Winnifred tipped back her head and squinted wryly at the dark sky overhead. “You were right. We will never spend a dry day together.”
Asher laughed and took her hand, escaping to the shelter of the arch. Shrugging out of his coat, he settled it over her shoulders, the residual warmth inside the wool chasing out an involuntary shiver.
“Come here,” he said, tugging her closer by his lapels and back into his embrace.
Even in the shadows, his body was achingly familiar, every sculpted line imprinted on her brain. His scent permeated the space around her, his skin, his shaving soap, his heat. It all made her knees quiver like a pair of isinglass jellies carried on a platter.
He shored her securely against him, his lips brushing away the tiny droplets of rain that clung to her lashes and skin, trailing down until her waiting lips were under the searing pressure of his.
She loved the way he kissed. He told her a story in those deep, tender pulls, the almost frantic growls that revealed how much he was holding back. It was the story of how they met and how they’d fallen in love with a certainty that was frightening. And how this unexpected love would link them forever, no matter if they were worlds apart.
With the rain falling around them, hitting wet leaves with the rhythm of a clock wound too tightly, too fast, she whimpered into his mouth. Time was speeding out of their control. Her aunt could send a footman to check the gate at any minute. Morning would come. He would leave.
She clung to him like the last petal on a flower. “I don’t want this day to end.”
He held her closer still, his hands gripping, roving down her back and over her hips in a near-desperate caress. He pulled her against him, aligning their bodies. And through the thin layers of her clothes, she could feel his hard length and her reflexive tilt to cradle him. Hear his breath hitch.
A sense of expectation filled her at the sound. She knew what it was like to be held by him, to have his body poised above hers. She wanted that again, his weight, his warmth, those deep, otherworldly kisses. She wanted his hands on her.
Reading her thoughts, his caress shifted course, moving up along the curve of her hip, the cage of her ribs, and then—ah—he cupped her breasts. Her nipples hardened instantly, her flesh drawing tight beneath the coaxing heat of his hand, her hips cambering with welcome, with need. He flexed, surrounding her, then grazed his thumb over the tip, drawing out a needy mewl from her throat that lifted off into the vines above them.
He did it again, a tender pinch through the damp muslin. She closed her eyes on the sweet ache that roused a heavy pulse, low in her body. And she pressed her legs together to keep it right there, nestled to his insistent thickness. But Asher had other ideas.
He lifted her in his arms and took her to the narrow bench, draping her legs over one side of his lap. She twisted to find his mouth as his hands teased down her body—waist, hips, knees and lower. Then he encircled her ankle and she squirmed, restless, searching for something to ease that throbbing ache.
Devouring her impatient, needy whimpers with his probing kiss, his hand slipped beneath her hem to follow the line of her borrowed stockings, up to those black garter ribbons, and higher, skimming over the bare flesh of her thigh. He groaned. “So soft on the outside. So strong beneath.”
“And you like that, yes?” she asked on a sigh as his lips skimmed down her neck, laving the rain from her skin with the heat of his tongue.
He murmured against the swells of her breasts, just above the edge of her bodice as his hand roamed higher, over her hip and under to cup her bottom, kneading her flesh. “My mind is filled with wicked thoughts, Winn. These thighs, your stamina, bareback rides at dawn . . . for hours.”
She had a sense that he wasn’t talking about horseback riding when she felt a tremor course through him, quivering into her. A picture formed in her mind, but it dissolved away when she felt his hand coast over her hip again to her inner thigh, chasing tingles all the way to that throbbing pulse. She knew he was going to touch her. She wanted him to. But that didn’t stop her shy gasp at the first tender cupping over her sex.
“Shh . . . let me touch you,” he whispered against her lips and she acquiesced with a nod, seeking the pressure of his mouth, the taste of him.
He gave it to her, his tongue entering her mouth as his fingers skimmed through tawny curls, finding the seam of her sex, where she felt swollen and tender and wet. He growled, a deep, possessive sound that told her he liked this, too. And that she was his.
Her body agreed, hips slanting toward the heat of his hand, needing pressure against the insistent throb of her pulse. There were no maidenly fears that made her cautious, that wanted to demur. “Please.”
“So impatient. So stubborn.” He grinned against her mouth, chiding her with a nip. Yet even with this tender reprimand, he gave in to her demands, nudging closer, coasting over the furled flesh. “So wet.”
She bucked against the slide of his finger and she turned her head, seeking his lips, taking his tongue inside her mouth as his finger centered in tight swirls, chasing the pulse. Then he entered her. A slow glide of his finger into the damp heat. A choked, desperate sound tore from his throat and he rocked against the curve of her hip.
Winnifred felt the hardness of him, the heat through his breeches. She wanted to touch him, take his flesh in her grasp while his finger plunged with sure, authoritative strokes, his palm pressing against that pulse.
