AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He kissed her and she could taste him, and her heart beat stronger, igniting the volcanic smoulder inside her. Her blood transformed into a lava heat, seeming to flow from her body through his body and returning to her.
His legs melded with hers, and his whole body surrounded her. The shaving spice on his skin mixed with the barest hint of wood smoke and she didn’t know what kept her from actually igniting.
He twisted to his side, pulling her almost from the bed and into his complete grasp. The pillow slid to one side of the floor and the coverings to the other. The bed had no room for anything but them. His every movement against her increased the deepness of her breathing, and sent her higher into a cloud of pleasure. Molten.
Fingers explored her, claiming each curve of her body, and the feeling of his hand rolled over her so that even the places he did not reach responded as if he had caressed them.
He touched her softness, her wetness, and she erupted into spasms, lost to everything.
* * *
Rhys sat with his shoulders against the bed frame, looking at Bellona. Her hair wreathed around her—more appealing than any he’d ever seen graced with a tiara. He tapped her chin when she closed her eyes and let his knuckles rest at her arm when she looked up at him—sated, he hoped.
Twining his fingers through her hair, he lifted it and let the locks slide free. The second time, he brought them to his face, the delicate ends caressing his cheek. Savouring every strand.
And then something clattered outside the door, hitting the wood.
He knifed his body around, jerking the counterpane from the floor to toss the covering over her, and when he did his elbow hit the washstand, jarring it, skittering the mirror over, and the glass clattered to the floor. The fabric slid in place, partly, just as the door opened.
But it wasn’t the aged housekeeper’s head, the one with discreet quiet acceptance in her demeanour, who peeked around the door, but one of the underservants holding a wooden pail. Peering in with a question in her eyes.
Her expression changing, her eyes opened wide and her mouth fell into what appeared to be a near scream, but came out as a strangled gasp.
No, of course it could not be the housekeeper, a woman known for her silence.
He closed his lips and watched as the thoughts behind the girl’s eyes embedded the scene before her into her mind for ever.
‘Leave,’ Rhys commanded.
The girl nodded, gave a gasped ‘yes’ with the uptake of her head and then she snapped shut the door.
He swore, words he’d never said in front of any female before, and the moment they fell from his lips, he knew as Bellona’s head turned to him. He saw a different look in her eyes and he much preferred the servant’s shocked gaze to the black one befitting a coiled snake about to strike.
He blinked to gather his thoughts because his next words were so very important, but before he could speak them, she pulled ever so slightly from his side.
Her eyes. He’d never seen a darker stare.
Chapter Sixteen
Her hands clenched. Trapped. But she would not be snared. She had lain with him, knowing he would go to London and she had not once asked him to stay. She had wished him well. She had been in his bed and then he swore when they were discovered.
He was not the one who would be destroyed by their actions becoming common knowledge and he well knew it. She was. But he swore. Because now he must do the right thing and offer for her hand. She’d seen how a man could be a treacherous husband and father when he did not wish to be wed. Her father had followed the dictates of his body and had then been angered because he blamed her mother for his lust.
‘So, Your Grace, this is a first for you as well.’ Soft words.
‘In a sense.’ Controlled, he said, ‘I will instruct her that she is not to speak of this.’
‘You may instruct her,’ Bellona said calmly, ‘but you know how the talk will travel. By the time we have dressed it will already be flying around the estate.’
‘We will marry.’
‘I would not wed you if you were the last duke on earth.’ She reached for the pins at the bedside and in one quick twist she’d secured her hair and pinned it almost in place. She pulled the covers around her and moved from the bed. ‘I can do better.’
‘The Prince is taken.’
‘I am not talking of rank, as you very well know. You trapped me like a hare.’
‘No. I do not have to do something like that to get a wife and you know it. I can wed any one of a score of women. A fortnight of courtship and a proposal and I would be married.’
The words buzzed in her head so loud she could hardly think to form her own thoughts. They were true, but for him to speak them, unforgivable.
