Twenty-Two

Devonworth barely slept that night, and when he did, his dreams were taken up with Cora. She was present every time he opened his eyes to the dark. He was very nearly consumed by her, and if he didn’t work to put distance between them, he would be lost. There were two reasons that was problematic. The first was that she had made it very clear that they were never meant to have a real marriage. She would leave at some point in the near future. The second was that he had already suffered loss. Sofia had come into his life and he had never been the same.

He had loved her. It had taken him a long time to come to that conclusion, because he had spent a great deal of time hiding from that truth. He had loved her. A part of him still did. She would always hold a piece of his heart even though he had tried to cleanse himself of her. Because of her choosing that man—or his money—over their very obvious and deep affection, he could not—would not—entertain the idea of losing himself so completely again. That part of himself was meant to be closed off forever.

Or at least it had been until Cora had come into his life. She was very nearly perfect for him in every way, surprisingly. Regrettably.

He was drawn to her. Even as he ate his breakfast from the tray in his room and told himself he would walk out that door, have his final meeting of the trip with Fraser, and stop thinking about how it had felt to kiss his wife, he could not stop. He was attuned to every sound and murmur that came from the room next door. He sat at the small table by the window and chewed a sausage as he heard Monroe come into her room. He was drinking coffee when the lady’s maid said something about the cold. He imagined Cora dressing for the day in a finespun wool traveling costume because the morning had dawned more frigid than yesterday. He had finished his breakfast when the door to the corridor opened and closed again as Monroe left.

Perhaps his wife had gone with her. Or perhaps she was next door, mere feet away, and he could go and kiss her. Comfort her and take the pain that his rejection had caused away.

“Bloody fucking hell,” he muttered under his breath, and flung open the door to the armoire. He had told Crawford to come later after he’d enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, but he couldn’t wait anymore to dress. If he didn’t get out of this room, he’d go over to her, and he couldn’t trust himself not to touch her again. He needed to dress and put distance between them.

Her laugh came barreling through the closed door. His skin bristled with the pleasant sound of it. It tinkled on a high note and then ended in a long husk. He resolved to ignore it, but as he reached for his trousers, it came again. Tightening the belt on his robe, he was all the way to their adjoining door before he realized he meant to open it and see her. He was barefoot and wearing drawers, but the robe covered him sufficiently. Still, his hand paused on the handle, aware that opening the door could be a colossal mistake. She laughed again and he pushed the door open.

He saw her perched in the window seat, facing the panes of glass with her knee pushed into the cushions. She wasn’t dressed at all. She wore a modern combination ensemble. A pair of drawers attached to a chemise top. The lacy strap had slipped down over one shoulder. The way her knee pressed into the bench cushion left her somewhat exposed. The slit in the drawers was wide enough and long enough that it revealed the creamy skin of her inner thigh and the bare curve of one cheek.

He took in a long, slow breath at the sight. There was a tightening deep in his groin, and excitement swirled in his belly. She looked over at him . . . glancing over that exposed shoulder, and he imagined her naked, nothing between them as he moved over her.

The momentary pain that flashed in her eyes stopped the daydream from going any further. She was still hurt from his treatment of her the night before. He couldn’t say that he blamed her. But instead of commenting on it, her eyes shuttered and she nodded toward the window.

“The pheasants have escaped. Come look.” Her attention turned back to whatever was happening outside the window, and she gave another soft laugh.

He walked like a man under hypnosis, his steps slow and careful, but drawn relentlessly to the sight of her and not whatever was out that window. Reason be damned. The skin from her shoulders to her ribs was pale and flawless. The delicate bone underneath was barely seen until she pushed the curtain back more and her shoulder blade flexed. The line of her long neck was elegant and, he knew now, scented with lavender. Her waist nipped in only to flare out at the hips. The thin linen clung to them, and he knew that if she turned around, he would see the dark shadow of curls that hid her sex from him, that if he reached a little lower, he could slide his hand against her and nothing would come between his fingers and her slick heat.

