Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

“ I s there any correspondence for me?” Lottie asked her lady’s maid nonchalantly that afternoon as she drank her tea before a crackling fire, a novel in her lap.

Rising late on cool days, luxuriating before a fire in her dressing gown well past luncheon, reading as long as she liked—these were private pleasures she afforded herself now that she was no longer at the mercy of Grenfell’s daily demands of her. Pleasures which, unfortunately, were not proving sufficient distraction at the moment.

“Nothing so far,” Jenkinson announced cheerily. “Are you expecting something, my lady?”

Yes, she was.

She was expecting a response from the Duke of Brandon. After hours of careful deliberation the day before, she had produced a list of several ladies and sent them to him. Naturally, she hadn’t been able to satisfy all his requirements—those had been made to discomfit her, she knew. And it had worked, the rotten man.

But after all the effort she had gone to on his behalf—taking him home from the wedding breakfast, composing a thoughtful list of potential brides—the arrogant wretch hadn’t even deigned to respond.

Presciently, Lottie didn’t confide any of that in her lady’s maid. She did trust Jenkinson implicitly, of course. But there were some things one necessarily kept to one’s self.

She forced an unconcerned smile. “Not anything in particular, Jenkinson.”

“I’ve selected the pink silk for you this morning, Lady Grenfell,” her lady’s maid told her. “It complements your lovely hair so well.”

Lottie could privately concede that her hair was one of her vanities. Grenfell had once told her it was brazen; he’d preferred icy blondes. When he’d confided that to her in one of his crueler moments, she had vowed to make her hair her crowning attribute. Jenkinson was a dab-hand with all manner of hairdressing. No braid had been too elaborate, loose tendrils artfully curled to frame her face, accented with twinkling diamonds or fresh flowers. Her admirers often remarked upon her hair, which she refused to cut—it curled long past her waist, down over her bottom when fully unbound.

But no one had ever described her hair as cinnamon-gold before.

“An excellent choice,” she praised her lady’s maid absently, trying to dismiss all thoughts of yesterday’s carriage ride and the Duke of Brandon from her mind.

And failing.

It had been torture. Pure, sensual torment. He had been so handsome in his elegant blacks, a shadow of whiskers on his strong jaw. His scent had filled the carriage—musky, citrusy, decadent. How impossible it had been not to admire him. The Duke of Brandon was the picture of masculine beauty. Almost too pretty, with a strong, muscled form that perfectly accented the striking perfection of his face. His mouth was made for kissing. His hands, large and long-fingered and elegant, had been made for pleasing, touching, caressing. She had wanted them on her body, the entirety of the ride passing in torpid torment, her nipples so hard she’d imagined they might poke through her corset, the ache between her legs impossible to ignore. She’d distracted herself with conversation and her perhaps ill-advised crusade to find him a match.

After leaving him at his town house, she had returned home to a long, hot bath during which she had pleasured herself twice to thoughts of him. And she wanted him still. He was a poison in her blood. The time had come for her to take a new lover. That was what she needed—diversion. Pleasure. She’d been suffering from the dreaded empty bed for far too long.

Yes, that was all. This inconvenient longing had nothing to do with the Duke of Brandon.

“Are you ready for your toilette , Lady Grenfell?” Jenkinson asked, pulling her from the web of her thoughts.

“I am,” she decided. “But take out a promenade gown instead, if you please. I do believe a walk in Hyde Park will be just the thing.”

An excellent way to settle upon someone else, she decided. Someone who wasn’t a dashing, marriage-minded duke. Someone who wanted to bed her and never wed her.

“Of course, my lady.”

They set to work on her toilette . By the fashionable hour, Lottie was wearing a favorite navy silk gown with overskirts accented by plaid ribbons and blonde lace at her throat. Her hair had been plaited into an intricate braid and coiled low beneath her smart matching hat, curls framing her face. She was dressed impeccably, newly determined to forget all about the Duke of Brandon as the gravel crunched beneath her booted soles while she took the air.

She heard the commotion before she saw it.

