Page 82 of The Earl’s Forbidden Temptation

His expression softened in a manner that hurt her heart. “Because you had not chosen to tell me. Your secret belonged to you, not to my curiosity.”

“And now?”

“Now I do not wish to keep pretending I do not know the woman in my arms.”

Darcy stared at him, overwhelmed by the gift hidden within those words. Then she drew his mouth back to hers. Sebastian kissed her fiercely, his hands tightening upon her as he moved her against him, working her onto his cock in a relentless, devastating rhythm that left no room for thought.

The sea lapped around them, cool and salt-tinged, while the heat of his body burned through her. Darcy wrapped her legs higher around his waist and drew him deeper. He groaned into her mouth, both hands now gripping her hips as his feet found firmer purchase among the submerged stones.

He broke the kiss only to drag his mouth down her throat, his breath warm against her damp skin. “You feel like heaven,” he rasped. “Tight, perfect, and mine. All mine, Darcy.”

“Are you mine too?” she whispered.

The question was nearly lost beneath the waves, but he heard it.

His gaze locked upon hers. “Yes,” he said, the answer rough and immediate. “More than I intended to be, though I have no notion what the devil that means.”

A low sound escaped Darcy as he began to move, each thrust made slow and deep by the resistance of the water. The cool tide sharpened every sensation, making her exquisitely conscious of the hard drag of his cock within her and the strength of the hands holding her securely against him. Pleasure coiled through her, intense enough to border upon pain, yet she did not wish him to lessen it.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

Darcy forced her eyes open and found his gaze burning into hers. “I want to see you when you come apart for me.”

His pace quickened, the water striking their bodies with each urgent thrust. The familiar pressure tightened low in her belly, building with every deep stroke of his cock. Darcy dug her fingers into his shoulders, leaving crescent marks upon his skin as she struggled to hold his gaze.

“Please,” she gasped, scarcely knowing whether she begged for more, harder, deeper, or simply everything he was willing to give.

He gave her everything. His mouth found hers and swallowed her cries as release crashed through her. Darcy clenched around him, her inner walls fluttering and pulsing while he drove into her through each hot contraction. The sea rose and fell around them until the world contained nothing but sensation, movement, and the overwhelming force of Sebastian holding her as though he could not bear to let her go.

Darcy surrendered to it.

In that moment, she finally acknowledged what her heart had long resisted. She was no longer falling. She had already landed, and she was irrevocably in love with the Earl of Raine.

CHAPTER 27

Sebastian stood behind the desk in his study, ledgers and documents spread before him, sternly demanding his attention. A delighted laugh floated through the open window and drew a smile from him. He knew without looking that Darcy was upon the lawn with her sisters.

They had returned from Brighton only the day before, their interlude there a memory he hoped would remain with him for the rest of his life.

Darcy had become everything he had never realized was absent from his life. It still baffled him that she had found and occupied some deep, uncharted place within him, a place once shaped by loneliness and filled only with duty. Because of her, he had begun to imagine a life beyond obligation, to wonder what it might mean if she remained not for a few weeks or months, but for years.

His heart thudded at the thought. Even decades seemed insufficient to discover every facet of her or exhaust the happiness he suspected they might share.

He dragged a hand through his hair and forced his attention back to the matter before him: the financial arrangements for his half-sisters. Every detail must be exact and every provision beyond reproach.

The door opened softly. He did not look up at once, though he knew her presence before she spoke. When Sebastian lifted his gaze, Darcy stood upon the threshold, the afternoon light warming her yellow day gown. Its simple elegance made the gentle curves of her figure all the more distracting. Her hair was arranged in a modest chignon, with a few tendrils brushing her cheeks, and his chest tightened with the need to draw her into his arms and kiss her.

“Did you wish to see me?” she asked.

“I did.” His tone remained controlled despite the instinct urging him to cross the room and take her into his arms. “This is a matter of business.”

She inclined her head and moved farther into the room, taking a seat upon the sofa near the hearth, her posture attentive, her gaze steady upon him.

Sebastian drew a steadying breath. “Peabody absconded with a portion of the money my father set aside, but the firm has recovered more than half. I shall restore what remains missing and increase each settlement.”

Her fingers tightened slightly in her lap, though she did not interrupt.

“I have established three trusts,” he continued. “Emelia, Jane, and Sarah will each receive fifteen thousand pounds upon marriage or upon reaching five-and-twenty. Should one of your sisters marry before that age, half of her portion will be settled to her separate use, beyond her husband’s control, with the remainder serving as her dowry.”