She groped between them blindly as her body clenched around him, her kisses frantic.
Then he turned her at once. Now she was straddling him, hem riding high. One of his hands lifted to her nape, fusing their mouths, and the other tore at the fall front fastenings beneath her fumbling fingers. And then she felt the heat of him.
The thick, heavy jut of flesh was in her untutored, though eager, grip with him guiding her motions. Up and down. Down and up to the slick droplet resting on the full mushroomed tip like a bead of dew. Fascinated, she ran her thumb over the slickness and his breath fractured on her downward stroke.
His hands moved to her hips, to her breasts, and he tugged at her bodice, revealing her to the night, to the rain that now seemed to fall warmly on her skin. She arched back on a gasp as he took her nipples simultaneously, one in a slow roll between his thumb and forefinger and the other in his mouth, suckling and swirling.
The throbbing of her sex demanded attention, urging her to roll her hips against the broad shaft. She found the answer to ease this ache. All she had to do was this—yes, like that—and grind against him. Her body drew taut all over, like a corset about to erupt.
Asher lifted her and her hands flew to his shoulders for purchase. He pressed his cheek against hers, his breath hot in her ear. “Winn, put your feet on the ground. I want you in control. I don’t want to hurt you. Damn. I’m bloody shaking again.”
When she did, she felt the hard, insistent head poised at the entrance of her sex, his voice crooning, “Slowly now. Yes. Let me inside.”
Now she felt a nudge, the stretch, the heat, the burn of her flesh as she sank inch by inch, encouraged by the helpless, guttural sounds he made, the almost desperate grip on her hips.
“So bloody tight, Winn.” He arched his neck on a hiss, jaw clenched as he lifted her again. And on a low oath, he drove her down onto him, his hips thrusting up into the wet constriction, impaling her.
She cried out from the swift invasion, the terrible fullness, the unbearable grip of her flesh pulsing around his. And she was ready to thrash him, but it was Asher who admonished her instead. Resting his damp forehead against hers, eyes screwed shut as if in pain, he let out a series of staggered, panting breaths, and told her that she felt too good and it wasn’t fair that he was so close already.
Close to what?
But he kissed her again before she could ask, his lips easing over hers in a tender caress. He was speaking to her again without words, his monologue promising love and patience. And after a moment, when she sighed and melted against him, his tongue delved into her mouth and promised rapture to her body as he began languid rotations of his hips beneath her, slick and slow.
The ache faded, but the clenching remained. Only now she welcomed the sensation, the grip, the slide. The friction brought back her throbbing pulse, more potent than before. Deep and insistent. Her body yielded to his, her hips seeking to match his gentle rocking canter.
The frenzy quickly came over her again as she clung to him, her nails biting through his shirtsleeves to his shoulders, the pebbled peaks of her breasts brushing against his waistcoat. She wanted this to go on forever. Tingles spread out beneath her skin like an unexpected storm brewing inside her.
She tugged his lip into her mouth, raking it with her teeth, and his rhythm broke on a hungry growl, his thrust driving deeper, a bump that made her gasp on a sweet lightning bolt of sensation.
He grinned against her lips on a hmm, then angled her hips to nudge that spot again and again, sending fierce jolts of pleasure through her. They seemed to build into one massive thundercloud. Then her breath came out on a keening cry, her fingers rending the seams of his shirt. The storm broke on an endless rain shower of warm, cascading tremors.
She hunched against him, quaking, head bowed, scalp tight, toes curling in her slippers. And then he jerked inside her and lifted her suddenly.
Taking her hand, he guided her to grip the slick heat of him, his flesh surging beneath her palm as he pumped and shuddered, silken ribbons pulsing from his body in arcs toward the grass.
He fell back onto the bench on a final, spent breath, tugging her down to drape across him. He pressed a kiss to her head, his hands roving over her back, her arms, her sides, as they listened to the birdsong fall around them.
* * *
Asher and Winn entered the house through the back doors, holding hands and laughing at how they never spent a dry day together. When they passed the dining room, it was dark, the dishes cleared away. Even so, Myrtle Humphries was not too far, the shuffle and punctuated step of her cane echoing in the corridor.
At their approach, the sound paused and she turned her keen gaze on their wrinkled and rain-speckled clothes.
“You were right about the gate,” Winn said with a nervous laugh and a shrug.
Her aunt pinioned him in place with a knowing arch of her brows. “I trust every matter has been settled, Lord Holt?”
Absolutely and irrevocably, he thought, pressing Winn’s hand closer against his palm. He’d decided with the first touch of her lips that he could never endure months, or even years, apart from her. And though he didn’t yet know how he’d manage it, he was going to take her with him on that ship and marry her.
When he inclined his head, Myrtle nodded and turned again to walk away. But she called over her shoulder, “And I was right about the rain, too.”