An Affair in Winter (Seasons Book 1) (22 page)

She was silent as she slipped past the space next to him at the doorway. She said nothing as she took his hand and led him back inside.

He shut the door. He knew what it meant to do so and he still did it. She wound her fingers through his, leaning in until her body brushed his. She lifted to her tiptoes and kissed him. He shut his eyes with a shuddering breath and just sank into the feeling of her soft lips brushing his. He wanted so much to have this. To have her.

Even if he knew it was yet again, a stolen moment. And that was all they’d ever have in the end. Moments that hadn’t belonged to them. If this was to be the last, then he was going to take it.

He caught her upper arms, not tightly, gently, letting his thumbs brush over the soft cotton of her robe, feeling her arms tense beneath. He deepened the kiss, opening to her tongue, meeting her with his, tasting the sweetness of her and memorizing it as best he could.

They backed together toward his bed, and he shivered. It had been a long time since he’d been able to take his time with her. Tonight he intended to do just that.

He broke the kiss and backed up, looking at her in the dim light of his dying fire. She smiled, just the slightest expression, and he was lost. He was hers.

He never wanted to be anyone else’s. But he squashed that thought and instead reached out to untie her robe. When he parted the fabric, he gasped. She was naked beneath. Utterly, beautifully and completely naked.

“Rosalinde?” he groaned.

She smiled again. “If I found the courage to knock on your door, I couldn’t leave without having you. I knew I couldn’t. If you refused, this was to be my ammunition.”

“I can’t refuse you,” he whispered as he leaned in to brush his lips along the column of her throat. “You should know that by now. Even when I should, I can’t.”

She shuddered when he pushed her robe away, but as soon as her arms were free, she lifted them around his neck, leaning into him with a shuddering sigh. Surrender was in her body, on her lips, in her taste, and he took it gladly.

“Won’t Celia notice you’re gone?” he asked.

She shook her head. “She’s asleep. I can’t talk about her now. Later, later we must. But right now I want you. You and only you. I want you to make the rest go away.”

His brow wrinkled, for there was a soft desperation to her words, her tone, her expression. And it mimicked his own. Like her, he wanted to forget everything else, all the decisions he had to make. She was the only one capable of such a thing.

So he shut down his mind, shut down his arguments and kissed her once more. Everything else was silent. Silent as he tasted her, molding her to him by gliding both his hands to the curve of her naked backside. Silent when he somehow forced a space between them to unbutton his shirt.

Silent when she shed that same shirt and stared at his bare chest.

“The first time I saw you like this,” she whispered, staring at the plane of muscles, “I wondered if you were real. I wondered what I had done to deserve you wanting me.”

He laughed softly. “You deserved it by being extraordinary and undeniable. By being Rosalinde Wilde.”

She lifted her gaze to his face. “I want to give you pleasure, Gray. I want that so much.”

“You already have,” he assured her, reaching up to touch her face with the back of his hand. “Every time I look at you or touch you or taste you, it is pleasure beyond imagining.”

“Not like that,” she said, her cheeks flaming. “A different kind of pleasure.”

His eyes widened. “Rosalinde, are you saying you want to—”

She nodded even as she made a strangled sound. “I want to taste you.”

He swallowed. Most ladies did not wish such a thing. But this was no average lady. This was sweet and passionate Rosalinde, who, as Celia had said, led with her heart in all things. Gave of herself completely.

And he selfishly wanted to take. To let everything good about her bleed into his empty spaces until he was somehow whole again.

He let his trembling hands drop to his trouser waist and unfastened the rough fabric. She slid her hands beneath, her hands warm on his flesh. He hissed out pleasure as she shoved the trousers away and left him as naked as she was.

“Sit?” she asked, motioning him to the soft chair near the fire.

He moved toward it, taking his seat without looking away from her. She drew in a long breath, like she was readying herself, and then slowly moved to her knees before him. She scooted forward, forcing him to open his legs, to create a space for her to rest.

And then they froze. Her gaze was locked on his, her cheeks were flushed, her hands shaking as her fingers moved on him. He waited, not breathing, not thinking, not focused on anything but how she closed her fist around his already hard and ready length.

They both eased out a long breath at the touch, and Gray couldn’t help when his eyes fluttered shut. She began to gently pump her hand over him, her grip just right, her movements perfect. Already he felt close to spending and she had just begun. He tried to think of other things, to wait, but he felt her hot breath on the sensitive head of his erect cock and he couldn’t help but moan.

“Rosalinde,” he began, uncertain what to say, whether to warm her off or order her to take him.

She took the decision from his hands swiftly enough when her lips closed over him and her tongue swept the thick length of him gently.

He made a low sound deep in his chest that was hardly human, hardly recognizable, and he felt her smile against him as he opened his eyes. She was looking up at his face even as she lowered her mouth over him, sucking until his vision blurred.

She was not practiced in this, he could tell. But it was incredible despite her innocence. Or perhaps because of it. She was driven to pleasure him, to do this even though it was foreign. That was how much she wanted him, how much she cared.

He deserved far less, but he greedily took more, tangling his fingers into her dark hair as she moved her mouth more quickly over him, around him. His balls were beginning to tighten, his seed flashing hot through him. He was going to come and he didn’t want it to be this way. Not this time. He wanted to be inside of her, to claim her even though she wasn’t his.

He caught her arms and dragged her away from his cock, pulling her up his body. She made a sound of disapproval, but didn’t fight him as he lifted her into his lap. She straddled him, her eyelashes fluttering as he eased her down over him, feeling her body accept him inch by inch.

