Page 17 of Inconvenient Honor
“Don’t!” She could hear his consternation and confusion in that one word, a man all at sea when faced with a woman’s tears. He pulled her close again.
Some things even Glenaire couldn’t control. A woman’s grief is one of them.
“Don’t,” he repeated more gently and lowered his mouth to hers.
He kissed her, she thought, to quiet her sobs as much as to comfort. It quickly flamed into something else.
She tasted salt in the kiss, her tears flowing into his mouth. His harsh lips softened, gently teasing and urging Lily to open to him. She did, falling headlong into the fire that had threatened to ignite between them for two days. One last coherent thought came to her: among the insane events of this foolish expedition, opening to Glenaire would be the most foolish. At that moment, she didn’t care. She wanted the comfort he offered.
He shrugged off his coat, brushing her hand aside when she tried to cling. “I need to touch you,” he rasped. “Let me get this out of the way.” He slipped off his tailored jacket and tossed it over the stall behind him. The jacket of her riding habit followed it, removed by his deft hands before she could protest.
Soon enough he’d wrapped his greatcoat around them both, his hands inside, gliding up her back to undo the ties of her chemisette, one after inevitable one.
Talented fingers slipped through the gap in back and caressed her through her shift, up, down, and up again to run his fingers along the edge where her skin burned at his touch. All the while his mouth moved down her neck to its juncture with her shoulder.
He tugged the front of her chemisette and followed it with his mouth when it slipped across her breasts to fall to her waist. His mouth clamped over one breast, wet through her shift, and sucked, gently at first and then hard and demanding. A sharp clenching deepinside overtook her. Lily found it hard to breathe. Impossible to think.
“Glenaire,” she gasped.
“Richard,” he murmured against her skin. He clamped one hand on her derriere and held her in place while his mouth found her other breast. She came up against the hard ridge of his arousal and slumped forward, leaning over his head.
I need to touch him. I need—She slid her hand down the neck of his shirt.
He shot up, yanking his shirt from his pantaloons. She pushed it up until she could kiss the places her hands explored. His hands—Ah, talented hands!—touched the sensitive skin above her shift, then inside to tease her nipples. When her hands slid to the waist of his pantaloons, he moaned deeply.
“Wait!” Cold air, sharp and icy against her overheated skin struck her damp breasts when he pulled away. Something rustled in the dark. She groped though the maelstrom of desire for her moral compass. She failed to find it.
He came back before the madness receded, swept her up in his arms, and captured her mouth. “Clean,” he said against her lips.
Lily lifted her head, confused. He kissed her again.
“I found a bin of clean straw,” he explained. She kissed him back, teasing the side of his mouth with her tongue. His mouth held hers when he lifted her off her feet and swept his coat from around her shoulders.
He spread the coat and lay Lily on it. In seconds he lay on top of her, his weight both warm and welcome. He pulled the edges of the coat around them both. His hands and mouth drove all thought but one from Lily.
More. I need to touch you more. I need to be touched. I need…
His mouth explored her, without the shift now, that garment pushed down to her waist. She gripped his hair with one hand and ran the other down the corded muscles of his back.
When a tug alerted her that he had loosened her skirt, she startedto rise up so he could pull it down. Instead, he yanked it up to her waist, urging her to relax into the cocoon of his coat. One hand caressed her inner thigh, sending waves of heat through her womb. Her hands moved restlessly under his shirt.
Fingers fluttered through the curls between her thighs and caressed her where she already felt moisture. She reached for the fall of his pants, but he stopped her.
“Not yet,” he murmured. “Almost.”
One finger slipped inside her. Another followed. She drowned in a sea of unfamiliar sensation. His hands caressed until Lily clung to him, desperate and unable to contribute to his pleasure.
“Richard?” she murmured, her voice rising at the end. “Too much, too… Oh.” Waves of pleasure left her blind. Mute.
When she returned to awareness, she felt him, hard and hot, press against her moist opening.
When did his pantaloons disappear?
He took her mouth and entered her a short way. When he pulled out, vague disappointment filled her. Could that be all? No. He did it again. And again. When he slipped in and out in shallow thrusts, her pleasure began to build again. Lily gave herself over to it until, in one hard thrust, he entered her completely.
Pain tore through her, igniting red sparks behind her eyes.
Lily criedout in pain.
