The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(59)

She’d waited for the end of each embrace . . . just as she’d waited for the fulfillment of those false promises.

Broderick’s hands at her neck both cradled and commanded, angling her to receive him, opening her to a whole new universe of sensation and feeling. Each stroke of his lips over hers, his tongue against hers, set her core to throbbing.

It had never been like this.

It had always been distasteful and dirty and empty . . . until this.

Until Broderick.

And she wanted the moment to go on. She wanted to explore passion as she’d never before tasted it.

Moaning, Reggie searched her hands down the contours of his broad, powerful shoulders, lower, exploring all as she went, as she’d ached to. She gripped his arms, the tense muscles bulging under her touch, and she reveled in his hunger for her.

Broderick broke the kiss, and she cried out at the loss of that heat, but he was already moving his lips to the corner of hers, caressing the curve of her jaw, over to the sensitive place her lobe met her nape.

“So soft,” he rasped against her, his breath a sough upon her hot skin that sent her pulse hammering . . . And then he found the spot where it beat with desire for him. Broderick lightly nipped and suckled, trapping a groan somewhere in her throat, and the sound of it emerged as a wanton plea.

He pressed himself against her, and even through the fabric of her brown skirts, the heat and length of him throbbed. “Broderick,” she panted, dropping her head back.

His mouth found hers again, and she surrendered to the hungering she’d carried for this man for ten years. She licked the hard seam of his lips, tasting him as he’d done her.

He gasped, and she, gripping his thick, loose golden curls, brought his mouth back to hers.

The wanton she’d been accused of being, and for which she’d been shamed in the past, she now reveled in what it was to feel passion.

Broderick dragged up her skirts, and a cool blast of night air slapped at her, a balm to the fire he’d kindled within her. He caught her leg and dragged it about his waist, deepening the press of him against her core. She moaned, but he swallowed that entreaty, sinking his hands in her hips, his fingers possessive in their hold.

“Reggie,” he gasped, laying her down, stretching her open.

Her head collided with the chamberstick, sending the piece tumbling. It broke in an explosion of noise, glass, and hot wax, shattering the moment and splattering her skirts.

Panting like he’d run a great race, Broderick remained frozen over her, his eyes glazed with the evidence of desire. Her chest rose and fell in time to his, and she silently pleaded with him to continue, to teach her everything she’d never known and everything she’d believed her body incapable of experiencing.

Someone pounded at the door. “Did ya foind ’er?” Stephen demanded, his voice muted by the heavy oak panel.

Her stomach pitched as reality came crashing in.

Broderick’s face whitened, and for the first time in all the years she’d known him, he remained motionless, incapable of a response. She nudged his shoulder. “Broderick.” Her hushed whisper penetrated the fog.

He jumped back, tripping over himself in his haste to be free of her.

Stephen jiggled the door handle. “Everything all right in there?”

Reggie pushed herself up and, with fingers that shook, shoved her skirts back into place.

“Fine. Everything is fine,” Broderick called out, his voice somewhat hoarse. He ran horror-filled eyes over her wrinkled dress. He spun Reggie about and proceeded to draw her hair back into place with an efficiency and skill that could come only from one who’d undertaken the task before.

“Ya sure?” Stephen called. “Let me see ya.”

Bloody hell.

Broderick quickly assessed his work, and then, stepping over bits and shards of glass, he crossed over and drew the door open.

Suspicion better suited to one twenty years his senior darkened Stephen’s features. He took in the mess strewn about, and then Reggie’s rumpled appearance. She quickly slid behind the table to hide the sorry state of her skirts. “What happened ’ere? You two fighting?”

Clasping her hands before her, Reggie looked to Broderick.

“We were in the middle of a discussion,” he said with his usual calm restored.

Stephen peered at his eldest sibling a long while. “Didn’t sound like a discussion. Sounded like a mighty racket.”

Reggie’s entire body burnt with the force of her blush, and she sent a prayer skyward for the Lord to open the floor up and spare them any more probing from a boy far too astute for his tender years.

“What we were discussing isn’t your business,” Broderick said with a finality that would have quelled any further questioning in anyone—

Except Stephen.

With the tip of his boot, he kicked the wax candle, and it rolled forward, sliding under the table and landing damningly at Reggie’s toes. “Doesn’t look like a discussion, either.”

And for one horrifying moment that stretched into eternity, she believed he referenced her and Broderick’s embrace. Her face flamed several degrees hotter.

“What it was or was not isn’t your affair.” He gentled that admonishment by ruffling his brother’s curls. Stephen ducked away from that touch, but Broderick looped an arm around his shoulders and brought him in to rub his head. It was a sweet hint of fraternal affection that tugged her heart. Recalling a different time. A different boy. Broderick caught her gaze over the top of Stephen’s head, and she forced back the melancholy musings. “If you’ll excuse me while I speak with Miss Spark?”