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A soft keen began deep in her throat. Her heels dug into his thighs. Lancaster’s arms shook, but he managed to hold onto his control until he
r cries swelled into screams. Then he plunged deep and hard into her sex, shuddering as her flesh spasmed around him.
“Ah!” she cried out, her hips bucking up to meet his thrust.
Heaven. Or something better than heaven, something more earthly. A timeless limbo where right and wrong ceased to exist. He had no past, and there was no future; there was only Cynthia and her hot, tight sex around him.
He flexed his fingers and ran his hands down her arms before dragging them back up to grip her wrists tighter than ever. He rode her slowly, trying to hold on, trying to keep them in this place forever.
“Cyn,” he whispered. “I love you.”
When she turned toward him, he caught her mouth in a kiss, and this was a whole other intimacy he wasn’t used to. Kissing during sex. Drinking a woman down as he filled her up. This was sweetness to temper his bitter need.
Sweetness, love, and her arms shaking under his grip…These things shouldn’t go together, but here they were, wound together and spiraling through him like a storm.
The pressure spun tighter and tighter, dragging him under, until he couldn’t breathe.
He desperately wanted to spill himself inside her, fill her up, mark her with his very essence.
But they weren’t married yet. “Not yet,” he murmured. “Not yet.”
“Nick,” Cynthia moaned. And he wanted her to say his name over and over again. His name. The name no one ever called him anymore. He was real with her. He was whole.
“Nick,” she breathed again, and he felt his climax begin to build with sudden, bright pressure.
“Ah, God. Cynthia. Cyn.” Though it nearly broke him to do it, he slid free of her body when he most wanted to push deeper, and spent himself on her belly.
Despite that he’d been in Cynthia’s room countless times already, Lancaster felt more than a little titillated to be standing in her chambers as she slept. He turned a slow circle, not focusing on any one thing. Just taking it in.
The gray dawn had only just begun to sneak past the cracks of the shutters. He felt as if he were underwater, wading through murky depths toward a glowing undersea angel.
Grinning at the newly romantic bent of his thoughts, he walked the last few steps to Cynthia’s bedside. She didn’t look like an angel when she slept, despite everything he’d read about women and the gentle bonds of Morpheus. No, Cyn looked a bit put out, as if she anticipated that he hovered near, about to disturb her rest. Her forehead crinkled, and her lower lip jutted out, tempting him to nibble on it. But he had a feeling he might encounter a fist against his ear if he tried that.
Touchy girl.
Somehow her moodiness relieved a pressure deep inside him. In London he was surrounded by acquaintances who seemed hidden beneath a clear, impenetrable veneer. They treated him either as a harmless amusement or a novelty to be indulged. Even his family…
The moment that his sheen had been stripped away, his parents had withdrawn from him with brutal speed. He’d been left alone to hurt or heal as he saw fit.
But he’d only been fifteen. A child. And that loneliness had nearly devoured him.
Watching Cynthia in the gray light, he dared to run a finger over the roundness of one naked shoulder. She frowned a little harder but didn’t wake.
Holding his breath, Lancaster gave in to temptation. He eased himself down and stretched out next to her, atop the blanket, not quite touching her body. Her eyes flickered beneath her lashes. When they stilled, he slowly released the breath he’d been holding and let his body sink into the feathers.
She looked a bit more angelic up close, her expression blurred a little by proximity. Her skin looked like the finest silk, though he felt clichéd even thinking such a thing. Hell, he was ashamed to admit even to himself that her lips looked like cherries, flushed a deep red in sleep. A strand of hair curved over her cheekbone and cupped her chin.
He didn’t dare brush it away. She might awaken and then he’d have to smile and make a joke and bounce up from the mattress with a jaunty air.
He didn’t want to get up. He’d never slept with a woman before, and wasn’t sure he ever could. If she reached for him in the middle of the night and brushed a hand down his back…Lancaster shuddered at the thought. At the very least, he might wake screaming. Worse, he might lash out.
It had seemed a simple problem to live with. He and his wife would have separate chambers. He knew now that Imogene would’ve welcomed such an arrangement, but he wasn’t sure about Cyn. And now he wasn’t sure about himself either.
This was peaceful. Here, watching the rise and fall of her chest, enjoying the faint jump of her pulse beneath the skin of her throat. His life felt suspended. He was underwater again, floating in a calm pool.
Minutes passed. How many, he couldn’t say. He may have even dozed off for a time. But eventually the gray light brightened to a dull white, and it was time to wake her. They had treasure to find and a future to plan.
After one last deep breath, Lancaster pushed carefully off the bed and tugged his coat back into place. He smoothed his hair down and rubbed the daze from his eyes.
