Wicked in Your Arms (Forgotten Princesses #1)(50)

“And this will keep me here?” She could not even recognize the hoarse croak of her voice.

“You tell me. Will it?” The head of him pushed a fraction inside her before slipping out again.

Tormented, she whimpered, her fingers rising to dig into the smooth flesh of his shoulders. “Please,” she begged.

“Please what?”

She breathed heavily beneath him, the tips of her breasts pebble-hard and rubbing his chest in the most arousing way. He propped himself on his elbows and eased slightly inside her again, the tip of him barely inside her. Her head thrashed on the bed, in agony.

“Take me.”

Take me.

He wanted to. God, he wanted to have her. Again. And again. And that was just the crux of the matter.

“Grier,” he began, determined that tonight would not be the last time . . . that this could somehow continue as long as he was in England. The need to have her again burned within him. He refused to examine why. It didn’t matter why. It simply . . . was.

He’d have this woman again, as often as he could. Every chance. Even if he had to go out of his way to invent those opportunities.

“Hmm.” She arched beneath him, moaning. Even in the gloom, he detected the hot need in her gaze.

“I want to see you again. In Town.”

Her eyes widened at the suggestion, and he knew he had her attention. “Discounting social gatherings we both might attend, I don’t see how.”

“It can be arranged. I can arrange it.”

She bit her lip. He caught sight of the flash of white teeth. “I don’t know.”

She pushed at his shoulder, managing to scramble free. “What can come of it?”

He hauled her back and kissed her soundly until they were both panting and clinging to each other.

“This,” he growled, sliding his hands beneath her and dragging her thighs apart again. He slid inside her slick heat in one smooth thrust. She arched beneath him, meeting the invasion with a moan of welcome. “And this.”

She cried out, dropping back on the bed as he worked over her, taking her in deep, slow strokes, lifting her hips higher until he found the right spot for her to reach climax again. She shrieked when he found it, and he smothered the cry with his lips, drowning the sound as her inner muscles clenched and squeezed his cock, wringing him of his own shuddering release.

They collapsed against each other, clinging and panting. For several moments neither moved, too spent, too overcome.

“I’ll leave it to you,” she finally said, her voice whisper-soft. “I know we should end it tonight before we’re caught and my reputation is truly beyond repair, but my will is weak when it comes to you. So if you wish to meet again—” She stopped, unable to say anymore.

“I do. We shall.” He tightened an arm around her waist as if someone threatened to steal her away.

He knew it was foolish to feel so attached to her. Plenty of women had shared his bed before and he’d never felt this . . . this desire, this deep attachment, this need. Especially after sex.

Sex was fun. A physical release. Usually after he’d had a woman in his bed, after the chase ended, his interest ended, too.

Something told him it would never be that way with Grier. He would never tire of her.

Her soft sigh brushed his cheek. “Should you go now?”

“No. I’ll stay until you fall asleep.” Until it wasn’t so hard to tear himself away from her. Regrettably, that moment never came and he wondered if it ever would.

An hour before dawn he slipped away, leaving Grier lost to her dreams.

She had a lover.

The thought reverberated through her head countless times as she sat in the carriage beside Cleo. Jack slept across from her, snoring loudly, but she was glad for it. Glad she did not have to hear reminders that she must renew her search for a husband upon their return to Town. She bit her lip until the pain lanced sharply along her nerves. She welcomed the sensation, preferring it over the unease knotting her stomach at the prospect of finding a husband—of letting another man into her bed, her body. Swallowing the sudden surge of bile rising in her throat, she turned her face to the tightly drawn curtains as if something of interest could be seen there.

They made a caravan of sorts, the dowager’s houseguests all departing at once for London. Occasionally she would part the velvet curtains to glimpse outside, acting as though she merely studied the countryside, but she actually searched for Sev atop his stallion. Several of the gentlemen rode alongside the carriages. Grier longed to ride outside among them. Another reason to loathe the constraints of Society.

“Close the curtain. Letting in a draft.” Jack opened his eyes long enough to complain before turning on the squabs and settling back into his nap.

Grier dropped the curtain and resettled back against the squabs. Her mind drifted to the evening ahead when they would stop at the inn. Her heart raced to consider that she would see Sev again then.

She had no expectation that they would manage to steal a moment alone . . . but just to see him again . . . to feast her gaze on him made her belly flip and her heart ache in the most alarming way. This really was getting out of hand. How was she to let another gentleman pay her court when she could only think of the Crown Prince of Maldania in her bed, doing the most sinful, improper things to her? She had to put a stop to this at once. Such thinking would lead her nowhere but heartache.