Loud barking, a young girl’s shouts.

And then she rounded the bend and discovered that everything she had been attempting to forget had found her right here in Hyde Park—well, almost everything, anyway. The brown-and-white-furred blur racing toward her was followed by a dark-haired girl whose skirts were flapping wildly about her knees as she ran.

“Cat! Cat! Come back here, Cat!”

Cat didn’t appear inclined to slow down or halt. She was galloping toward Lottie, an abandoned leash dangling down her back.

“Cat!”

It was the desperation in Pandy’s voice that prompted Lottie into action.

She bent her knees and spread her arms wide, attempting to block the runaway dog’s escape route. “Come here, you little scamp.”

Seeing her chance to flee blocked, Cat darted to the right. Lottie followed, lunging toward the dog. And in that same moment, the toe of her embroidered walking boot hooked in the hems of her petticoats and tiered promenade gown. She scrambled to correct herself, but it all happened too quickly.

Lottie landed in the gravel, her outstretched hands catching the brunt of her fall and keeping her face from connecting with the earth. Cat collided with her in the next instant, and she instinctively grabbed the wriggling dog to her breast, holding her there as Lottie struggled to regain her breath.

“Cat! Missus Lady Grenspell!”

Small feet trampled toward her, and then Pandy was there, hovering over her, grasping Cat’s abandoned leash. “Are you hurt?”

Worry creased the child’s countenance as she peered down at Lottie.

She might have laughed had she been capable of it. But her palms stung, her pride hurt worse, and she had just gasped in a breath that her blasted corset was attempting to deny her.

“Pandy,” she croaked.

“You saveded Cat from running away,” Pandy said excitedly. “A mean lad throwed a stone at her, and it frightened her, and I losed her leash.” Tears glistened on the girl’s cheeks. “I thought Cat was gone forever.”

“There now,” she tried to comfort Pandy, whilst heaving herself into a sitting position. “Cat is here, and you haven’t lost her.”

“Oh, thank you, Missus Lady Grenspell,” Pandy exclaimed, launching herself at Lottie.

She caught the child with a startled grunt, her body still smarting from her impact with the ground. But what a precious bundle, small arms wrapped tightly around her, gleaming mahogany curls tickling her face. Such childish exuberance. It touched Lottie’s heart and, strangely, made her own eyes sting.

“You are quite welcome, child,” she said. “But tell me, what are you doing racing through Hyde Park alone?”

“Nurse is here somewheres,” Pandy told her. “She didn’t wanna chase Cat, so I runned here without her. Let the mongrel go, she said. Good riddance to it.”

Lottie patted the girl’s back reassuringly, thinking that there were now two people she’d like to give a sound verbal drubbing to—the awful boy who had thrown a stone at poor Cat and Pandy’s nurse as well. How dare the woman be so unfeeling? Couldn’t she see how much the dog meant to the girl?

Cat had calmed down sufficiently from her race now—her tongue was lolling, and she was panting, sitting calmly on the gravel and watching Lottie with big brown eyes.

“That wasn’t very nice of Nurse at all,” Lottie said grimly. “I am glad that I was walking today.”

“I am too, Missus Lady.” Pandy released her and leapt to her feet, patting the top of Cat’s head with a chubby, gloved hand. “There’s a good lass, Cat. You need to apol-gize to Missus Lady Grenspell for knockin’ her to the ground.”

Just as Lottie was wondering how the dog might apol-gize , an older woman dressed in a plain dove-gray walking gown rounded the bend.

“Miss Pandora,” the woman scolded. “What manner of trouble have you found yourself in now?”

“Missus Lady Grenspell saved Cat,” Pandy told the nursemaid excitedly.

“Forgive me, my lady,” the nursemaid said. “The child is dreadfully ill-mannered. Her upbringing is coarse, I’m afraid. The mother was a common trollop who abandoned her.”

Lottie was appalled that the nursemaid would speak so ill of Pandy and her mother before her. “Madam, it does not behoove you to speak so plainly of such matters,” she informed her icily, wondering if the duke knew that his nursemaid was carrying tales to anyone who listened.

