“Ending our ridiculous fight against fate,” she said.
She took in a sharp breath as he peeled the yellow layers of her gown down to her waist and left her nearly revealed to him. Only her chemise separated them, and she could already feel his body heat burning through the thin sheath of cotton.
“Fate?” He lifted his eyes to meet hers again. She was lost in their depths for a long moment before she found the power to speak.
“Isn’t that why we were brought back together after all these years apart?” she asked, pushing a stray lock of dark blond hair from his eyes. “Isn’t that why neither one of us can stay away from each other despite all the good reasons why we should?”
Griffin took in a long, shuddering breath as he brought his mouth against the hollow of her throat and began a slow trail downward.
“I don’t believe in fate.” His words reverberated off the lacy edging of her chemise.
She couldn’t answer as his hot mouth moved lower, clamping around the taut peak of her nipple and suckling there through the cloth.
“Then…” she gasped. “Then believe I want you. I need you.”
“I believe that,” he said, pausing in his sensual torture to look up. A grin flashed white teeth at her, then his mouth returned to its torment.
Closing her eyes, Audrey relaxed in his arms and let him hold her as he kissed and caressed her in ways she’d never imagined, despite Hannah’s explanations. Cold words were nothing compared to the way Griffin swirled his tongue over her breast, pulling the tight bead of her nipple in and out of his mouth.
“God, you taste so sweet.” He looped his fingers under one strap of her chemise and pulled the whole contraption down around her waist to bunch with her dress. “Better than I’d imagined.”
A wash of pleasure worked through her not just at his mouth returning to her now naked flesh, but at his words. Griffin had imagined this, just as she had. He wanted her, not just any woman in his bed, but
Griffin stifled a moan as he trailed his hand down Audrey’s body, reveling in how smooth and soft her skin was under his rough palm and in the way she arched up with innocent desire to meet his touch. When he found the hem of her skirt, he began inching the gown up, revealing smooth calves that tensed under his fingertips. Further up, he touched the garter of her silk stocking. In one smooth motion, he unfastened one, then the other.
Audrey’s little gasp made him smile against her skin, though it was a reminder of her innocence. Despite his body’s demands, he would go slowly with her, give her as much pleasure as he could.
Massaging his hands along the lines of her thighs, he pushed apart the opening of her thin, muslin drawers to touch the core of the desire he was kindling. As he expected, Audrey stiffened at this new invasion and struggled to sit up.
“I won’t hurt you.” He pressed a hot kiss against her mouth. When he leaned back he saw her wide eyes had drooped back to half-closed and her bated breaths slowed.
“I trust you,” she said. “You only surprised me.”
With a soft laugh, Griffin whispered, “You’ve many surprises in store for you, then.”
A small smile turned up her lips as she wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled his mouth down to meet hers. The kiss they shared was gentle at first, then grew more heated as the half moons of her fingernails pressed into the planes of his back. Griffin groaned as his hand tightened around her thigh. With a little sigh, she relaxed and her legs fell open a fraction.
The movement gave Griffin enough room to return his fingers to her slick opening, first just teasing the outside so she would be accustomed to his touch, then plunging one finger inside where she tightened against him in surprise and pleasure.
“Is it supposed to feel like this?” she whispered as she rested her head against his shoulder.
“How does it feel?” He could scarcely breathe wheneHewhen she began to match the rhythm of his teasing fingertips with her hips.
“Hot…” she breathed. “Like there’s pressure building…”
“Good?” He brushed his lips against hers very gently to let her hot breath warm his face.
With a little cry she arched against him as her muscles quivered in release. Then she relaxed and for a moment said nothing, just lay in his arms with her eyes closed. Slowly, she opened one eye and gazed up at him.
“Very good,” she whispered. “But I know that wasn’t all of it.”
Griffin laughed despite the hard, insistent need throbbing between his legs. “Do you?”
She smiled as the slightest flush darkened her cheeks. “There are advantages of having a former lady of the evening as one’s maid.”
Audrey smiled as Griffin’s eyes widened. There didn’t seem to be any need to explain her comment further. He understood she knew about physical joining in theory, if not practice.
Sitting up, she shifting her position until she straddled his lap. Her body was still trembling from the powerful release he’d given her, but she sensed he could give her so much more.
He leaned up to kiss her. “This will be very painful if we start this way.”
“I don’t care.” Resting her forehead against his, she measured her breaths until they matched his. “I want to do this.”
“I think we should…” he began, but stopped with a throaty moan when Audrey let her hand move between them to touch the hot length of him. Even through his trousers she could feel the hard thrust of muscle.
As curious as she was excited, she began to work open the buttons, sliding each one free until he was splendidly revealed to her. With a nervous smile, she edged back and looked at the stiff thrust of muscle arching proudly before her. Audrey had never seen a naked man, but Griffin was a fine specimen to begin with. His erection stood at attention from the thatch of curly, dark blond hair between his thighs.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, reaching down to touch it. She was surprised how soft his skin was and how hot. Even more amazing was how he rose up to meet her with a soft groan. “You’re beautiful.”
It was true. Even disheveled, his white shirt cockeyed over his shoulders and his trousers open around his hips, every line of him was perfection. Like the statues she’d seen when she and her brother traveled on the continent. Somehow she’d always pictured them as gods, not close to what a real man would look like. But Griffin was hard as the granite they’d been carved in. Only better. Griffin was real.
Griffin was hers.
Slowly she slid her fingers over the head and down the shaft of his penis, mesmerized by his reaction. Closing his eyes, he tipped his head back and shivered. She realized his expression was very much like the way she must have looked when he’d pleasured her with his hands.
The memory inflamed her body. Sliding forward, she carefully positioned herself before she lowered herself onto him. The sensation of their joining was strange, but not unpleasant.
“This will be better if we do it quickly,” Griffin promised, then gripped her hips and tugged her down as he thrust upwards.
Audrey gasped at the sharp pain when he filled her completely. She shut her eyes to it and held his shoulders with all her strength.
“I’m sorry.” He reached up to push the hair back from her face.
She moved a little. “No. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Though she felt tender, the pain was gone. Out of some kind of instinct, she began to move over him. The rhythm Griffin had begun with his hands earlier, she mimicked now. Back and forth, in and out until she felt herself coming to the edge of a precipice. But instead of fearing the fall, she craved it.
In an explosion of light and sensation, her body quivered with release and she held Griffin against her with a cry he muffled with his mouth. He moaned with her, spilling himself inside her as he pulled her closer, closer… until she wondered if it would be possible to melt into him and truly become one.
For what seemed like an eternity neither of them moved, though it must have been just a few moments. Finally, with a little sigh, Audrey moved away from him and sat back down on her side of the carriage seat.
“Thank you.” She reached under her skirt to adjust her drooping stockings and rearrange her twisted and mangled under things.
Griffin wrinkled his brow as he refastened his trousers and smoothed his blond hair back into place. With a
