These hours she would hold close, the memories to be relived when doubts surfaced and the need to be loved overtook common sense.
Her mother had loved and it had ruined her life. Marlowe certainly wasn’t going to make that mistake. She was mistress of her fate.
And for tonight she was Langdon’s mistress.
She almost chuckled at the absurdity of her musings, but he was straining against his trousers where her hand had come to rest, his breaths easing in and out in shuddering pants. She didn’t know if she’d ever possessed this much power. Oh, certainly, there were swells in London who fell at her feet, who promised her the world if she would leave Hollie to become their mistress.
No one promised what she wanted most: to be loved and respected, to escape her past, to embrace a life that the little girl inside her still innocently believed was possible to possess.
This man had come the closest. Removing her drenched clothing and not gawking sleazily at what was revealed, touching only with permission. Preparing her eggs, bringing her fish, sitting beside her and sewing her balloon. Talking with her about things that didn’t involve sex. Looking at her as though he would devour her and make her glad he had.
Pressing her hand more firmly against him, she reached around and squeezed his backside. His eyes closed as he groaned low. “The buttons. You’ll like squeezing it with no cloth in the way.”
She did laugh then, taking care to open her mouth only a bit, just enough for the sound toescape. She didn’t want to delay the cut’s healing. Because shewouldget that kiss he’d promised, one way or another.
Her fingers were trembling when she released the first button from its mooring. The next and the next. As the material parted, he sprung free. It was her breath suddenly shuddering. She moved slightly so the lamp could cast its glow over him. She’d long had an appreciation for the male form. His didn’t disappoint.
He rid himself of his trousers before drawing her up against his body, his mouth just a whisper over hers as it skimmed down to her breast, his tongue circling her nipple, eager yet gentle, then lapping at her skin before his mouth closed over the sensitive flesh. She wove her fingers through his hair and held his head, keeping him there until she’d had her fill of the sensations.
Languorously, his mouth open, leaving a trail of dew in its wake, he moved to the other breast and gave it the same intense attention. He was masterful, licking, nipping, sucking. All the little sounds she couldn’t hold back seemed only to spur him on to lingering and continuing the assault. She cursed her mouth for the injury that would prevent her from teasing him in the same way.
With one hand still on his head, she slid her other one down his ribs, counting as she went, along his flat stomach before wrapping her fingers around heated velvet-covered steel. He groaned low and deep, the sound reverberating through her.
She would not compare him with Hollie, and yet already she knew she would be experiencingsomething she hadn’t before. He was so much more passionate, so much more attuned to her needs.
And then it was as though he’d been dark clouds on the horizon, warning of what was to come, holding himself in check, giving her time to prepare—
Because suddenly it was as if the tempest was upon them, and they were caught in a storm of desire that would leave nothing as it had been.
He swept her into his arms, carried her to the bed, lowered her to the mattress, and followed her down.
“I don’t think there is so much as an inch of you that isn’t beautiful,” he said on a rasp, his hands trailing the length of her, down to her toes and back up. “But you know that already.”
“Still, a woman likes to hear it.”
“But you are more than your beauty, Marlowe.”
He straightened until he was able to hold her gaze with such intensity that it was almost frightening to behold, his palm cupping her jaw. No one had ever looked at her as if his soul was striving to meld with hers, as if where they touched was only wrapping, while the true gift inside was waiting to be revealed. “You intrigue me. Your strength, your daring. Your confidence. I can’t imagine you doing much cowering when you realized you’d be overtaken by a storm. I suspect it was the storm cringing when it realized it had you within its grasp.”
She laughed lightly but was also deeply touched, and no doubt blushing because of the sort of praise that had never before been heaped on her. She wasn’t accustomed to men looking below thesurface, and yet it seemed he was an expert at exploring more deeply than most. “I’m not that formidable, I’m afraid.”
“You kept your wits about you, well enough to know your clothing was a liability. You did what had to be done, regardless of propriety. I know women who would have swooned at the first stirring of their hair by the wind. Men as well, to be honest.”
And then he became the storm.
Langdon was accustomed to bedding gorgeous women. Like most men, he had an appreciation for beauty, and he couldn’t deny that Marlowe reigned supreme when it came to physical perfection. He suspected most men, being what men were, looked no further than the blue of her eyes, the small nose, the rounded chin, the sharp cheekbones, and the long golden eyelashes. They might not recognize that what made the surface so remarkable was everything within her, like hot springs, where what was hidden bubbled up to make them valuable.
He couldn’t be sure that even Hollingsworth realized what he had.
And she brought all her confidence and daring to the bed, matching the intensity of his passion and desire. No passivity with her, and yet he’d known there wouldn’t be.
She was fire, molten and scalding, with the most wicked hands that knew where to touch, how to touch, in order to make him beg. “Yes, more, you’re driving me mad.”
He imagined that if her mouth was healed andadded to her arsenal that he might not have the strength to survive the onslaught of pleasure.
It mattered not where she stroked. Every part of him jumped as though struck by lightning. She left behind sizzling nerve endings. That she was aware of her power over him, relished it, served to enhance the prelude to their eventual joining.
Her skin was silk, gliding over his as positions changed. Rolling to their sides, his back, her straddling him, rubbing her sultry, lavalike core along the length of him, flagrantly teasing the tip of his cock with an introduction to what awaited him between those sweet lips he’d kissed the night before. He knotted his hands into the sheets with the pleasure that engulfed him with so shallow a touch.
