Chapter 31

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

B eatrix placed her hands on his thighs and sank to her knees between them.

Oh, lord.

In defiance of the limits of physical possibility, Dev’s cock got harder.

Sure, slender fingers unbuttoned the falls of his trousers, previous experience making light work of them, freeing his length, cool night air caressing its sensitive, velvet skin.

His cock throbbed.

Beatrix angled back and took him in.

Her mouth was inches away.

His cock ached.

She bit her bottom lip between her teeth and lifted her gaze. “Blimey, you’re big.”

Blimey.

It was the word a kitchen maid would use or even Lady Godiva Gallop—and it was the word Beatrix would use, too.

He liked that about her.

Fingers that held a tremble lightly brushed up and down his length before closing around him at the base. She angled forward, and he felt the warmth of her breath in the instant before she touched her tongue to him. Her gaze lifted, and he was nearly undone on the spot as she took him into her mouth and began moving both mouth and hand along his shaft, in a rhythm quickly established.

Raw pleasure struck through him, as he watched her… felt her …pleasuring him. A long groan scraped across his throat. Never had it been like this . All-encompassing pleasure because of who gave it— Beatrix .

Within the fiction they’d created, she was able to be entirely herself, real and present, giving herself to him, freely and without expectation.

Because she wanted him and he wanted her.

He wanted her.

And he knew.

He would never stop wanting her.

Oh, but her mouth felt so good…and her tongue had begun having ideas of its own, its skill increasing with every second. Talented , that nimble, velvet tongue of hers.

Too talented.

He reached out and twined his fingers through silken sable hair, resisting the primal need to urge her on until climax took him.

No.

That way lay regret.

“My sweet,” he said.

Her eyes slitted open, a question within.

“You need to stop, or…” The sentence could finish itself.

Slowly, she slid her mouth off him, and a groan dragged through him. He could reach out and pull her atop him and be inside her in a matter of seconds, satisfying these base urges that demanded satiation.

But an intrusion of reality stopped him.

Tomorrow was the final day of the house party.

Tonight could be their last time.

And if tonight was the last time, he wanted it to be worth remembering.

He lifted her chemise over her head and tossed it aside. Naked, she rose and stood before him. It occurred to him that he’d never adored her properly. “You are so beautiful.”

A flicker of doubt passed behind her eyes. She might have winced. She didn’t see herself as he saw her.

“Beatrix,” he said, reaching for her hips and bringing her close, so close he was able to press his mouth to the soft stretch of skin between navel and mons pubis. His gaze lifted. “You are beautiful.”

His fingers tightened around her waist as he pulled her onto the bed. He made short work of his remaining clothing beneath her unflinching gaze.

“ You are beautiful,” she said.

He knew women saw him so.

And he knew his male beauty helped him get some of what he wanted in life—like a beautiful woman in his bed when he wanted her.

But with this beautiful woman… He had to be more than a beautiful specimen to have her.

And that she deemed him so… Well, it was a special thing.

She reached up and hooked her hand around his neck, pulling him onto the bed. Their bodies, his large and bulky… hers slender and lissome, stretched along the length of one another, opposites in every way…complementary in every way, too. His mouth met hers, and she rolled onto her back, pulling him atop her, settling him between her legs, his manhood poised and ready.

He entered her slowly…measuredly. “Oh, Dev” she sighed into his mouth as he began stroking in and out of her, her hips in rhythm with his. She was so tight around him. The experience for her had to be the push and pull of pleasure and pain, that sweet middling place achieved only by this act. Deeper, he drove into her, taking her bottom in hand, angling her hips to take him in yet more fully. Sweat pinpricked his skin, beaded down the side of his face, down the hollow of his spine.

On it went, as he maintained control and worked her body, found what pleasured her…what drove her wild…what would drive her to climax. Her gaze went interior with the pleasure received, and she began squeezing him tighter. She was reaching…striving… Climax had begun to tease at her. He steadied himself and paid attention as he thrust into her.

Her head arched back, digging into the mattress, a cry pouring from her that was equal parts pleasure and frustration. There. She liked her hips angled just so…his strokes just that deep…

The breath caught in her chest. Release was holding her in that specific exquisite tension just before it broke within her, leaving her crying out, her quim fluttering and pulsing around his cock, her fingernails digging into his back as he kept moving inside her, his rhythm slowed for the moment. But it wasn’t long before his own release began to pull at him.

“Oh, Dev,” she said, awash in satiety.

It was the feel of her that drove him wild.

But it was that look in her eyes—the look he’d put there—that pulled him over the edge into madness.

He was mad for this woman, who could slay him with a single sated glance, a curl of pleasure on her mouth. He kissed that mouth—how could he resist?—and poured unnameable emotion into this act.

All his adult life, he’d wanted to vanquish.

But now, all he wanted was to surrender—to her .

So, he did.

Along with release came all the pleasure promised as lightning bolted through loins and veins, but also this surrender as he floated through the ether of climax.

Here, they were one.

Here, he would have them remain—their limbs tangled and exhausted…their breath mingled…their hearts beating as one—forever.

Forever…

He’d made so much possible in his life—turned undefined visions into solid reality.

Why not forever with Beatrix, too?

An hour or so later

A sliver of dawn peeked through a slit in the yet-closed curtains, and Dev understood he would have to let her go.

Already, he’d kept her too long.

Already, they tempted scandal.

He almost snorted. What was the worst that could happen? That he would have to marry her?

She felt too good, curled into his side, her head snugged into his shoulder.