But the nursemaid had already turned her attention to Pandy, wagging a scolding finger at the girl as she scowled. “You are going to be punished for this, you rotten little imp. Nothing good comes of children born into sin. It’s what my mother always told me, and you’re proof of it.”

“Please not the rod,” Pandy pleaded.

Heaving herself to her feet, Lottie brushed off her gloves, finding them shredded, her hands bleeding and raw from the impact on the sharp gravel. But that scarcely mattered. What did matter was that the nursemaid before her, to whom the Duke of Brandon had entrusted his daughter’s care, had nearly lost her in Hyde Park and then had insulted her repeatedly. Worse, it would seem she had struck the poor child in the past and intended to do so again.

“You’ve earned it, miss,” the nursemaid snapped. “Running about the park like a wild creature, insisting upon bringing that flea-bitten mongrel…”

“Cat’s my dog, not no mongrel,” Pandy declared, tears glistening anew in her eyes. “I love her, and she loves me.”

By now, they had created quite a scene, and Lottie had heard and seen more than enough. “Of course she is your dog, my dear,” she told the girl, before pinning the nursemaid with a pointed glare. “I’m a friend of the duke’s, madam, and I do not think he will care to hear the report of what has happened here today.”

The nursemaid paled. “The girl will be punished for what she’s done, my lady. I assure you. There’s no need to speak with His Grace.”

“Judging from what I’ve heard, there is every need,” she said coolly. “Indeed, I think it best if Miss Pandora and Cat accompany me back to the duke’s town house in my carriage.”

“I can’t leave her in another’s charge,” the nursemaid protested.

“Yes, because you have taken such excellent care of her yourself,” she said, unable to keep the acid from her voice.

Not only had the woman been unkind and cruel to Pandy, but she had also clearly been striking the poor girl. If the Duke of Brandon didn’t sack his daughter’s nursemaid after learning of what had happened and what she’d said to Pandy, Lottie would personally box his ears.

Twice over.

Pandy threw her arms about Lottie’s skirts, clinging to her as best she could, given the voluminous nature of her promenade gown. Cat barked and then resumed panting, apparently still worn out from her adventures.

Lottie drew a protective arm around the child. “Pandy, would you and Cat like to come in my carriage with me?”

“Oh yes, Missus Lady Grenspell,” the girl declared. “Me and Cat wants t’go with you.”

Lottie glared at the nursemaid, daring her to defy her.

“As you wish, my lady,” the nursemaid relented, twin patches of color on her cheeks.

“Very good.” She took Pandy’s hand in hers, wincing when the child gripped her cut palm with excited pressure. “Come along, my dear. I’ll see you and Cat home.”

“Duke!”

Brandon was in the midst of reviewing the correspondence from the servants he had permanently installed at Wingfield Hall when his daughter’s cry echoed beyond his study, punctuated by three barks and a series of racing feet slapping the marble.

Where was her blasted nursemaid? He had warned the woman not to allow Pandy to race across the marble. She would slip and fall and crack open her head. Christ knew how many times he had done so as a lad when no one had been watching him. To say nothing of the many times he had slid down the railing of the grand staircase when he’d been alone. Once, he’d nearly broken his leg for his troubles. On another occasion, his neck. Fortunately, Pandy hadn’t discovered that dangerous source of entertainment just yet. Though, if she took after him at all, she would soon enough.

“Miss Pandora, do please walk,” cautioned a well-modulated lady’s voice that decidedly did not belong to Miss Partridge, the nursemaid.

No, this was a voice he recognized all too well, and not just because it made his stupid prick twitch to attention.

Lady Grenfell. What the devil was she doing here at his town house, and with Pandy?

He rose from his chair, frowning, gratified that his daughter’s footfalls had slowed. The dog barked again.

“And you must be a lady as well, Cat,” she cautioned the dog quite as if she were speaking to a human.

“Yes, Missus Lady Grenspell.”

“I told you that since we are friends, you are to call me Lottie, my dear.”

