Always a Rogue, Forever Her Love (Scandalous Seasons #4)(44)



Or worse, become the governess to his future children. Bile burned like acid in her throat.

Jonathan continued to study her, uncharacteristically silent. “Is that what you want. Do you want me to leave? If you do, say the words.”

There could be no more unlikely pair than Juliet Marshville and Jonathan, the 5th Earl of Sinclair.

And yet…

God help her. She couldn’t call up the proper, ladylike response.

Until this moment, Rosecliff Cottage had represented the one opportunity she would have in life to own something. Now, in Jonathan’s arms, with the promise of his touch, she now realized she could own something more—this splendorous moment. She could lay herself open to his embrace and carry with her, the memory of his touch, his lips, the very essence of him.

She forced herself to take a calming breath. And another. And another. “I ask you to please leave me be.” Because with your body’s nearness, and the strength of your hand in my own, I risk doing something foolish like losing my post for the pleasure of your touch.

He stood stock-still. Unmoving. His stare fixed upon her face. “Is that what you want? For me to leave?”

No. “Yes, my lord.” There could be no alternative, even as she wished it with that small sliver of an innocent lady’s heart.

His long legs carried him over to her in three long strides. “So, it is back to my lord, then?”

Juliet craned her neck back to look at this man who, with his strength and aura of power could rob a weaker woman of her wits. Oh, Jonathan. “It has always been, my lord,” she whispered, imploring him with her eyes to understand how fearful she was of losing any more of herself to him.

He reached his fingers out to caress her jaw and she swallowed hard. “But then, that isn’t true is it, love?”

Oh goodness, when he called her love in that silken, seductive murmur she wanted to do something foolish like throw away her good name and let him make her his love in every sense of the word.

“You want me, Juliet. As I want you,” his husky baritone warmed her like liquid sun being poured upon her naked skin.

She wet her lips. He dropped his stare to her mouth, and fixed there as though he’d never before seen a person’s lips. When he at last met her gaze, all hint of emotion or anything of which he’d been thinking, had been erased.

“I am lost,” Jonathan groaned. He dragged her into his arms and her wrapper fell open. Her breasts tingled from where they pressed against the hard muscled wall of his chest. His lips found hers in a fiery explosion of fury and wanting and desperation.

Juliet moaned; it was as though her hands possessed a will of their own. She tangled her fingers in the luxurious locks of his black strands and kissed him as she’d longed to do since she’d first spied him exiting his clubs.

He crushed his lips over hers again and again. She whimpered as he slipped his tongue inside her mouth, making love to the wet cavern like he wanted to forever bear her imprint upon his soul. He pulled away, and she groaned in protest, fisting his hair. But her efforts proved ineffectual, and he trailed a path of kisses down her cheek, the place on her neck where her pulse fluttered wildly with her wanting of him, still lower until his lips hovered above the modest expanse of her décolletage.

Her head fell back on a guttural groan when he nipped at and teased the sensitive flesh of her exposed skin. Her fingers ached to tear free her gown and open herself to his skilled ministrations. He cupped her buttocks and he scooped her in his strong, capable hands, dragging her close to his swollen length. The small, sliver of logic that resided in her passion-clouded mind registered the absolute indecency of his fingers inching up the exposed flesh of her thighs. However, raw, hungry desire devoured the sliver of logic in a burning conflagration that set her body ablaze. “J-Jonathan,” she panted against his lips, wishing she had the willpower to pull away. Knowing with her heart, that he’d possessed her since their first kiss in the parlor.

His fingers continued their masterful climb until he’d rucked her ivory wrapper and modest nightgown up about her hips. The cool night air kissed her skin. “I do not know your hold on me, Juliet,” he whispered harshly against her temple. She cried out as he inserted an oak-hard thigh between her legs, and she shamelessly ground herself against him. “But you’re a temptress who has captivated me mind, body, and soul,” he rasped, continuing to rock his thigh between her legs.

Hot, wet heat flooded her center, and she clenched her legs tight around him. His strong hands anchored about her hips, guided her in a rhythmic, seductive motion—back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Juliet bit her lip hard. “Jonathan,” she said on a soft cry. She buried her head against his chest and found support in his arms while pressure built at her core, and then she screamed.

He swallowed the piercing cry with his kiss, and wave after wave of unadulterated pleasure unfurled throughout her body. “That is right, love,” he groaned. “Come for me.” He continued to rock her against his thigh, wringing every last pleasurable drop from her until she collapsed in his arms. Jonathan caught her to him.

Her pulse sounded loudly in her ears, and blended with his harsh, heavy breathing. She turned her cheek against his chest, and squeezed her eyes tight. God help her.

She loved him.





Chapter 13


Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

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