Wicked Intentions (Maiden Lane #1)(84)

“Don’t look away or I’ll stop,” he murmured.

She swallowed, watching as his fingers slowly slipped down to her far lips. He widened them, spreading her lips, revealing the deep rose within and her own embarrassing moisture.

“So soft,” he said, and ran his forefinger through her folds.

She was panting now, watching as his finger reached her apex and circled around her nub. Gently, he tapped her clitoris.

“Do you like that?” he whispered.

She wanted to shake her head, to look away, but if she did, he would stop and the mere thought was enough to make her think she’d die.

“Temperance,” he whispered, deep and intimate, “tell me if you like this.” He pressed gently, not quite hard enough. “Temperance?”

“Harder,” she breathed.

“What?”

She swallowed. “Harder. Touch me harder.”

He pressed again. “Like this?”

Oh, glorious bliss! Her hips rose of their own accord. She nodded jerkily.

He circled against her, using that exact amount of pressure. “Now watch. Keep your eyes open and on my hand or I’ll stop. Do you understand?”

She nodded again, mesmerized by that finger, growing steadily slicker with her own moisture. He ministered to her in the quiet of her sitting room, the only sounds her ragged breathing and the small liquid noises his hand made against her flesh. He rubbed faster and faster until her eyelids were heavy, until it was a herculean struggle to keep them open. She was afire, warmth and sweet pleasure radiating from her center.

And suddenly his hand twisted.

Her eyes opened wide as she watched him insert two fingers deep into her, and she gasped at the feeling and the sight. He brought his thumb down on her at the same time and she broke apart. The fire spreading through her limbs, her head thrown back, her vision blurring even as she still watched him work her flesh. Dear Lord, she’d never felt so wanton. She was trembling in his arms, her legs flexing, and still he shoved his fingers into her, spreading them apart, twisting them inside of her.

His other hand turned her head, and he was kissing her suddenly. His mouth open and wet as those clever fingers of his slowed.

“Temperance,” he gasped against her. “I need you. I need you now.”

He was lifting her, bringing her legs around, positioning her like a rag doll for his own pleasure, because she certainly could no longer move.

He rose, holding her, and reversed their positions, laying her back in the big armchair, her bottom on the very edge of the seat, her feet on the floor. He crouched before her, and she saw that his erection was enormous. She watched as he took it in one hand and brought it between her legs. He pushed his shoulders underneath her spread legs and straightened, bringing them up so that she was helplessly draped across him.

He positioned his cock at her entrance, his mouth open and panting, and she watched him as he shoved himself inside her. His head was arched back as if he suffered some unbearable pain. As if he were about to expire.

“Oh, God,” he panted. “I can’t… I can’t…”

And he began pounding into her, shoving her back into the chair, clutching her legs against his chest so that she had no purchase, no way of defending herself against his assault.

Not that she wanted to.

The feel of him filling her repeatedly, just after her exquisite release at his hand, brought the warmth rushing back immediately. She crashed, wave after wave of pleasure beating against her, overwhelming her senses. She was only dimly aware of him straightening on his knees, still locked to her, bringing her bottom entirely off the chair as he slammed himself into her fully. He held her there as he spilled himself into her.

His big hands were on her bottom, spread and holding her. He ground himself into her as if he couldn’t get enough of her, as if he wanted to stay locked with her forever. But he was only a man after all. He slumped forward, somehow managing to bring her down gently. He disentangled her legs from his shoulders and then laid his head next to hers in the chair seat.

“Temperance,” he murmured, big and heavy and satiated on her. “Temperance.”

She looked at the ceiling of her little sitting room and knew she had to find the words to tell him what he meant to her. Knew she would lose him if she couldn’t let the words leave her lips, however painful and hard it was for her. She stood at a crossroads, and to make no decision was to lose everything instead. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would find the way.

Tonight she simply closed her eyes.

TEMPERANCE WOKE EARLY the next morning and lay staring at the ceiling in her tiny lonely bedroom. She didn’t want to rise. Her bedroom was up under the eaves. This high in the home, there were only three rooms—hers, Winter’s, and the one Nell slept in when she wasn’t watching over the nursery at night. The rooms were cramped with low, sloping roofs. When it rained, a corner of her room leaked. In winter she was cold, and in summer it was abominably hot.

Dear God, sometimes she wished she could simply fly away. Perhaps that was why she’d indulged in those dangerous interludes with Caire, risking not only pregnancy and a bastard child, but also her very soul. He was a temptation she seemed to have no defense against. Perhaps after all these years of fighting her very nature, it had finally become a moot point. Perhaps the fight itself was never really winnable. Perhaps—

A thump came from the room next to hers—Winter’s room. Temperance frowned and started to rise.