“Cora,” he whispered when he reached her. His voice was foreign to his own ears, husky and filled with aching need.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes flared slightly, but she turned away, nodding to the glass. “Look.”

A comedy of errors played out beneath them through the small diamond-shaped panes. The pheasants ran amok as a stable boy, groom, and two kitchen maids attempted to corral them back to their coop, which was far away on the other side of the stable. The birds squawked and flapped their feathers as they protested the indignity. Fraser’s hound didn’t help. He alternately barked at them and ran away as a couple of the braver hens stood up to him.

Objectively, he knew that the scene was amusing. Realistically, he could barely pay attention to it, and was only dimly aware that it was happening. He was too consumed with his wife to care. He leaned over her with good intentions. It was the only way to get a clear look. But the moment he did, he became aware of her smaller body beneath his. Lavender teased his nose, and he had to violently strangle the urge to bury his face in her hair. Her round bottom was only inches away from him, and he wanted to press himself against the softness. His cock went from half awareness to full arousal in the space of a heartbeat as the blood in his body shifted from his head to pulse there, aching for her.

She stilled beneath him. Was she aware of how much he wanted her? The chaos continued outside, but all went quiet between them. He fought for control. This had been a mistake. He should have never crossed the threshold of her room. He wasn’t able to withstand the temptation she unwittingly presented. She hadn’t asked for his attention. He needed to go.

He shifted, to move away from her—he was almost certain—but the softness of her hip touched him. He was so aching and hard for her that a hiss of air escaped him. With Herculean effort, he kept his hips in check when they wanted to grind against her. Instead of doing that, he pushed himself bodily away from her with a hand on the window and the other pressed into the cushion beneath her.

“Leo,” she whispered and wrapped her arm around his, her hand covering his on the window.

He froze, vacillating between answering the voice in his own head that urged him to get the hell out of there and the need in her voice. Her hip brushed into him again, and he realized that she had moved earlier, breaking those sacred few inches that had separated them.

“Cora—”

She didn’t give him a chance to say all the reasons they shouldn’t do this. “Please.”

She pushed back into him and he was lost. Pleasure and need exploded within him. He was so hard for her that he could feel it leaking out of him. He thrust his hips against the softness of her arse, and sparks of sensation exploded along his cock at the delicious friction, so he did it again.

She made a soft sound in the back of her throat, and he imagined it was the noise she would make as he fucked her, as his cock slid into her, stretching her to fit him. Christ, the very thought of that had his hips bucking involuntarily. She gasped at the force of it and he was lost. There was no going back.

She guided the hand that had been on the window to her breast. He shifted his weight to the other hand and cupped her. She was small and soft in his hand. The nipple was a hard bead pressed into his palm. He needed to feel the silk of her skin, so he tugged at the linen. It didn’t give way easily, and he was too far gone for rational thought. He felt ravenous for her. The delicate fabric tore with an obscene ripping sound, and she was suddenly bare to him. He savored the feel of her and buried his face in her neck. He cautioned himself to be gentle even as he bit at her delicate skin.

She gasped and reached behind her, blindly shoving his robe aside as she grasped for his length. Her small hand found him through the linen of his drawers and he trembled. He was so close to release, it would only take a few pumps of his hips and he would be done for. He refused to unman himself with such little provocation and squeezed his eyes closed to fight it. He wasn’t ready for this to be over. Instead of giving in, he released her breast and moved down past her stomach to the patch of curls he knew would be drenched for him. An impatient flick of his hand had the linen parting, and his fingers found her hot and wet.

“Leo!”

She let him go and braced her hands on the cushions, holding herself up for him so that he could play with her unimpeded. She widened her stance and he found her clitoris. She was swollen with need for him. Every flick of his thumb had her hips moving in rhythm, but it wasn’t enough. He needed to feel her around him. He sought out her opening and pressed a finger inside. She was so tight that he was almost certain no one else had ever been there. He didn’t go very deep, just up to the second joint before he withdrew only to press inside her again in a very basic approximation of how he wanted to take her.

