Her words broke off with a yelp as he scooped her up beneath her back and knees and laid her on the bed. “I’m reminding you who I am, whoweare.” He tucked a pillow under her neck, then crawled over her so his forearms were braced beside her head, his torso lifted above her panting chest. “I am your husband, and you are my wife.”
Her lips parted, short gasps escaping in puffs against his neck. “Philip…”
“No, not that.” He lowered himself until he kneeled between her spread thighs.Christ, but she was beautiful like this, pink and swollen, wet and waiting for him. “My husband, that’s what you’ll say.” Her breath stuttered as he pressed his thumb to the hood of her clitoris, exposing her center of pleasure to his view. “Because the first one was for you. This one is for me.”
He licked a long, slow swipe over her flesh, stopping at his thumb to run the tip of his tongue over her swollen nub. She moaned and pressed her fist to her mouth.
As though she could hide her reaction from him. As though he’d allow her to hide from him at all.
“Look at me, Lily.” He barely recognized the feral rasp in his voice, and his wife snapped her gaze to his. Sliding one finger inside her, he pumped slowly, methodically. “I need you to see who is making you feel like this. Your husband.”
Her internal muscles jerked around his finger, and her lips curled into a scowl. “Stop saying that,” she said, but her words were breathy, desperate.
“What? Your husband?” He added a second finger alongside the first, pumped twice as he sucked her clitoris, then withdrew his mouth and hand. “I am your husband, and nothing will change that.”
“I could divorce you.”
He chuckled darkly as he slid his fingers inside her channel once more with measured, maddening thrusts. “You could. If that’swhat you want, I won’t fight you.” He lowered his mouth to her swollen lower lips, his breath ghosting over the sensitive skin. “But you won’t.”
She whined, arching her hips and chasing the friction, and he rewarded her with a series of slow, deliberate caresses from his tongue, far too gentle to bring her to release. But she kept her eyes locked with his over the swell of her breasts above her stays. “Why won’t I?”
“Because no one else will ever make you feel like this.” He began pumping his fingers again, setting a steady rhythm, and was rewarded with a rush of her arousal on his hand, his lips. “I will never let a day go by without making you feel this way.”
He lowered his mouth once more, his tongue flicking and caressing, until her nub pulsed under his touch. “Fuck, Lily,” he groaned against her slick flesh. “I missed so many things about you, but the taste of this cunt…” He licked the space between his fingers, pressed his tongue deeper where she was fluttering around him. “I couldn’t have dreamed of this ambrosia.”
Her breathy exhales had changed to panting, soft grunts as she finally released the bedsheets and dug her hands into his hair, tangling and pulling at his locks, leaving no space between them. He latched his lips onto her clitoris, sucking as though she were his life source, the key to his survival. Familiar sparks and pressure shot down his spine, his cock harder than he ever remembered it being. He stopped fighting, let himself grind against the mattress, the taste of his wife and the friction thrilling and overwhelming, soclose to what he needed and a painful reminder of what he’d left all those years ago.
Her thighs trembled around his ears, and she stiffened, her internal muscles clenching on his fingers, pulling him deeper like her body never intended to free him. Her broken cry reached his muffled ears as her release soaked his hand, his chin, and the sparks racing down his spine became too powerful to ignore. Hecame, spending in his trousers with a guttural moan against her most private flesh, his climax so intense his stomach muscles clenched and cramped. But he didn’t relent, continued his caresses until the last waves of her pleasure ceased, until her knees fell flat onto the bed.
When he’d lapped every drop of her essence, he rose onto his knees. This is what their marriage should have been, and now he could have it again. She must believe his intentions after what they’d just done. His wife panted, her eyes glazed with the power of her climax, and deep satisfaction washed over him. “See? You don’t hate me as much as you say.”
The pleasure-drunk haze in her eyes evaporated like the morning mist, replaced with the fire he’d thought he’d banished. “How dare you—”
Three heavy knocks sounded on the chamber door. “My lord, my lady,” came a footman’s call, the man no doubt scandalized but what he’d just heard. “Your guests have arrived.”
Philip growled an oath as his head dropped, and Lily took advantage of his distraction, flipping to her side and scrambling off the bed.
He was on his feet in an instant, the dampness in his trousers making their shared release seem tawdry instead of the mind-altering event it had been. “Lily, stop. I shouldn’t have said that. We need to talk.”
But she was already at the armoire, tugging on riding breeches beneath her chemise. Her drawers lay in two separate pieces beside the bed alongside her skirt and stockings, discarded and forgotten along with their passion. She pulled the breeches over her backside and buttoned them. “There’s nothing to talk about. This changes nothing.”
He was on her in an instant, stepping between her and the armoire, and he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth before cupping the nape of her neck. “I have your cum in my beard, love. I believe it means a lot.”
Her cheeks darkened, but she turned away, retrieving a heavy jacket and buttoning over her stays with shaking fingers. The hem of her chemise hung awkwardly around her waist. “I need to see to the horses.”
“They’re fine, but we’re not.”
She spun to face him, eyes blazing as she pointed an accusing finger at the bed, as though it had wronged her. “That won’t change the past eight years, Philip. Making me come won’t fix what you did.”
His stomach pitched sideways, sorrow pouring in and expanding the cracks around his heart. “I know. That wasn’t why I did that.”
Her fingers tangled in her hair, separating it into uneven thirds and plaiting it quickly. “I can’t trust what you say. I can’t depend on anything from you.”
He wanted to scream, to throw up his hands and beg her to reconsider, but he was in a mess of his own creation. “Please believe me—”
Another heavy knock on the door. “Lady Whitby, her ladyship is asking for you.”
Lily released a sigh, her nostrils flaring, then she stormed to the door, casting him a glare over her shoulder. “This changesnothing, Whit.” His already off-kilter gut dropped like a stone at the name, the distance it signified. “Some broken things can never be fixed.”
