Chapter 18

Quinton kissed like a man possessed, but Lottie hadn’t gotten a good enough glimpse of him, naked and large, before he’d toppled over her. She wanted—no, needed—to see what Lord Noble looked like without his finely fitted attire. Yes, after tomorrow, she’d have every opportunity to view him as he was now. Flame-lit skin and bunched muscles, and lips hungry on her everywhere they could reach. But this was the first time, and she wanted to memorize every bit of him so that tomorrow, standing before their families and God in St. George’s, the both of them starched and prim and proper, she would think of this, of him, stripped before her, giving her all of him.

She flattened her palm against his chest, muscled and heavy, and pushed until he gave way, wild whisky eyes glowing with desire and the slightest bit of irritation.

“Merriweather?” More growl than question.

“Stand, if you please.”

A true growl then.

“I want to see you as you’ve seen me.”

The corner of his lip quirked up, and he pulled away from her, cold air rushing between their bodies making her regret her decision, his compliance. But then he stood tall before her—lock of hair falling over his forehead, Noble Smirk firmly in place, shoulders strong, chest magnificent, muscled planes, his abdomen a ripple of hard slabs honed by whatever manly pursuits he did. All of them, it seemed—riding, fencing, boxing, lifting her up and settling her on tabletops before… a moan rose up in her. She followed that line of muscle to where it narrowed between his strong, thick legs. And she found another sort of strong, thick appendage between them. She gave her moan, impossible to control now, to the air.

This was what she’d been wondering about, searching for—two bodies exploring each other with delight and abandon. No shame, no fear. Just discovery and pleasure.

“Have you looked your fill?” he asked.

She nodded, incapable of words.

“Do you have further instructions for me?”

How could she speak, her throat tight with lust? But she managed “Here.”

He obliged once more, sliding his body across her, until every bit of his skin seemed to press against every bit of hers. His hand cupping her breast, his lips nibbling the curve of her neck, her jaw, his other hand tangling in her hair, sending tendrils of pleasure coursing through her as he tugged it gently. His hands never stayed in one place too long. Just as his tongue could shift from one insult to another when they sparred, so too could his hands move nimbly, quickly, from one moment of joy to another, smoothing over her waist, slipping into the hollow between her lower back and the mattress, cupping her backside, squeezing so that she wrapped her arms and legs around him tight with a sound half moan, half mirth.

He chuckled low near her ear, and she felt it rumble in his chest. To be so near him that she could feel his feelings… she’d never imagined, never hoped.

Incandescently happy. Could she make such a feeling last forever?

When he slipped his hand between her leg, circling her nub, then slipping a finger, two, inside her body, he murmured, “You’re wet again, Lottie love. So easily aroused.”

With him, she always felt aroused, a never-ending state of being. Inconvenient, like him, but in this moment—perfection.

“God, you’re perfect, Lottie.” He slipped down her body, set his mouth to her breast, licked and sucked and teased until she arched beneath him. “Every bit of you, curved and beautiful. I’ll never be done exploring you.” He dragged his teeth, his lips, between her breasts and down her belly to her navel, lower.

She knew where they journeyed together. He had been there before. But he had spoken of exploration, and she had not even begun that yet. Palm to chest once more, she pushed him, sat up, grasped his shoulders, and nudged him sideways. Becoming clay for her to mold as she pleased, he eased to the side, turning them both until he lay on his back, and she straddled him. The spark of curiosity deepened to satisfaction, and his hands found her hips, settled there, warm and firm.

“What will you do now?” he asked, the smirk quirking into place. The Noble Smirk had always been a look of infuriating superiority in the past. She’d seen in it his disapproval, his disdain. Now she understood its true meaning, what it had meant all along—a challenge. For her alone.

“Touch you. Explore you. Now, be still, Chance.”

“Or?”

She tapped her lip. “I’ll have to think on that. Just know. The consequences will be—”

He squeezed her hips. “Delightful?”

