A sound which had him strangling on his excitement, forcing his buttocks back to the bed. Couldn’t go scaring her off. Not when she gazed up at him and deliberately did it again. “Mmmmmmm.”
“God, Thea!” burst from him as his loins started shaking and one of his blunt nails pierced right through his bed sheets.
After a silent but fierce pull that curled his toes, she eased back. Running her thumb over the purpling head, she shot him a mischievous glance. “Appears I can assume you find that rather to your liking.” Her fingers tightened around his shaft. “Then aren’t you the fortunate one? For I’ve been practicing.”
Practicing?
With a gleeful laugh, she took the crown back inside her mouth. Lips closed firmly around the corona, fingers snug on his staff, Thea answered his unspoken question in the most spectacular way.
“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…”
And Daniel died and went to heaven.
He woke early the next morning, long before the light of dawn met the day, his body sated and heavy, his mind a jumble of so many erotic images it was hard to settle on just one.
Thea loving him with her mouth.
Thea stopping just when he moaned, a ragged sound that told her the end was near.
Thea gliding over him until she kissed his lips, slanting her body until her feminine depths were within reach.
Thea, her hot and moist center enticing him inside, sliding so snugly around him that he’d never felt more at home.
Thea, whispering to him later as she rode above him and his hands tightened on the cheeks of her arse, dipping between a time or two, “We can do it there. If it would please you,” and while his cock rejoiced and his heart cracked, she brought her chest to his, kissed beneath his ear and added, “Sometime soon, I’m thinking, but just not tonight.”
Thea, the woman whose warm flesh hugged him skin to skin, no barriers—no preventative nor lies—in the way. It felt so natural, so right, being intimate with her without anything between them that Daniel never thought to question the lack. That told him something right there.
Told him he was bewitched. And not by one of Ellie’s little spells, but by the sweet siren who uttered his name in a soft, silken voice. “Tonight, strong Daniel, I want to revel in loving you without any cumbersome uncertainties or self-doubts weighing me down. Time enough for another new amorous adventure in the future, hmm?”
Dazed, he nodded. Anything she wanted, anything. He wanted to be the one to provide it. Any—
“But I would like for you to touch me there, deeper. As you did at the opera. Ah…mmm.” When his finger greeted her anus, she gave a little cry and her loins surged against his just before the hot wash of her release bathed his shaft in wonder.
A huge, replete sigh heaved from him.
Never mind that the orgasm he recalled occurred hours ago, he still felt it in every pore of his being.
Thea, who’d made his dreams—ones he hadn’t even been aware of—possible. Fact.
Thea, whom he loved and wanted for his own. It was time to tell her. Out loud.
Shaking off the drugging vestiges of sleep, Daniel blinked and rolled toward her: Thea, his love.
Thea. Who was gone.
5
A Fan – or Two – Whips up a Flurry
A short while earlier…
It was still night when she woke. Dark beyond the edges of the curtains in Lord Tremayne’s bedchamber.
Apprehension marked this particular occasion—because unlike the previous times she’d dozed and awoke, this time morning approached. She felt it with a foreboding in her bones.
Morning, which brought harsh, unavoidable realities with it.
Morning. Bah.
She’d growl if she could, for once it arrived, ’twould not do for her to be found in the master’s bed. Nay, not when she was his mistress, a female relegated to a small and precise role in his life. One who had no right to be here.
Oh, but Daniel’s breathing was steady, his warmth stretched out alongside hers divine, and Thea wanted nothing more than to linger.
A serene smile curved her lips. At least she’d finally spent the night in his arms. Only she’d never imagined it would be in his bed!
A sigh huffed gently from his lips, his breath brushing the top of her head and Thea’s smile grew. In the next moment, his sleep-husked, nonsensical murmur met her ears as his arms tightened around her—almost as though, even in sleep, he sensed her intention to depart.
She willed her muscles to unclench, to sink deeper into his embrace and savor every second.
She’d slept in the same bed with Mr. Hurwell over two thousand two hundred nights—she’d calculated the depressing number at some point during the sixth year of their marriage. Yet after little more than a single full night, little less than a week total, she knew more genuine caring from the slumbering man holding her now than she ever had from her spouse.
But she had no time to wonder what dreams might be wandering through his mind, what recollections or regrets from the night. No time to ponder the number of minutes until daybreak. Nay, for before the household brimmed with activity, she intended to be back where she belonged.
The stunning ruby tucked beneath her bodice, stays laced as best she could manage in near silence—and by herself—Thea slipped out Lord Tremayne’s bedroom door. Best she began thinking of him as she ought, save “Daniel” for the bedchamber. “Lord Tremayne”, she reminded herself, was her protector—a man who paid for the privilege of using her body.
Paid generously and isn’t the privilege all yours? some inner imp taunted.
Wall sconces lit the corridor and guided her toward the stairs. Fresh beeswax candles. What a luxury and how quickly she’d grown used to them herself. Such a departure from the candleless black nights she’d endured in
