For one instant, there in the darkness with the scent of lust and passion wreathing about them, with her dancing in that most primitive way upon him, with her soft gasps and fractured moans falling like a siren song from her lips, he could almost believe she was some fey creature sent to ensnare him.
Regardless, she’d succeeded.
Her desperation heightened, and infected him. Sharp spurs of need pricked him; her nails sank deeper into his shoulders as passion rose and swept them yet higher.
His gaze lowered to her breasts, undulating with her ride, heaving with the breaths she desperately drew in. Bending his head, he set his mouth to the swollen mounds, sought and found a tightly budded peak, swirled it with his tongue, then drew it deep.
He suckled powerfully.
And she screamed.
Her body started tightening, climbing the final peak. Still guiding her, driving her ever onward, he feasted on her breasts, felt the age-old power rise through them both, felt it take them, grip them, ride them, whip them.
It plunged them both into a maelstrom of passion, of molten heat and raging glory.
It raced through them, lifted them high, whirled them through the cosmos of sensation, then swept them higher, then yet higher-until she shattered about him, her cry echoing in his ears as she contracted powerfully about him. As she came apart in his arms in a glory so blinding he saw stars.
Still blind, passion-wracked, he joined her, sank deep into her body, held her ruthlessly down, felt every last contraction of her sheath as he emptied himself into her.
And, he suspected, lost his soul in the process.
Slumped back against the padded arm of the sofa, Priscilla Dalling a warm, all-but-naked, exceedingly sated body draped in flagrant abandon over him, Dillon tried to assess just where they now stood.
She’d unquestionably started it, but just what she’d started…he didn’t think she fully comprehended just what her reckless act had brought into being.
He was fairly sure he didn’t comprehend the full ramifications himself, not yet. Regardless, he definitely wasn’t up to examining, and facing and acknowledging, the depth and breadth of all she’d made him feel. It was bad enough knowing she’d breached every wall he’d ever had, that somehow, in just a week, she’d been able to gain sufficient ground with him to be able to wreak the havoc the last hour had wrought.
She stirred, and he glanced down at her, but she remained boneless, apparently senseless. Her cheek lay on his chest, her glorious hair a tumble of curls rippling across his cooling skin. Her hair was darker than his, a true black where his was sable; it felt like silk against his jaw.
He raised a hand, plucked one lock from the jumble, ran it through his fingers. Head back, he looked across the darkened summer house, into the immediate future.
His, and hers.
As far as he was concerned, the two were one, and nothing would ever change that. Unfortunately, he seriously doubted she saw it that way.
Yet.
So how should he proceed?
Pris felt the touch of his fingers in her hair, felt the gentle, absentminded play…and stayed where she was, as she was. She wasn’t sure why, couldn’t place the warm feeling that suffused her, of security, of peace, and something more.
Regardless, it was balm of a heady sort, a blissful taste of heaven. She was parched, and drank it in, felt it sink to her soul.
Gradually, reality intruded; her rational mind awoke and took determined stock, reminding her that she was lying naked in his arms, that he was still inside her, not as large and flagrantly impressive as he had been, but still there. Still intimately connected.
She waited for a blush to warm her cheeks, but none came.
She puzzled for a moment, then accepted; she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t reveled in every moment, even that instant of sharp, lancing pain, transcended as it was by the indescribable sensation of feeling him hard and solid and so very real, so deep inside her.
Of course, he’d forged even deeper yet, and she’d enjoyed and thrilled to every moment of that communion.
Every sense she possessed, every nerve, was still glowing in the aftermath.
She’d wanted, craved, excitement and thrills, and he’d given her that, and more.
He’d fulfilled her every illicit dream, did he but know it.
Her lips quirked. She was about to lift her head when his hand firmed over her hair, holding her momentarily in place.
“I’ll show you the register.”
It took an instant or three before she recalled what he was talking about.
A fact that spoke loudly of the rattled state of her brain and the sluggish operation of her wits. She rapidly flayed them to attention, tried to speak, and found she had to clear her throat. “I’ll call at the club tomorrow morning.”
“No.” He sighed; his hand slid from her hair. “That won’t work. I don’t show the register to anyone, and this week all the volumes are in use in the clerks’ room. If I fetch one to show you, even if no one actually sees you looking at it, it’s bound to cause comment.”
Lifting her head, she looked into his face. “Neither of us needs that.”
“No.” He met her eyes. “Tomorrow night there’s a party at Lady Helmsley’s-we’ll both be there. Helmsley Hall’s not far from the club. We can slip away, you can look at the register, then we’ll return to the party. There’s sure to be a crowd-no one will know.”
She looked into his dark eyes. “What about the guards you’ve set patrolling the club?”
“They won’t be surprised to see me. I can walk in, then let you in via the back door. They won’t see you.”
She studied his face, screamingly conscious of the hard body cradling hers, of the intimacy they’d shared and that still cocooned them. She moistened her lips. “Very well. Tomorrow night, then.”
Beyond her control, her gaze dropped to his lips. A moment passed, then she looked at his eyes, read in their steady gaze, in the sense of waiting that emanated from him, that his mind was following the same track as hers…that his inclination and hers were the same.
She’d already thrown her cap over the windmill; she no longer had anything to lose.
And having once supped from the cup of passion with him, she now knew precisely what she stood to gain.
She knew without asking, without him saying, that it was once again her choice.
Easing up, leaning on his chest, she drew his head to hers, drew his lips to hers.
And again called the wild and reckless man to share thrills and excitement with her.
9
Unlike the first time, he had taken charge.
The following evening, Pris stood by the side of Lady Helmsley’s drawing room surrounded by a coterie of admirers, and tried to stop her mind from dwelling on the latter events of the previous night.
A vain endeavor, given the poor competition from her attentive swains. Four gentlemen, along with Miss Cartwright and Miss Siddons, stood trading quips and nonsense; their inconsequential chatter couldn’t compete with her memories, with the images her mind now contained-of Dillon rising above her in the night, of him removing his remaining clothes, then hers, and showing her how much plea sure he could give her, to what degree he could make her body sing, to what rapturous heights he could take her on the way to that ultimate, soul-sating bliss.
Best of all had been those moments when she’d seen and known how much plea sure she gave him, how deeply she called to that wild and reckless man, how completely he enjoyed her, that joining with her satisfied him as thoroughly, as intensely and all-encompassingly as it did her.
The second act had been even more compelling, more fascinating, than the first.