The voice was kind and warm, and it wrapped around his heart like a vise. Curse it, why was he eavesdropping in his own home, at his own study door? And mooning over the countess’s voice at that? He shuddered, disgusted with himself.

There was a small knock at his door that he recognized as well.

“Enter,” he called, trying to summon his composure.

The door burst open to admit Pandy, Cat, and an unsmiling Lady Grenfell presiding over them. She was predictably lovely in navy silk and…dust. Her cinnamon-gold hair had come partially free from her elaborate coiffure, and her hands were red and scraped.

He strode forward. “Lady Grenfell, what has happened?”

“Lottie saved Cat,” Pandy told him, adoration evident in her voice and eyes as she gazed up at the countess and continued with a breathless explanation of events. “A mean boy throwed a rock at Cat in the park, and Cat runned away. I loseded her leash. Miss Partridge telled me to let Cat go, that she has fleas. But I runned after her, and Missus Lady—Lottie—catched her and then she falled over ’n hurted herself on the stone path and Miss Partridge catched up to us and said she’d use the rod on me again. Don’t let her use the rod on me again, Duke. Please ?”

The rod.

The nursemaid was striking his child? Why did he not know this?

“That was rather a lot of information, Pandy girl,” he said gently, taking in the tear-streaked nature of her small, cherubic cheeks.

She’d been crying.

He wanted to tear the paper hangings from the damned walls until his fingers bled.

“Your Grace, I hope you’ll forgive me for overstepping my bounds and bringing your daughter and Cat here myself,” Lady Grenfell interjected. “However, after I ran across Pandy in Hyde Park, it was plain to see that my intervention was necessary.”

Dear God. He had never felt more like a failure in his life than he did in that moment.

“You are injured, madam,” he observed grimly.

“I am perfectly fine. A few mere scrapes. But I would like a word with you before I go, if you please.” She sent a telling glance in his daughter’s direction.

“Of course.” He moved to the bellpull, and when Shilling dutifully appeared, he asked the butler to have one of the chambermaids escort Pandy and Cat to the kitchen to see if Mrs. Willoughby had any treats to offer them. He also requested a wash basin, soap, and cloths.

The maid arrived posthaste, depositing the basin, soap, and cloths on his desk as he instructed, and whisking away Pandy and Cat. Pandy, pleased at the notion she might soon have her hands on one of Mrs. Willoughby’s sweet confections, waved gaily at Lottie as she took her leave.

“Thank you for saving Cat, Lottie!”

“Any time, my dear child,” Lottie told her with a fond smile and a wave of her own that served to remind Brandon of the injuries she’d sustained on his daughter’s behalf.

Or perhaps on behalf of his daughter’s dog named Cat.

Either way, the fault was his.

The door closed, leaving him alone with her.

“Come and have a seat, Lady Grenfell, whilst I tend to your hands.”

“I will see to them myself when I get home,” she countered, predictably stubborn.

“Nonsense. You were injured by helping my daughter. The least I can do is offer my aid.”

“I would like to speak with you about the nursemaid,” she insisted, frowning.

Deciding to take matters into his own hands, he caught her elbow in a gentle grasp and guided her toward his desk and the waiting basin and soap. “Speak as I work, then.”

Although she held herself stiffly, she allowed him to move her to the desk. “You must sack the woman, Brandon.”

He took up a cloth and wetted it in the basin. “Your hands, if you please.”

To his surprise, she didn’t argue, offering them palms up. “The nursemaid had allowed Pandy to run off after Cat on her own. Anything might have happened to her. What if she had found her way into the Rotten Row thoroughfare and been hit by a carriage?”

The very notion was incomprehensible. It made his gut clench and his heart tighten painfully. “I’m grateful you were there.”

Nascent guilt mingled with fear. He had selected the nursemaid. He had placed Pandy in her care. If anything had happened to his daughter today, the fault would have been his. Jesus, he was just as bloody terrible at being a father as his own sire had been. But there wasn’t time to dwell on his vast insufficiencies, for he had a countess to tend to.

