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He was hard everywhere, and so powerfully muscled. This wasn’t the body of a gentleman. But she’d seen that from the first: the sheer physicality, the size and power, the carnality barely camouflaged by the elegant outer display ... the beautiful animal lurking under the civilized trappings.
She felt his mouth leave hers, and she could have wept for the loss, but then his lips traced the line of her jaw and trailed over her neck. Then he was kissing her neck, her shoulders. Then his tongue slid over her collarbone, and she moaned, and her head fell back. And he licked her, like a great cat, the panther she’d envisioned, his tongue moving over her skin. Every fiber of her being seemed stretched taut. Her body became a mass of electric sensation, like the air before a great storm. Hot pleasure rippled through her, and settled in the pit of her belly, and sent heat coursing outward again. Then she was trembling for release. His great cock throbbed against her aching belly and her body pulsed with wanting.
She’d wanted to make it last and last and last but her control was slipping. She lifted herself up, and clasped him and guided him in. She made it slow, achingly slow. He made a sound like a laugh and a groan combined. She lifted herself and came down, taking in his full length this time.
“By God,” he growled. “By God.”
Slow, again, up and down, torturing them both, pleasuring them both. His fingers dug into her hips. “Marcelline, for God’s sake.”
But she kept on. She’d never get enough but she’d get as much as she could. But as she rose, a mad joy rose, too. It was as strong as a physical blow, knocking her control away, and she cried out, “Mon dieu!”
She heard his voice, so low. No words. Growls and gasps and a sound like choked laughter. He grasped her bottom, but he let her set the pace. She tried to slow it again, to make it last and last. But need overrode everything. Her blood drummed in her veins and it was a summons, primitive, primal, and it drove her. She was an animal, too, running hard toward the ending, the something she was meant to find.
She couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow, couldn’t hold back. She rode him, her body rising and falling, his hips against her knees, his body lifting to meet hers. He held her, his fingers digging into her hips, as she rose and fell, and he was laughing—a raw, hoarse laughter, and she laughed, too, hoarse and breathless. And whether it was the laughter or the madness that pushed her to the brink, she didn’t know. She knew only fiery exhilaration as her body clenched and shuddered. A wave of happiness carried her up, and up, and up, until there was nowhere left to go. Then it flung her down, like a flimsy craft in a stormy sea, into a great, drowning darkness.
She lay, spent, on top of him. He lay, shaken, holding her.
It’s all right. This is goodbye.
He knew it had to be goodbye. He’d pushed his world’s tolerance to its limit and beyond. He’d pushed Clara’s indulgence and understanding far beyond what he ought. He’d been thoughtless and selfish and unkind to the one who’d always loved and understood him.
He’d been in the devil’s own hurry to get rid of Noirot and her family because it had to be done. Even he, who disregarded rules, knew that.
He’d known in his heart that this day had to be goodbye. Giving her a shop and a home were the sop he offered his conscience and his anxieties. They’d be safe. They’d survive. They’d thrive. Without him.
And he knew that in time he’d forget her.
But for this night, I love you.
He couldn’t think about that. He wouldn’t think about it.
Love wasn’t part of the game.
It wasn’t in the cards.
And this game was played out. It was time, long past time, they were gone from here.
Yet his hand slid down her back, and he thought nothing in the world was as velvety soft as her skin. Her hair tickled his chin, and he bent his head a little, to feel the soft curls against his face, and to breathe her in.
But for this night, I love you.
She’d said it and he’d heard in blank shock. His mind had stopped and his tongue, too. He’d sat, like an idiot, dumbstruck. At the same moment, he’d believed and refused to believe. He’d felt an instant’s shattering grief before he smothered it. He’d told himself he was a fool. He’d argued with himself. He knew what was right and what was wrong. He mustn’t stay, no matter what she said. He knew what was going to happen, and he couldn’t let it happen again. That would be selfish and thoughtless and unkind and dishonorable.
He’d argued with himself, but there she was, and he wanted her.
And he was weak.
Perhaps not as weak and dissolute as his father, but bad enough.
And so, of course, he lost the battle, that feeble battle with Honor and Kindness and Respect and all the other noble qualities Warford had tried to drum into him.
He could have simply got up from the bed—where he ought not to have sat in the first place ...
Oh, never mind could and should and ought to.
He’d faced a test of character and he’d failed.
He’d stayed.