“I wanted to finish,” she all but pouted even as her breath came short.

“Next time,” he said, even though he was certain there wouldn’t be a next time. He couldn’t allow it.

But the lie seemed to appease her, for her arms dropped around his neck and she let out a low cry as he seated himself fully inside of her. He clutched her backside, tugging her even closer until there wasn’t an inch separating them.

Then he stood. She yelped in surprise, even though her long legs came around him as if she had been trained to do so. He held tight as he carried her to his bed and settled her upon the pillows, her dark hair spanning the white fabric.

She stared up at him, her blue eyes bright and her slight smile welcoming. He was drawn in, lost in her. He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her as he thrust gently into her welcoming body. She lifted to meet him, but he forced himself to keep his tempo slow, easy. He wanted this to last. He never wanted to let it end.

Her fingernails dug into his arms and her moans dissolved against his lips as he built her pleasure bit by bit, slow swivel by slow swivel. Finally she let out a soft cry, turning her head as her body pulsed around him in orgasm. He watched her through the crisis, memorizing how her face twisted and her flesh grew pink with pleasure.

She went limp against his pillows and he chuckled. He felt so damn close to coming, but that would end this encounter. He didn’t want that. So he withdrew, though it was almost physically painful to do so.

“What are you doing?” she gasped, gripping at his arms.

He shook his head. “I’m not finished,” he promised. “Far from it.”

Gray said nothing more, even when Rosalinde repeated his name. At least, she did until her breath was stolen by pleasure. Gray dragged his mouth down her throat, her chest. He paused at her right breast, laving her nipple until her back arched and she gripped the coverlet beneath her with both hands. This man was magic, pure magic, and he had woven a spell over her that she feared could never be broken. She would be his forever, a part of her never able to let go of these stolen moments, stolen kisses, stolen nights.

Gray smiled against her skin, his dark gaze coming up to hold hers, taunting and teasing. She reached down and touched his rough cheek.

“Please,” she murmured, not knowing exactly what she was pleading for.

“Please you?” he suggested. “Oh, I shall. Don’t you worry.”

“I was never worried,” she croaked.

His face grew more serious, more determined. He ceased the torture of her nipple and continued his way down her body, rubbing his stubbly cheek against her belly, tasting her hip, her thigh, and finally he settled between her legs.

Her sex was slick and exquisitely sensitive from her recent release. He stared for what felt like an eternity at the flexing entrance to her body. She held her breath as she waited, waited.

Finally, he dropped his head there, just as he had the first night he made love to her. He swiped his tongue over her quim and she jerked, letting out a low gasp of pleasure and relief. Oh, how many times had she dreamed of this exact act since he first performed it? How many times had she pictured his hard mouth against her soft and yielding flesh?

Now it was not fantasy, but reality. And a better reality than she had even remembered. His tongue traced her entrance with delicate licks. She lifted, but he laughed and pressed a hand to her hip, holding her steady so he could guide the torture to come.

He used his other hand to gently spread her open, revealing her further. Yet she felt no embarrassment at being so exposed. On the contrary, she felt proud. Proud that he wanted her. Proud to give herself fully to this man, this amazing, complicated, generous man who made her want things she had never known existed.

He glided his tongue in a slow, firm circle around her clitoris, and Rosalinde’s head lolled back. Thoughts exited her mind, her body began to shake out of control.

“So close already,” he whispered, his breath stimulating her further. “How many times could I make you come, Rosalinde?”

She gasped as he licked her clitoris again. She was on the edge already. “I-I don’t know,” she moaned. “Please.”

He looked up the length of her body and their eyes met. He held the stare as he licked again, again, and then he was sucking, and she shattered as she fell over the edge of pleasure for a second time. She reached for him, grabbing for his hair, his shoulders, anything to center herself as swirling, pounding pleasure roared through every fiber of her being.

But he offered her no relief. He kept sucking, kept forcing her over-stimulated flesh to give more and more, until she was weak with release, until she thought she might just combust in his unrelenting fire.

At last, the tremors began to fade, the world slowed from its ceaseless spinning and he lifted his head from her sex. He crawled up the length of her body, positioning himself back at her entrance. She was so slick now that when he pressed his cock against her, he slid forward, fully seating without resistance.

They sighed together as he thrust again, short, hard thrusts, punctuated by pivots of his muscular hips. She drowned in sensation, her body still clenching from the previous two orgasms. His mouth found hers, filling her with the flavor of her pleasure and the heat of his need.

She held him close, whispering mindless, headless words of need and desire and care. And just when she thought she could not feel more, her body rocked again. He began to pound harder as she cried out beneath him and then he was gone, his slick seed pumping between them before he collapsed over her.

His arms came around her, tucking her into his side. His fingers tangled in her hair as he drew one of her legs over him and kissed her deeply, tenderly.

“I needed that,” he mused at last, when moments had ticked by, when their breath and heart rates had slowed and matched like they were made to do so.

She cuddled deeper into his embrace. “After today, so did I.”

He pulled back a fraction and looked down at her. “After today? What happened today?”

She sighed as he stroked back a few locks of hair from her face. “I-I am beginning to see your side of the argument.”

He blinked, and she could see he didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

She traced one bicep with the edge of her fingernail. “You have been strenuously arguing that our siblings should not wed. I am beginning to wonder if you are correct in that assessment.”

He released her and straightened up. His dark stare held hers as he gaped at her. “You think I’m
correct
?” he repeated. “You’re saying you don’t want Celia and Lucien to wed now?”