Brandon settled on her right hand first, which had suffered more damage than the left. Angry red gashes marred her palm, and though the bleeding had stopped, the fall had clearly been a serious one.

“As am I. She said all manner of awful things by the time she caught up with us,” Lady Grenfell continued, hissing when he gently applied the damp cloth to her cuts and scrapes. “She told Pandy that she had been born from sin and that no good would come of her, and I do believe she has been striking the poor girl with a rod.”

Clenching his jaw, he scrubbed the cloth over the brick of Winters soap before bringing it back to Lady Grenfell’s waiting palm. Lightly, he dabbed, trying to cleanse the grit from her injuries as the floral scents of the soap rose. “I’ll be sacking her forthwith.”

“I’m relieved to hear it.” She made another sharp inhalation as he continued his ministrations.

“Forgive me,” he murmured. “I’m trying to be as gentle as I can.”

“It stings a bit. I am perfectly capable of seeing to the scrapes myself.”

“Yes, but you championed my daughter today,” he countered, trying not to allow their proximity to affect him, nor the way her hand felt in his, dainty and warm and soft and right, so blasted right. “You stopped Cat from running off, and you brought them both safely home to me. Furthermore, you informed me about the nursemaid, and I’m grateful to you. Cleaning the wounds you received because of all that is the least I can do.”

“It is wholly unnecessary,” she protested, but she allowed him to continue.

He finished with her right hand, wringing out the cloth in the bowl to rinse it before gently patting it dry. “I insist.” Brandon took up her left hand and cleansed it as well.

A heavy, almost companionable silence fell between them as he finished his task, blotting her left hand dry. Still holding her hand in his, he made the mistake of meeting her gaze. There was a small, plum-colored bruise on her cheek, he realized.

Without thought, he cupped her cheek, gently touching the bruise with his thumb. “You’ve a mark here.”

“Oh.” She winced as he brushed over the purple skin again. “I suppose I did strike the ground with my face after all. It was a most ignominious fall. Quite murderous on the pride.”

She was attempting to make a jest, but there was nothing funny or lighthearted about what had happened today, nor about the way he was feeling just now.

“Lottie,” he said roughly, her name torn from him.

He wanted nothing more than to kiss her. He couldn’t kiss her. He shouldn’t kiss her. He needed a wife and not the complication of a mistress. She didn’t want to marry. And yet the tenderness she had shown Pandy, the concern for her welfare…and the way she was looking at him now.

Ah, hell.

He was going to kiss her.

How could he not?

“I’m sorry you were hurt,” he said softly, his thumb stilling over the purpled flesh. “Your hands, your cheek, your pride.”

“All shall heal.” Her sky-blue gaze dipped to his mouth.

The desire that had never been far from the surface brazened forth, roaring like an uncontrollable fire. Do not kiss her , he admonished himself sternly. Do not dally with this woman. You need a bride.

And the widowed Countess of Grenfell had made it more than clear she wasn’t it. But he didn’t want a wife, and that was the trouble. In this moment, he wanted nothing so much as he wanted her . Her with her wild red hair, her audacious ways, her staunch defending of his daughter, her mesmerizing blue eyes, the freckles that gilded her nose, calling for his lips…

“If you don’t move away from me, I’m going to kiss you,” he warned Lottie.

She didn’t go anywhere. Just stayed there, still and tempting, her eyes like twin pools of endless sky, burning into him.

“Lottie,” he said again. “Last chance.”

Suddenly, she did move. But it wasn’t to leap away from him. Instead, she grasped a handful of his necktie and pulled him into her, her mouth hard and hot and open on his. With a growl, he hauled her into him, kissing her back with all the yearning he’d been attempting to control.

Her name was an absolution, singing through his mind, his blood.

Lottie.

Lottie.

Lottie.

She tasted sweeter than he remembered, her lips lush and full beneath his, her tongue invading his mouth just as she had stormed into his town house. As if she belonged there. And God, it felt like she did, her sweet perfume surrounding him in a haze of sensual delight, her breasts crushing into his chest, her fingers sifting through his hair. She kissed him as if she wanted to devour him, and he kissed her in kind, spinning them about so that her bustle pressed into his desk and she was trapped between his body and the immovable carved mahogany at her back.