“How is that?” he whispered, but it was more of a growl.

“Good,” she said.

“More?” Please want more.

“Yes.” The sound was barely more than a gasp, but it was enough.

He pressed his second finger in slowly, allowing her to adjust to him before he fucked her in a gentle rhythm, curling his fingers toward that enchanting bit of rough inside her. He made sure the base of his thumb pressed into the swollen nub, creating friction against her every time he thrust his fingers.

She was getting close. Her body trembled and she jerked back against him. He couldn’t control himself anymore and started rutting against her. He squeezed his eyes closed and saw stars as he held her imprisoned between his hand and his cock. He was so close. A few more thrusts and he would come in his drawers. It no longer seemed to matter that it would be with all the finesse of a schoolboy. She was gripping his fingers, sighing with pleasure as he brought her ever closer to her release. Nothing mattered but them. Not the chaos outside or the world waiting for them in London or the damned knocking on the door.

Nothing mattered, not even that the door opened and her lady’s maid walked into the room and saw them. He was so drunk on Cora that he could barely see straight. He saw the vague impression of a woman framed in the doorway, her eyes wide with alarm.

“Leave us,” he managed to growl out, and she was gone with a slam of the door.

Cora’s hand gripped his wrist as if she was afraid he might take it away. He couldn’t make her come like this. He needed to see her. Withdrawing his fingers, he gripped her hips to turn her around. She looked like a wanton but also like his Cora, the woman he was coming to care for far more than he should. Her eyes were dilated with need, and the torn linen revealed her breast to him. It sat high on her chest, small but perfect, tipped with a pink nipple. The very second she was seated, he fell on her.

He took her mouth in a deep kiss, his tongue mating with hers in a duel that left them both breathless. Then he went for her breast. He needed to taste her skin and feel the bead of her nipple against his tongue. She cried out as he sucked, her fingers curling in his hair. But even that wasn’t enough. He needed to taste her, the very essence of her. Pushing her thighs wide, he fell to his knees on the floor and buried his face between them. She cried out again and her thighs clenched around his shoulders as he lapped at the salty taste of her. Her hands gripped his hair hard as she pressed him closer. He could barely breathe, but it didn’t matter. He’d die for this. For her taste on his tongue.

The ripples started almost immediately. She threw her head back and cried out into the room as her hips undulated, trying to get closer to his mouth. He growled as she came on his tongue, his need for her bordering on animalistic. He didn’t want to stop even when her trembles eased. He wanted to keep pleasuring her, to spend the day, no, a week at least, learning all the ways her body would respond to him. But they couldn’t do that.

He meant to let her go and walk away to find his own release in his room, but she had other plans. The second he released her, she fell to her knees beside him. Her fingers were greedy in their haste to get to him. She unfastened his drawers and pulled them down to release his cock, which stood upright and fully erect, the head glistening. She met his gaze, and he knew what she meant to do.

“Cora, you don’t—”

He couldn’t get any more words out before she was lapping at him, her tongue both eager and cautious from inexperience. He nearly died at the sight of her soft pink lips closing around the head. He longed to hold her there and watch her take him into her mouth over and over again, but he couldn’t move. He was too shocked and too on the edge of release to do anything. She made another one of those sounds in the back of her throat as she took him deeper into her mouth, and the vibration undid him.

“I’m going to spend.”

It was a warning. A plea. He could no longer control himself, and he gripped his length and pumped. His release came pouring out of him. She startled and looked up at him, but she didn’t move away. He came on her tongue and her lips, painting her with his spend as she licked at him.

His release came harder than he could remember ever coming before in his entire life. His entire body shook with it. He stared down at her and knew that it was too late. He couldn’t save himself from her any more than he could stop the sun from rising.