Dreaming of You (The Gamblers #2)(83)
Gradually he mastered himself and pressed his lips to her drawn forehead. “Is it better this way?” he murmured, shifting his weight.
Sara quivered, feeling the altered pressure inside her. “I-I don’t know.”
He pushed again, a long, gentle slide. “Or this…?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
She couldn’t answer, her lips parting in suspended silence as he began an easy rhythm. Each surge brought a flick of pain, but a deep instinct clamored for her to arch upward, her inner muscles grasping to hold him inside. His black head dropped to her br**sts, his mouth pulling at her ni**les with gently flirting suction. Lost in a tide of building sensation, Sara felt more slickness emerge between them, until the back-and-forth motion became a smooth, frictionless glide. “Please…you must stop,” she gasped, while her muscles squeezed around him. “I can’t bear any more.”
The emerald eyes glittered with triumph. “Yes, you can.” He plunged deeper into her struggling body, his thrusts relentlessly regular. With a gasping whimper, she went still beneath him while a great wave of pleasure rolled through her, unmatched by anything she’d ever felt before. He wrapped his arms around her, im-pelling himself more strongly, prolonging the exquisite spasms. When she was finally satiated, he took his own fulfillment, his body shaking with violent release.
They remained locked together for a long time, relaxing amid the rumpled sheets. Derek reclined on his side and kept her against him, his lips drifting over her forehead and the silken edge of her hairline. Sara smiled in drowsy wonder, breathing in the perfume of the crushed petals and the scent of his skin.
“Was it what you expected?” He traced a gentle pattern on her hips.
She blushed and pressed her face against his chest. “No. It was much better.”
“For me too. It was different from—” Derek stopped himself, hesitant to speak of his past experiences.
“From all your other women,” she finished for him dryly. “Tell me how it was different.”
Derek shook his head. “You’re the one with the fancy words. I can’t explain it.”
“Try,” she insisted, tugging threateningly at his wiry chest curls. “In your own words.”
He covered her plucking fingers with his own, pressing her hand flat. “It was just better, all the way through. Especially this part.” He cuddled her closer. “I’ve never felt so peaceful afterward.”
“And happy?” she asked hopefully.
“I don’t know how ‘happy’ feels.” He sought her mouth for a brief, hard kiss, and his voice turned to rough velvet. “But I know I want to stay inside you forever.”
As evening approached, Sara closed herself in the seclusion of the tiled and furnished bathing room. She was nonplussed at the arrival of a housemaid who insisted on making the preparations for the bath: warming towels, drawing and testing the water, setting out a tray of soaps and perfume. Although Sara had heard it was common for aristocratic ladies to require help with their baths, she felt it was unnecessary in her case.
“Thank you, that will be enough,” she said with a disconcerted smile as she stepped into the warm water. But the maid waited while she bathed, and held up a heated towel when she emerged. Another towel was employed to pat her back and arms dry. It seemed terribly decadent, allowing someone to do what she was perfectly able to do for herself, but there seemed to be no choice. Sara sniffed curiously at the proffered flacons of perfume, detecting rose, jasmine, hyacinth, and violet, but she declined to use any of them. The maid helped her into a large robe of heavy textured silk. Murmuring thanks for the assistance, Sara was finally able to dismiss the maid. She rolled up the long sleeves of the robe and wandered back to Derek’s bedroom, the hem of the garment dragging on the floor behind her.
Clad in a similar robe, Derek was standing in front of the fireplace. He poked at a blazing log with a fire iron. As he glanced at her with a half-smile, the golden-red light played over his black hair and swarthy face. “How do you feel?”
“A little hungry,” she replied, and then added self-consciously, “very hungry.”
Derek approached her, taking her shoulders in his large hands. Smiling, he brushed a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I can do something about that.” He turned her to face a table laden with trays and silver-domed platters. “Monsieur Labarge outdid himself for your sake.”
“How wonderful, but…” Color climbed high in her cheeks. “I suppose everyone must know what we’re doing.”
“Everyone,” he agreed. “I think you’ll have to marry me, Miss Fielding.”
“To save your reputation?”
Derek grinned, bending to kiss the flash of pale throat revealed by the robe. “Someone has to make a respectable man of me.” He led her to the table and seated her. “We’ll have to serve ourselves. I dismissed the stewards.”
“Oh, good,” Sara said in relief. Draping an embroidered napkin on her lap, she reached for a platter of tiny molded pates and puddings. “I think it would be tiresome, having servants hover around all the time.”
Derek ladled out a broth flavored with vegetables, wine, and truffles. “You’ll get used to it.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then we’ll let some of them go.”
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