He ravished her mouth, starved for her, this magnificent woman he couldn’t stop wanting, no matter how hard he tried. But kisses were woefully insufficient. He needed more. Needed her completely undone for him, crying out his name in helpless abandon as she came. He gave her his tongue, and she sucked on it, making a low sound of need that went straight to his ballocks.

The hand that had been holding his neckcloth in a fervent grasp moved, gliding down his chest, over his abdomen, perilously near to the waistband of his trousers. His cock arrowed upward, straining against his falls, needing her hand on him, just needing .

As if she’d read his mind, those nimble fingers found the buttons on his waistband, plucking them from their moorings one by one until his trousers opened. She slid her hand inside the slit in his drawers, wrapping her fingers around his cock and giving him a decadent stroke from root to tip.

He groaned into her mouth, their tongues dueling, their breathing ragged. It hadn’t been his intention to ravish her in his study in exchange for protecting his daughter today, but here he was. And there was no denying that she wanted him every bit as much as he desired her. She tipped her head back, breaking the fusion of their mouths, her lips kiss-swollen and dark red, moving her hand up and down his shaft in a tantalizing rhythm that had his hips jerking as if he were a green youth enjoying his first frantic frigging. He wasn’t, of course. But he didn’t remember the last time he’d been so desperate to be inside a woman.

Maybe never.

She swirled her thumb over his crown, and he forgot what day it was. Forgot everything that wasn’t her.

“I want you,” she murmured, her voice throaty and low. “Now, here.”

Sweet God, no. He couldn’t. Could he?

Her grasp on his cock tightened.

Yes, he decided. He most certainly could.

Brandon planted his hands on her waist and lifted her to his desk. He’d forgotten about the wash basin. Her tournure knocked into it, sending water raining to the Axminster. He’d deal with that later. For now, he caught a fistful of silk and petticoats and lifted it, his hand finding the silken recess behind her knee, higher to the curve of her thigh, tantalizing him through her fine drawers.

“You’re sure?” he asked hoarsely, some dim part of his brain still functioning sufficiently to recall that he ought to be a gentleman and give her the opportunity to change her mind.

That a frantic fuck on a desk was likely not what she had intended this afternoon any more than it was what he had planned.

With the hand that wasn’t tormenting his cock, she reached for his, bringing it between her parted thighs. “I’m certain.”

Wetness kissed his fingertips as she pressed his hand to her hot, silken quim. He took her mouth again, finding the tender nub of her pearl and teasing her. She was so slick, so ready for him. He sank a finger deep, her inner muscles clenching hungrily on him, and both of them moaned as one. Her thumb slicked the mettle seeping from him over his cock head, and she nipped at his lower lip, the stinging pain mingling with pleasure.

Damn. If she didn’t stop, he was going to spend in her hand.

He jerked his mouth from hers and withdrew his finger from the hot clutch of her velvety cunny.

“Hold up your hems,” he ordered her, his voice hoarse.

She released her hold on his cock and did as he asked, grasping her voluminous navy skirts to her waist. He was treated to the decadent sight of her deliciously curved calves encased in silk stockings above her embroidered boots, a lacy, almost transparent pair of drawers clinging to her luscious thighs above, trimmed in ribbons. But what he wanted to see most remained hidden by the spurious fabric.

“Wider,” he said. “I want to see you.”

Wordlessly, she obeyed, her legs parting more fully, the split in her drawers gaping to reveal the glistening pink heart of her. Her scent, musky and feminine, blended with roses and violets, thoroughly intoxicating. He wanted to bury his face between her legs and lick her until she came. But he also wanted to sink his cock inside her and fuck her until they both came.

A dilemma.

His head was filled with fire and few thoughts. Words, reasoning, ration…beyond him, all of it. There was only action. Seizing. Claiming. If he only had her once, he wanted to know what she tasted like.

