers. If something happened when she sought to heal him, he would lose his mind.

He buried his face in her hair and drew a breath of what smelled like sunshine.

To let their relationship continue in this manner denied the man he was, the man who, in the end, did therightthing. It was too late to find the middle ground. Already, her touch was unbounded confusion. Ridiculous, but it seemed a personal strike against his honor that he needed her to light the dark corners inside him. Another man, one without a curse to bear, could have her in one way but not the other. Leave a part of her for herself.

To stay was life and death.

To leave was only the death of his heart.

As Piper sighed and snuggled into him, Julian felt the salty sting of tears and questioned how he thought to leave her when he’d begun to like the man he was when he was with her.

Like him as never before.

But, someday, and someday soon, hemust.

When she’d made Harbingdon feel like home.

Because Piper Scott washis.

As he’d known the moment he stepped from the earl’s carriage to find a locket on the ground and fallen in love the second he touched it.