“I need you,” she keened, and his heart twisted, lurched that finite distance to become hers entirely.
He thrust his digits, first one, then two, into her tight channel, moaned as the slick flesh tightened around him. His thumb thrummed against her clitoris, unrelenting as he pushed her towards climax. When she detonated, her screams echoed in the atrium, bouncing off the glass like shards of light, scattering until they became as brilliant as the stars breaking through the storm clouds above.
Still panting, Violet shifted to standing, the white of her silk stockings and pale skin stark against the night behind her. Her fingers fumbled for a moment with the tapes of her drawers before they too fell, joining the dress at her feet.
A growl burst from his chest as she stepped forward, slowly, as though she knew precisely how much control he required to keep from grabbing her and never letting go. “Mo leannan,” he groaned as she stopped, just out of reach, and reached out to push the hair off his forehead. “Mo rionnan.”
Her brow raised. “What does that mean?”
“My lover.” His knees spread as she came closer, stood between his knees. “My star.”
Christ, she was beautiful, a wanton vision, sensuality and grace. Perfection. “Your star,” she said, her voice full of wonder.
“Ye’re not just a star.” He hooked his finger around her pinky and tugged her forward, guiding her until she straddled his thighs once more. “Ye’re my sun, the center of my galaxy, the gravity that pulls me back.Mo chridhe,ye’re my peace.”
Shudders ran through her as he rocked his hips up to meet hers, his cock begging for more, more friction, more of the wet heat of her arousal. She reached her fingers between them, fumbled with the buttons of his trousers, and his hand joined hers until his erection was freed.
He moaned at the feel of her palm around him and bucked twice into her grip. “Christ,rionnan,can I take you?”
She nodded, then paused. “Do you have protection?”
His cheeks warmed as he reached into his jacket pocket and removed the tin of condoms. “Practical, aye?”
“Hopeful, perhaps,” she jabbed, but her eyes were dancing, a smile playing at her lips as she helped him put the shield over his cock.
He clenched his jaw, held himself as still as possible as he fought to keep himself under control, but what he felt for her was too strong, arousal and affection swirling together in a potent tonic that intoxicated him, made him lose his senses.
As soon as he was sheathed, she brought his fingers to her mouth, bringing one digit at a time between her lips before leading his saliva-slicked hand to where they would join. “Tell me what to call you,” she whispered, lowering herself until the head of his cock pressed at her entrance.
Stars danced in his vision. “Wh-what do ye mean?”
She slid further, the tight grip of her channel threatening to undo him. “In Gaelic. Teach me—”
“Mo chridhe,” he bit out as her body accepted all of him, surrounded him, consumed him. “My heart.”
A whimper slipped past her lips as she repeated the phrase, her pure Oxonian accent mangling the vowels and softening the consonants. But nothing had ever sounded better to his ears, to his soul. They rocked together, moving as one until they were rutting, feral and desperate, his hands clamped on her hips, her palms clawing at the shoulders of his jacket, skimming the bare flesh of his neck with her fingernails.
Her body seized with a ragged cry, her eyes blank and unseeing before her head fell forward onto his chest. His climax was beyond his control and surged after hers, tremors rattling down his spine and shaking off the fear, the uncertainty, leaving behind only truth, solid and unshakeable.
He loved her. And he was certain she loved him in return.
He waited until they’d reluctantly separated and he’d disposed of the condom, until started working on the buttons that held the back of her gown together, a slow task considering he couldn’t stop kissing the bare skin of her back to speak. “Come with me to Panama.”
Her spine straightened as tension injected itself into her muscles. “I beg your pardon?”
A shiver of trepidation hooked itself into his gut. “The ship departs in four weeks,and—”
She turned to face him, holding the loose bodice to her chest. Her brow had furrowed, her lips gone tight. “Callum, I can’t be so far from my family.”
“Yer family?” He bristled, his protective instincts rearing up to surround her from anything that could cause her harm. “After what they’ve done to ye?”
Her expression fell. “I won’t leave them—”
They both jolted as the door to the atrium swung open, followed by a chorus of voices. “Thank goodness, the storm cleared up,” he heard Valebrook call. “We should be able to see through—”
Bile climbed up Callum’s throat as his eyes met the earl’s, and the people crowding the doorway blurred. Violet gasped as he pushed her behind him, blocked her from the wide-eyed, hungry stares. Bridget stood beside her husband with two older women and a middle-aged man with thinning hair Callum didn’t recognize.
Valebrook advanced on Callum, his nostrils flaring. “What in the blazes have you done, Hawthorne?”
