Page 28 of The Secret Love of a Gentleman (The Marlow Family Secrets #3)
Caro knew she had begged outrageously. She was behaving so badly she did not know herself, acting as though she had no pride. But she had longed to feel like this for many years.
His dark eyes shone.
The lightning flashed outside; it was a while before the rumble of thunder followed.
She saw in his eyes the moment he made the decision to give in, the hunger and desire in his expression as his fingers slid out of her, leaving her so close to the little death and yet unfulfilled.
His fingers ran along her inner thigh until they reached her stocking top, leaving a trail of her moisture.
He held the edges of the narrow bed beside her shoulders, leaned down and kissed her, his tongue slipping into her mouth then withdrawing. Then his lips brushed over hers as he hovered above her. He kissed the edge of her lips, her cheek and then her neck. ‘You are beautiful,’ he said.
He had no need to say it. His touch and his eyes said it over and over again. Rob’s physical expression spoke of utter adoration .
She pressed the heels of her boots into the bed, raising her hips and encouraging him to progress. She refused to feel ashamed. This was a physical moment of escape to ecstasy they would both enjoy. She licked her dry lips.
He bit her shoulder, gently.
Her body arched as physical, sexual, longing spiralled through her.
‘What will happen when I visit here next?’ She had no idea but she would cherish this moment and recall it each time she saw this endearing man.
‘Please, come into me,’ she begged out loud.
Rob’s mind was a dense fog of emotions and his blood heavy in his arteries and veins, as his need thickened like the air before the lightning storm.
He appreciated everything, every salty taste of her skin, the moist silk between her thighs, the sounds of her whimpers of pleasure, and her scent. It was not only lust that urged him on – respect, admiration and love, perhaps, they all merged into one desire.
But love was a foolish thing to feel; this could be nothing more than today.
‘ You will have affairs before you settle. So why not do this now with me? ’ He never thought about setting up an intrigue with a woman. That, this too, was immoral. A long-term affair might damage his political aims, yet he trusted Caro; no one would know about this but them.
The muscles in her thighs shivered, as she reached between their bodies and touched herself, gathering moisture on a fingertip that she brushed on to the tip of his erection .
She smiled her seduction.
Lust made him insane. He looked down and watched as he entered her body. His first invasion was shallow, then he withdrew and pressed a little deeper, learning. Her thighs lifted to embrace the sides of his.
The air between them was as humid as it had been before the storm.
If I do something wrong, will she think me gauche?
His heartbeat throbbed in his head and his groin as he savoured the feeling of being inside her.
He would never be able to ride through John’s park without thinking of this.
‘Caro, I will apologise now.’ But saying that was not enough, this was not a kiss. ‘There will be no going back, if you regret, will you forgive me?’
‘I will not regret and you have my forgiveness now.’
Ah, damn. He was no better than his brother and his cousins at heart.
He pressed into her as deeply as he could. It was a swift, glorious glide, his sensitive tip absorbed in her heat.
He withdrew then thrust back into her repeatedly, moving rhythmically, the muscles in his thighs and buttocks working. Her hands reached to his lower back and her fingers splayed. It was like baptism, like being ducked beneath the water.
A slight sound escaped her throat when he struck her body heavily. The sound was not pain but pleasure. He did the same again, heavier still. There was another sound, and her body arched beneath him, her pelvis pressing up against him.
That was how he learned what to do as he moved, by listening to the sounds she made and the reactions of her body.
In the last weeks he taught her how to break her glass jail – now he was her pupil .
Her fingertips pressed into his skin, urging him to move more vigorously. He did, sinking into her quicker than before, with heavy strokes that rocked her body.
Her breaths stirred the hairs over his chest every time he pushed in.
She bit her lower lip, her eyes closing, in an expression that implied she was holding something back.
He lowered his head and gently nipped her lower lip with his teeth.
She laughed, and her eyes opened. ‘Faster,’ she urged as her boot heels bumped against the back of his thighs, where his trousers and underwear were bunched up.
This was a little ridiculous for his first time, he with his garments pushed down and riding boots on, she with her chemise open at the neck and pushed up to her stomach, with stockings and short boots on her legs. They would make good models for one of Thomas Rowlandson’s sketches.
He moved more swiftly.
‘Ah.’ The sounds from her lips became sharper. ‘Oh.’
The sensations were blissful. Beautiful. Her whole body seemed to claw at him to move faster and deeper; the pressure of her boot heels on his thighs, and her fingernails in his lower back, and her lower body that pushed up against his thrusts.
He looked down and watched as he repeatedly buried himself in her body.
Sensations quickened in him, gripping firm in the pit of his stomach. His breath came in the same pattern of shallow pants as hers. Sweat, now, not dampness from the rain, glistened on their skin.
‘Ah!’ Caro cried out, and she felt different inside, warmer, slicker. Then her inner muscles pulled at him rhythmically. It was as though her body urged him for something more …
A long breath dragged into his lungs as heat clenched in his groin, catching a hold of him, squeezing hard and pulling his muscles taught.
Damn it! He spilled his soul inside her, shut his eyes and held on as sensations spun through his blood and tangled every nerve.
It was as though the high wave of a tide swelled within his limbs.
Hell , he cursed.
But it was not hell it was heaven – although hell would probably be where he would go for doing this.
He breathed heavily and his arms shook as he tried not to collapse on top of her like a fool.
Her fingers stroked his fringe away from his brow. The hair fell back down.
He withdrew and lay on her. Her hands stroked his back and shoulders. He should have withdrawn earlier, before he spilled his seed, to prevent a child.
He lay still, trying to make sense of what they had done; navigating the feelings and sensations pulping his brain, and the emotions tying tight knots in his chest.
Perhaps this was love?
Caro lay still, pinned beneath Rob’s weight – spent and exhilarated, listening to his breaths become slower, while she caressed his skin. She was honoured to have won the attention of such a beautiful, genteel, young man.
He had helped her learn so much more about herself.
For years, she held the physical love she enjoyed with Albert on a pedestal and looked up to it as the most perfect part of her life, because in their bed he was always her lover and not the man who hurt her.
Those treasured moments made her feel as though she lost something when she left him and they became the reference that put her current life under a shadow.
Now, Rob had shown her what it truly was to be appreciated in a physical sense, cutting through the dark thoughts in her mind like a ray of sunshine, illuminating how those misjudged memories controlled her.
The emotions in Rob’s eyes were deep with respect.
She had told him she cared for him – he cared for her too, she saw it and felt it.
Albert had only ever cared for her body, his eyes had only ever held a short-lived look of lust. Rob’s eyes continued to glow with emotions beyond lust.
I love you. She wanted to say it.
It was a fact, merely that. Her emotions could have no expression beyond this moment. She had not asked for promises; she did not intend to. She could not say the words, I love you. This was a single moment they had claimed and she would hold it to her heart for the rest of her life.