A Passion for Pleasure(78)

“You’re just in time for tea,” she said, descending the remainder of the stairs. “It’s an unusually warm afternoon out, isn’t it? Is autumn in St. Petersburg quite this lovely, Darius?”

“Often, yes, we too are blessed with a colorful autumn, though I consider St. Petersburg lovely any time of the year.”

“I should like to hear more about it, then.”

Clara didn’t know how much Sebastian had told his brother about the snarled mess of their circumstances, so she kept the conversation centered on Darius as they took tea and cake in the parlor. She quite liked the pragmatic young man, at once so different and yet so similar to Sebastian. His presence made Clara wish she could become acquainted with the rest of the Hall family.

And yet, God willing, that would never happen.

Suppressing pain at the thought, Clara made her excuses and left the brothers alone as she returned to her bedchamber. She occupied herself with useless tasks—repacking her belongings, unsnarling her ribbons from their tangle, considering and then dismissing the idea of writing Sebastian a letter of explanation. The less he knew, the better.

She then took supper in her room, sending down a claim of fatigue that she knew would not prevent Sebastian from coming to her later that night.

And so he did, a fire crackling in his gaze as he entered her room. “You’re not unwell?” he asked.

“Oh, no. I wanted to give you time with your brother. I…I look forward to one day meeting the rest of your family.”

“They’ll feel the same when Darius tells them of our marriage.” Sebastian tugged at the bonds of his cravat, drawing Clara’s eyes to the flex and pull of his long fingers.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would leave this man whom she loved and pray her flight kept him safe.

Blinking away the glitter of tears, she rose and approached him. She eased his hands aside and loosened the knot, allowing the silk to glide through her fingers before pulling it free. Crumpling the silk into her palm, she went to her dressing table where her box of ribbons still sat. She dropped the cravat beside the box and returned to Sebastian. She wound her arms around him, put her hand on the back of his neck, and guided his head down.

His mouth descended on hers, his hands smoothing over her sides to her hips. Their bodies pressed together like the pages of a closed book, tight and sealed. Clara parted her lips, drank in Sebastian’s murmur of pleasure, stroked her tongue over his lower lip. He moved his left hand to her hair, unfastening the pins and dropping them to the floor while he deepened the kiss to the color of emeralds.

Her eyes drifted closed as he pulled the tangles from her hair with gentle strokes, then cupped her face between his palms and kissed her cheeks, her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose. She grasped his arms and urged him to the bed, wanting his weight on top of her one last time before she broke their world apart.

Sebastian spanned her waist with his hands, preventing her from sinking against the coverlet, and turned her back to him. He unfastened the buttons of her dress with the growing dexterity of his left hand, then divested her of her corset and let it fall to the floor.

Clara inhaled, her body softening with the release of her clothes, as Sebastian continued undressing her until the fire-warmed air caressed her naked skin. His hot eyes slipped over her, tracing the contours of her breasts and hips before he gathered her in his arms again and guided her to the bed.

She thrust her hands into his thick hair, gasping as he kissed a path from her lips to her throat and down to the taut peaks of her breasts. Pleasure bolted through her, pooling into the core of her body. He closed his lips around her nipple, and she arched against him, winding her legs around his thighs. Her skin surged with heat. She wanted this forever, wanted him forever.

Rising to her elbows, she watched as he pressed his mouth to the curve of her belly, his whiskers deliciously abrading a path, his tongue swirling into her navel. She closed her fingers around his shoulders, urging him back up the length of her body so that she could unfasten his shirt and ease the linen from his muscular shoulders.

Such a beautiful man. Clara stroked her hands over his arms, down his chest to his trousers.

“Take them off,” she whispered, uncertain if she spoke an order or a plea.

He pushed the trousers to the floor. Arousal coiled into her at the sight of his smooth, hard shaft, the empty place at her core aching. She pressed him onto his back and mapped his body with her hands and mouth, kissing and touching every plane and sinew of his chest. His skin burned beneath her lips, his chest rising and falling with the sound of his breaths. Clara traveled a path that she would be forced to leave behind forever while simultaneously wishing, with desperation, that she could traverse it again and again.