She shook her head.

“Delicious?” he suggested.

She lifted a brow.

“Erotic.”

She tapped his nose, dragged her index finger over his chiseled lips. “Unimaginable.”

“Oh, Lottie love, you underestimate my imagination.” He rose up to kiss her deeply on the lips, the meeting of their mouths a soft sigh, his arms so sweetly gentle around her that she almost could not bear to break the embrace.

Almost.

She pressed him back down to the mattress and sat up once more, drawing her knuckles down the length of his neck. How could it be so strong? No wonder men kept their necks hidden. The mere sight of it made her mouth dry. As she caressed it, his Adam’s apple bobbed, a swallow. Could such a small gesture unman him? She glanced at his face, found his gaze blazing. Apparently, it could.

The muscles of his shoulders were hard, the skin covering them soft, a celebration of contraries that continued down his body: hard muscle, velvet skin, crisp hair, all of it trailing toward his shaft, jutting up between them. So many things she wished to do with this body, with the mind, and hear inside it, teasing and taunting her. More contradictions. The mind of the man teased Merriweather, but the body of the man worshiped Lottie love.

She smiled.

“That expression does not bode well for me.” His voice sounded raw, like grated stone.

“It’s only, I’ve never seen a male body in real life before.”

His hands on her hips squeezed, stayed tight for a blissfully painful moment when fingertips dug into skin, muscle, bone.

“It’s much warmer and bigger,” she continued, “better.”

“Glad to please you.”

She curved over him—her hair falling like a golden curtain and closing out the world—and placed a kiss to the tip of his shaft, closed her hand around it as she placed one hand on his chest. He hissed, his hips bucking up. She stroked her hand up, down.

“Thank God for your books,” he hissed.

“Because they’ve made me brazen in bed?”

“Because you dropped one, and now you’re mine.” His hands slipped lower, cupped her arse, stayed there, possessive and perfect. “I don’t know if…” He looked away, his profile stark against the white of the sheets. “I would have had the courage… to take you without that accident.”

Still she stroked, up and down, learning that he felt different from she’d imagined a man would feel. So hot, so powerful, and yet his tight jaw, his averted gaze—so vulnerable too. All his power poured into her hands. She squeezed as she moved her hand lightly and brushed her thumb over the head of his shaft, enjoying his groan, his arch, his hands on her backside.

Then she leaned low and whispered in his ear, “Do you have the courage to take me now?”

His head snapped forward, the fireplace flames leaping into his eyes as his hands spanned her waist, and in one quick jerk, he lifted her, placed her entrance over his shaft. Yes. She wanted this, needed it. Together they guided him inside her, slowly, taking time, gazes locked in certainty.

“Is it too much?” he asked.

She shook her head. Sank lower onto him, spreading her legs wider. He surged upward, wrapped one large hand around the back of her head and kissed her so hard, so demanding, she forgot the coming together of their bodies, sank into the perfect heat of his hips, grasping at his hair. God, she loved his hair. And then he was in her up to the hilt and moving, rocking against her, his free hand teasing her nipple as he released her from the kiss and fell back to the bed with an exultant grin.

“You can’t… resist… my kiss,” he said between heavy breaths, rolling his hips up into her. “Makes you forget… everything.”

“True.” Why deny it. “What now?”

“You do not know?”

“I know this but… not the details of how to go about it.”

“You’re missing details?” His fingertips trailed up her ribs, across the sensitive undersides of her breasts. “I’ve got those.” A wicked flash in his eyes. “Up and down, Lottie love.”

She rose up a bit, then lowered. “Like this?”

“Yes.” His hand hot at her waist, the other squeezing her breast. “Again.”

She obliged. But she could give orders too.

“I want,” she breathed, “both your hands on my breasts.”

No hesitation. She asked, and he obeyed, and that sent ripples of pleasure up her spine.

