Secrets of a Summer Night (Wallflowers #1)(82)

“You have three minutes,” came his soft murmur in her ear.

Somewhere in the midst of her agitation, Annabelle felt a shameful throb of sensation between her thighs, her body keenly attuned to the smoky promise in his voice. Pressing her legs together tightly, she waited with forced composure for her turn, even as her heart pounded in frantic drives. The players conversed lazily, fanning themselves and sending a waiter for another pitcher of iced lemonade. At last it was Annabelle’s turn, and she threw out her highest face card and drew another. Relief stabbed through her as she saw that her new card was worthless, and she cast down her hand. “I’m afraid I’m out,” she said, making an effort to keep from sounding breathless. “What a lovely game it was—thank you, I must go—”

“Do stay for the next round,” one of the ladies urged, and the others added their own entreaties.

“Yes, do!”

“At least have a glass of wine while we finish this hand—”

“Thank you, but—” Annabelle stood and gasped slightly as she felt the gentle pressure of Simon’s hand on her back. Her ni**les tightened inside her gown. “I’m simply exhausted from all the dancing last night,” she improvised. “I must have some rest before we attend the theater this evening.”

Followed by a chorus of farewells, and a few knowing glances, Annabelle attempted a dignified exit from the salon. As soon as they reached the winding staircase that led to the upper floors, Annabelle heaved a sigh of relief, and cast her husband a reproving glance. “If you were trying to embarrass me, you succeeded quite—what are you doing?” Her gown had become loose across her shoulders, and she realized with a little shock of amazement that he had unfastened some of her buttons. “Simon,” she hissed, “don’t you dare! No, stop that!” She hurried away from him, but he kept pace with her easily.

“You have one minute left.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said shortly. “We can’t possibly reach the suite in less than a minute, and you wouldn’t—” She broke off with a squeak as she felt him pluck at another button, and turned to swat at his marauding hands. Her gaze caught his, and she realized incredulously that he had every intention of carrying out his threat. “Simon, no.”

“Yes.” His eyes were filled with tigerish playfulness, and the look on his face was one that she had become entirely familiar with by now.

Hiking up her skirts, Annabelle turned to rush up the stairs, her breath coming in pants of panicked laughter. “You’re impossible! Leave me alone. You’re—oh, if anyone sees us like this, I’ll never forgive you!”

Simon followed without apparent hurry—but then, he didn’t have masses of skirts and binding underclothes to hamper him. She reached the top landing and rounded the corner, her knees aching as her legs pumped in a desperate ascent, stair after stair. Her skirts felt weighted, and her lungs were close to bursting. Oh, damn him for doing this to her—and damn herself for the airless giggles that kept slipping from her throat.

“Thirty seconds,” she heard behind her, and she wheezed as she arrived at the top of the second flight. Three long hallways before she reached their suite— and not nearly enough time. Clutching at the sagging front of her dress, she looked up and down the hallways that extended from the landing. She rushed toward the first door she could find, which opened into a small, unlit closet. The scent of starched linen billowed outward, and shelves of neatly stacked bed linens and toweling were just visible in the light from the hallway.

“Keep going,” Simon murmured, crowding her into the closet and closing the door.

Annabelle was immediately engulfed in darkness. Laughter swelled in her chest, and she shoved ineffectually at the hands that reached for her. It seemed that her husband had suddenly developed more arms than an octopus, unfastening her clothes and peeling them away much faster than she could move to defend herself. “What if you’ve locked us in here?” she asked, as her dress dropped to the floor.

“I’ll break the door down,” he replied, tugging at the tapes of her drawers. “Afterward.”

“If one of the maids finds us, we’ll be thrown out of the hotel.”

“Believe me, the maids have seen far worse than this.” Her dress was crushed beneath Simon’s feet as he shoved Annabelle’s drawers to her ankles.

She made a few more halfhearted protests, until Simon reached between her thighs and discovered the evidence of her arousal, after which further remonstrations seemed rather pointless. Her mouth opened to his kiss, eagerly returning the rough, stroking pressure of his lips. The plush entrance of her body stretched easily to take him, and a whimper slipped from her throat as she felt his fingers there, spreading her so that every rolling thrust of his h*ps gently abraded the sensitive peak of her sex.

They struggled to press closer, their bodies flexing, fusing, each kiss a searching invasion that aroused her further. Her corset was too tight, but there was unexpected delight in the constriction, as if extra sensation had been detoured to the lower half of her body and trapped in pleasure-swollen tissues. Her fingers clawed uselessly at his clothes as her desire escalated to near madness. Simon invaded her in deep lunges, his rhythm insistent, until rapture shot and echoed through both of them, and their lungs pulled in drafts of air laden with the scent of clean, pressed linen, and their entwined limbs tightened as if to trap the sensation between them.