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And how to ride them home, again and again.
He had taught her, and this seemed a celebration of that, of them. Her gaze locked to his. The way she rode him with all that artless determination made everything in him tighten as she rocked them closer and closer still.
Too good. Too right.
Too perfect to bear.
And then he could take it no more.
Crete tumbled her down to that soft rug beneath them, rolling her beneath him and placing his hands on either side of her head so he could change that rhythm. He went deeper, harder.
Her heels dug into the backs of his thighs as she met each thrust and everything then was fire.
That glorious fire, the delirious pounding, and when Timoney threw back her head to scream out her pleasure, he covered it with his own.
And only when she stopped shaking did he let go, thrusting jerkily within her until, finally, he surged over the edge at last—her name like a song inside him.
A song he took the time to sing to himself, for some time, while they both fought to find breath again.
It seemed to him a lifetime later when he could finally move. He took his time, rolling over again so that she was no longer beneath him, but instead splayed out across his chest.
And for another long while, another lifetime at least, she rested there, that soft weight Crete had not allowed himself to admit he missed.
More than missed.
“I’m glad we could settle this,” he said. Eventually. And it was more than an olive branch. It felt...revealing. “We should head back to London now. We can send for your things in a day or so, when whatever commotion there might be tomorrow has died down.”
And it was only when she did not make a happy, joyful sound, or nuzzle her face into the crook of his neck, that something cold moved through him.
“Timoney.” His voice hardly sounded like his. “Everything is settled, is it not?”
She pulled away from him and sat up, smoothing her dress down as she went. Then she took a moment to push the masses of her silvery blond hair back.
And when her eyes found his again, they were steady.
Too steady.
It was as if the floor fell out from beneath him when he was lying there upon it.
“Things were not unsettled,” she said, as if she was choosing her words carefully. Very carefully, and yet her blue gaze did not waver. “On the contrary, they have felt very settled indeed for some time. Two months, I might even say.”
Crete did up his trousers and then jackknifed up. He resented that he had revealed himself at all, while she was apparently more than capable ofsteady gazesand bizarre statements. So bizarre, he assured himself, that it was no wonder they put his back up. “I do not understand you. Not a word you’re saying.”
Because she could not possibly mean what he thought she did. It was not possible, surely.
“You should return to London, Crete, but I will not be coming with you,” she said softly. But directly. “I will be staying here. As I have told you all along, I’m getting married tomorrow.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He could hardly get the words out, his jaw was so tight, and it seemed likely that it—that he—might shatter at any moment. “You have been rolling around on the floor with another man.With me, Timoney.”
“And it is very likely that my husband-to-be might even now be availing himself of the woman he intended to roll around on the floor with in here.” She lifted a shoulder, then dropped it, her gaze still offensively, outrageously calm on his. “It appears that I have found myself in a very open kind of arrangement.”
“Have you been hit in the head?” he gritted out.
Her gaze cooled. “I have not.”
“Because that is the only possible explanation,” he continued, despite her reply. “For one thing, you cannot possibly imagine that the likes of Julian Browning-Case, so horrified at my parentage, would ever think that what’s good for the gander is good for the goose, or whatever horrifying English phrase might fit.”
“Whether it is or isn’t, it is certainly no concern of yours.”