Her spine. She wanted him there, too. “Draw your fingers up my back, down my spine.”

He did, palms flat smoothing upward, fingertips dancing downward.

“My hair,” she demanded.

He tangled his hands in the hair at her nape and tugged her down for a searing kiss.

She popped back up, breathless like a drowning woman, throwing her head back. “Touch me there.”

He knew her meaning, finding the spot of burning need between her legs and brushing, circling, teasing. Heat rushed up her body, across every inch of her skin.

He chuckled, his hand still working cleverly between her legs. “Bloody adorable.”

She didn’t want to be adorable; she wanted to be wanton, for him to see her as the seductress she’d been trying to be. She moved faster on top of him, throwing her head back, arching on a moan. The sound seemed to make him harder, all parts of him, inside and outside of her body, became stone.

And suddenly she felt too open on top of him, too vulnerable. She leaned over him, kissed him hard, and begged, “I want under you.”

He gathered her up in strong arms, and she clung to him as he flipped her, pinned her to the mattress with a single, hard thrust.

His kiss pinned her too, and he spoke into her mouth, their breaths mingling. “A woman who knows what she wants.” Another hard kiss. “Is the only woman for me.” He thrust into her again, one hand cradling her head and the other working between their bodies to pitch the sensations spinning through her body higher.

They did not have much higher to go before a scream shot from her lips, and she arched her hips up hard to meet his. She trembled everywhere, breaking, breaking, biting her bottom lip to swallow more cries as he pumped faster and faster, kissing, caressing, soothing and mending everywhere he’d shattered her with pleasure. And then his body broke, too, thrusting into her one last time as he cried her name with a voice raw and riotous.

He dropped his forehead to hers, his body poised hard and heavy atop her as the gentle waves rocking through her found him, too, pulling them both down. How long did they stay that way? Tangled together in every way a man and woman could be, eyes open, chests pressed together so closely their heartbeats had become one? She dared not move, unwilling to break the bond, but he did not share the same fear, it seemed.

He rolled off her, glanced around, took In what she did—they were sideways on the bed, entirely naked, feet hanging off. He crawled to the top of the bed, pulled the blankets down, nodded for her to join him. They slipped between the blankets together, and he pulled her against him, her back to his front, his lips against her temple, grazing kisses there.

“Do you find it distasteful?” she asked, a sudden question developing in her mind as each word rolled off her tongue.

“Find… what distasteful? Nothing we just did, certainly.”

“That I know what I want.” She tried not to pick at the hem of the blanket gathered up under her arms.

He snorted. “Hardly. Did you not hear me?” A smack of a kiss to the back of her shoulder. “I find it almost disturbingly perfect. Everything about you is perfect.” The words, mumbled against the top of her head, held a note of worry, nonetheless.

“Tomorrow, we wed,” she said, feeling slightly better than she had been feeling moments before. “Are you sure I have not bullied you into it?”

“You would be upset if you had?”

“Yes, actually. I do not wish to force you.” Now she did pick at the hem of the blanket. Curses. She wrapped it up in tight fists.

“You were quite forceful mere moments ago. And I hope for many such moments in the future.”

She turned and kissed his lips, then trailed little kisses down his chin, down his throat and across his chest, pressing a final kiss to that spot where she felt his heart beat. She laid her cheek against it, set her breathing to it.

“And you liked it,” she said with a sigh.

“Exactly. I cannot be bullied into anything, Lottie. When I say I want you, that I am glad we ended up here, where we’ll be tomorrow, it is the truth. And if you doubt me, I’ll have to lock you up until you no longer do.”

“Oh, well then. Since you say that, I’m afraid my doubt is quite wide and deep. I will take much convincing. That room where you plan to lock me up… is it quite comfortable? Big bed? Big tub?”

“Minx.” He rolled her beneath him.

“You love it.” She grinned.

“I do.”

And she worried that might be the closest to I love you, she’d ever get from him.