Brandon dropped to his knees, hands framing her hips, and took her clitoris in his mouth, sucking hard.

The sound of her breath fleeing her lungs gratified him, but not as much as the needy tip of her hips as she thrust herself more firmly into his face. Yes, this was what he needed. Although, in a different time and space, he’d have preferred her to sit on his face so that he could recline and fully enjoy devouring her. This, however, would have to suffice.

He laved her with his tongue, licking up and down her seam, then found her entrance and delved deep into the honeyed recesses he was about to fill with his aching cock. She writhed and said his name, and he rewarded her by returning to her swollen bud, licking and sucking with renewed abandon until she stiffened and cried out, shuddering against his mouth as she reached her pinnacle. Damn, he loved the way she tasted. He could lose himself in nothing more than pleasuring her with his mouth.

But his rampaging cock had other ideas.

Swiftly he rose to his feet, licking his wet lips to savor her as he grasped his cock, rubbing himself up and down her folds until he was coated in her dew. He took a moment to drink in the sight of Lottie on his desk, sated and lost in her passion, her customary thorns momentarily stripped. Her head was back, her eyes heavy-lidded and glazed with passion, her cheeks flushed.

“Inside me,” she demanded.

And she didn’t have to tell him twice. Brandon aligned himself with her center. She released her hems to grasp his shoulders, but it didn’t matter. His body was holding them in place now. He cupped her nape and took her mouth in a fiery kiss, feeding her the taste of herself on his tongue as he sank inside her body with one swift thrust.

And sweet Lord, it was glorious.

She was snug, wrapped around him in pulsing heat, her legs locked about his waist. For a moment, he could do nothing more than remain as he was, consumed by the sheer bliss of being planted deep within her. He wished he had a mirror properly positioned so that he could have the pleasure of watching as he fucked her, their bodies moving rhythmically together.

But there was no mirror, only the two of them, their bodies one, her breasts surging into his chest, their mouths fused. Needing to move, he withdrew almost entirely, still kissing her, their lips never parting, before sliding deep. Slowly, he began a rhythm that was agonizing and yet incredible, savoring the warm glide of his cock in and out of her grasping sheath.

Slowly enough to torture them both.

Lottie apparently grew impatient.

She tore her lips from his as he pumped into her with agonizing care. “Faster, Brandon,” she demanded, breathless.

But the more she wanted him to hasten his pace, the more he, perversely, wanted to take his time. To pleasure her slowly, until they were both delirious with wanting. He buried his face in her throat, inhaling deeply of her scent, finding her racing pulse with his tongue.

“Damn you,” she ground out, her nails biting into his shoulders. “More.”

He chuckled and kissed his way to her ear. “Patience, sweet Lottie.”

Then he slid his hand to the place where they were joined, his fingers finding her pearl and teasing her until she bucked and gasped, shuddering around him as she climaxed again. But he wasn’t finished. Not until he wrung every drop of pleasure from her that he possibly could. He licked the hollow behind her ear, plunging deeper now, faster, her cunny so slippery that the wet sounds of their lovemaking echoed around them. Somehow, her head slipped to his shoulder, and he felt the mark of her teeth through his coat and shirtsleeves.

He bit her earlobe and pinched her clitoris at the same time, and she gave a little scream, shaking against him as she tightened on his cock with so much force, she almost pushed him from her body. He continued keeping her pearl in his hold, feeling it throb between his forefinger and thumb for just another moment until he released her finally. Surging in and out, he pressed his face to her temple, fucking her hard and deep and then, at the last moment, forcing himself to withdraw, shooting creamy ropes of spend all over her silk drawers.

Blood rushing in his ears, his vision speckled with black stars from the force of his release, Brandon collapsed against Lottie and the desk, breathing harsh, heart pounding. Belatedly, he realized that his shoes were soaked through and there was a puddle on his carpet. But he didn’t give a damn.

Because for the moment, he had her pliant and warm in his arms, and everything in his tumultuous world felt inexplicably—if fleetingly— right .