“Beatrix,” he willed himself to say. He wouldn’t expose her to the shame of scandal.

“Mmm,” purred from her throat, a satiated smile curving her lips.

He couldn’t resist. He pressed a light kiss to that delectable mouth.

Her eyes fluttered open. Her brow crinkled, and she blinked. Her smile fell. “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

Dev chuckled, even as he felt a vague sense of wrongness creep into the air. “I knew I was good,” he said lightly. “I’ll be your dream, if you like.”

On a distressed squeak, she pushed upright.

He attempted to ignore the very definite wrongness in the air and slid a hand behind his head as if in idle repose. “If you’re worried about the servants, they know not to enter my bedroom until I’ve left to break my fast. I don’t have a valet.”

“How very democratic of you.” She gave her head a shake. “But, no, I’m not worried about the servants.”

He reached for her hand. “Then what is it?”

She stared down at their twined fingers, then met his gaze. “The countess is yours for the taking now. You must know that.”

Imogen?

He hadn’t given her any thought in days— weeks , really.

Not any meaningful thought, anyway. That had been consumed by the woman presently pulling her hand from his and hopping off the bed. She had the chemise slipped over her head before full-on alarm began clanging through him. “What are you doing, Beatrix?”

She didn’t spare him a glance. “Dressing.”

He sprang off the bed and reached for his trousers, jerking them on before planting himself between her and the door. “We need to talk.”

She nodded in agreement. “Indeed, we do.”

Dev felt the storm gathering on his brow. She was being too readily agreeable for his peace of mind. “You first.”

She shrugged her robe onto her shoulders and said, reasonably, “Well, it’s obvious.”

He had no liking for this conversation or the way they stood facing one another like adversaries. Only a moment ago, they’d been lovers. He wanted that moment back. “Please explain the obvious to me.”

“Our arrangement has reached its inevitable conclusion. It’s time to end it.”

Annoyance flared through him. The woman was being too bloody reasonable. What they shared had nothing to do with reason.

“Are you so eager to be rid of me?” He tried for levity.

Her eyes had gone frustratingly opaque. “We’ve achieved what we set out to do.”

“Refresh my memory.”

Truly, he needed reminding, for whatever it was, it no longer mattered. Didn’t she see that?

“The countess will be yours, and I’ll… I’ll be paid for my services.”

“Ah, yes… So you can have that good, solid future you’ve always dreamed about.”

If he wasn’t very mistaken, fury flicked behind her eyes. “So I can pay Blaze Jagger.”

“Well, that happens to be one of the things we need to talk about.”

“You are going to pay me, correct?”

“Of course,” said Dev, annoyed she would even ask. “But as for Blaze Jagger, he’s been relieved of Lydon’s debt.”

Her eyebrows crinkled with bewilderment. “Lydon settled with Jagger?”

“He didn’t.”

Her brow released with revelation. “You… you paid the debt.”

“Jagger won’t be bothering you anymore.”

A few moments passed while she took in and assembled these new pieces of information. “Now, I’m indebted to you .”

“You owe me nothing, Beatrix. Your future is yours to decide.”

He started to say more—to say what was in his heart. That the future she wanted might be with him…

“Oh, yes, my good, solid future.” She laughed, no humor in it. “And you’ll pursue your glorious future with your Imogen, no?”

Dev couldn’t articulate the exact moment he’d stopped thinking about that future, except he had. A vision of a different future—a better future—had replaced it.

Yet what Beatrix was saying struck something within him…something he’d been thinking for a while now and wanted to say to her… “That good, solid future you’ve always wanted, well, it’s so ordinary, isn’t it?”

She looked utterly nonplussed. “Pardon?”

“You deserve better dreams,” he continued. “You could have an extraordinary life, Beatrix, if you could only risk it.”

A pin could drop in the room and they would hear, so still was the silence.

“Why do you want that ordinary life?” he pressed.

“It’s the life I’ve always wanted.”

“Perhaps what we’ve always wanted isn’t what we want now.”

His lungs expressed no will to move as he watched her mind race behind her eyes. At last, she said, “You’re right.”

Agreement had come too easily. He couldn’t trust it. “I am?”

“Perhaps that isn’t the future I want.”

A petal of hope peeled back inside him. “Isn’t it?”

“Perhaps I don’t want to marry at all.”

The hopeful momentum of the moment came to a screeching halt.

How in the blazes had they arrived here from where they’d started?

A realization crashed down on him.

He’d missed his moment.

At some point during this evening, he should’ve fallen to his knees and begged her to marry him.

Or…it had already been too late then.

He should’ve done it the moment they’d met in Hyde Park.

“Tonight,” she said, “at the dance, we’ll break it off as we began.”

“What does that mean?” He was having difficulty keeping up with the inner workings of her mind.

“Publicly.”

As we began .

He could groan.

He could shout.

Of course, that was the inevitable end to their arrangement.

But…was that the end of them ?

Was it, too, inevitable?

He did know this: now wasn’t the time to ask. He would only make it worse.

He needed time…time to think.

Which left him with but one more thing to say… “You should leave now.”

She blinked. She’d expected him to keep arguing.

Good.

He’d defied her expectations.

It was a start, anyway.

Without another word, she swept past him and out of the room.

Now, he was alone—with his racing mind.

He still had tonight.

Indeed, they would be parting ways in front of the ton . But that was necessary. They needed to put the paid aspect of their relationship behind them. Only then, could they start anew without artifice.

Or…it was the entirely wrong approach.

And he risked losing her altogether.