Page 81 of Cold November Rake

He let out a low chuckle that rumbled through his chest.

She turned her head, seeking his lips. She needed his mouth on hers, needed to taste him, needed to know he wanted that, too.

But he tsked, shook his head, and stepped back.

Disappointment pricked her, sharp and absurd, in the middle of so much pleasure.

He still didn't want to kiss her. He still held on to their bargain.

His fingers found the fall of his breeches and worked it open with urgent, clumsy movements. He pushed them down his hips, and she glanced over her shoulder in time to see him free, flushed, and hard with wanting her. She could not look away.

He came up behind her again and took himself in hand, drawing the tip of him through her folds, slick with her own wetness. Her breath hitched. Her hips rolled back, seeking him, but he held back, teasing, circling without pushing inside.

"Edward," she gasped. "Please. I cannot..."

"You can," he said, his voice rough. "You will."

He slid a hand into her hair, fingers tangling in the loose waves at her nape, and pulled, just enough to tilt her head back and expose the long line of her throat. She gasped. Over her shoulder she saw his jaw tighten and his eyes darken, and the knowledge that she did this to him sent a thrill through her.

"Bend over," he commanded.

She obeyed, folding forward at the waist over the desk. The nightrail was still bunched at her hips, her bottom bare to his gaze. She heard his breath leave him in a rush.

He placed a hand between her shoulder blades and pressed, bending her further, until her cheek lay against the polished wood and her back curved in a long line.

He settled behind her, one hand guiding himself to her entrance, and pushed forward in a single, steady thrust.

She cried out, the sound raw, torn from somewhere deep in her chest. It echoed off the study walls. He sank into her to the hilt, and she felt the stretch and fullness overwhelm her. For a moment neither of them moved. She could not breathe, could do nothing but feel him inside her.

Then he drew back and thrust again, harder, and the desk scraped an inch across the floor.

"God," he groaned. "Tempe."

His hand fisted in her hair, holding her gently but firmly against the wood, and he set a rhythm with no gentleness in it. The desk shuddered with each stroke. Her moans came in time with his, broken and pleading, and beneath the sound of skin against skin she could hear the wet slide of him moving in her, a shameless, perfect proof of how much she wanted him.

He bent over her, his chest against her back, his mouth finding the juncture of her neck and shoulder. He bit down, not hard enough to mark, but hard enough to make her gasp, and she clenched around him.

"Harder," she begged, her voice muffled against the desk. "Please, Edward, harder."

He obliged. He drove into her, and the desk groaned its way across the floor until one leg caught on the edge of the carpet and stuck. He did not slow. He reached around her hip, his fingers finding the sensitive place between her legs, and circled it with rough, insistent strokes.

"Yes, Edward, yes," she cried, as a tide of pleasure gathered low within her, ready to break.

"Take it, mo chridhe," he whispered. "Take what you need."

The endearment undid her. She came again with a cry that might have been his name, her body clenching around him in pulses. She felt him groan against her neck. He kept moving through it, driving into her with a force that set the desk leg screeching against the floorboards.

Then she felt his rhythm falter, his thrusts turning erratic, desperate. He buried himself to the hilt and held there, his grip tightening in her hair, his forehead pressed between her shoulder blades, and groaned her name into the sweat-damp silk of her nightrail.

"Temperance."

Chapter Twenty

London

9th April 1819

My dear Temperance,