“There are two of us here.” She gripped his shoulders. “Tell me what you want, Owen.”
With her surrounding him, he was more himself than he’d ever been. It was reckless and untamed and he gave himself over to the freedom without fear. He growled, “Ride me now, Cecilia.”
She lifted and lowered her hips slightly, the barest movement, yet her lashes fluttered with each subtle motion. Then she began to rock with greater heat and speed. He held her hips tightly as she found the angles she required, matching her pace so that he lasted. With every thrust, she ground her clitoris against him.
A command rose in him, and he hesitated for a moment, troubled by what his wild impulse demanded. Yet, looking into her ecstasy-filled face, he found courage. She believed in him, in the pleasure he could give her, in who he was as a man.
“Open your mouth,” he commanded hoarsely.
She seemed faintly puzzled by his demand, but parted her lips.
Sliding his thumb into her mouth, he rasped, “Lick.”
Her tongue swirled around his thumb, and then, with a wicked little smile, she sucked on it.
He pulled his thumb from her mouth, then brought it to her clitoris. His gaze held hers as he stroked over and around the sensitive flesh, matching the rhythm of his strokes within her.
“Oh, God. Owen.” She cried out, her hands clutching his shoulders, her passage squeezing around his cock as she came.
He continued to play with her, lavishing attention on her clitoris as he thrust. She came again, her body taut with the force of her release.
Growling, he pulled from her as his own climax struck, the force as great as a tempest. She draped against him, pressing her face into where his shoulder curved to his neck, and he held her. They both shuddered and gasped, descending from the heights of pleasure. He loved the feel of her damp body against his. Stroking his hand along her hair and down her back, he cradled her close as a golden haze settled around them.
She brushed her lips against his throat. “Based on the book, that wasn’t how I thought it would be.”
Alarm pierced his fog. “I—”
“It was better.” Her voice was low and drowsy, the voice of a satisfied, sated woman. “Much, much better.”
He relaxed with a chuckle, even as strength surged through him. He had done that. He had brought her pleasure and exceeded her dreams.
“The bed now,” she murmured.
Gathering her up, he stood and carried her there. She smiled when her gaze fell on the herbs strewn across the linens, and when he lay her down, she took a few green leaves and rubbed them between her fingers to release their scent.
“How are you so good at this?” she murmured in wonderment as he joined her beneath the coverlet.
He flashed her a smile.
Wryly, she said, “Here I thought I had so much to teach you.”
“Far different to read about something in a book, versus putting it into practice.”
She stroked her hand down his chest, and he purred when she raked her fingers through the hair that curled there. His own hands were not idle, caressing along her neck and arm, touching her because it was impossible not to touch her.
“Whereas my knowledge of geology is surely less than yours,” she said.
“I promise I won’t bring any samples to bed and describe their chemical structures as my chosen method of seduction.”
She laughed, full and unrestrained, and it sounded different from the way she laughed when she was with his family. There was so much she kept hidden, so many layers, all far more complex than anything he’d encountered in his studies. He tried to push back against a wave of resentment, knowing he could never have more of her than this, tried to shove aside the bitter knowledge threatening to break apart the pleasure of merely being with her.
“One subject of which I know little,” he said. At her questioning look, he explained, “You.”
Her mouth formed a line. “Your cock was inside me minutes ago.”
“Fucking you isn’t the same as knowing who you are.” He wove their fingers together, his palm pressing to hers. If his words could not convince her, maybe the truth of his body could.
“Trust me—please.”
“You are very dangerous. Not intentionally so,” she added when he started to object. “But there is much about you that could cause me harm.”
“I swear,” he said, words firm with resolve, “that though I can’t offer you marriage, I will do everything in my power to protect you and shield you from any hurt. Your employment is not controlled by me, and I will never impel you to do anything you don’t desire. I’ll keep you safe.”
“I know you believe that.” With her free hand, she traced the angle of his jaw. “Yet unlearning my wariness does not come easily.”
He leaned closer so he could see all the colors in her eyes, the enthralling green and brown and gold. “Perhaps there are lessons we both can learn from each other. I’ve given you my honesty, but you must only provide what you are comfortable in bestowing.”
She was quiet for a long time, yet she did not pull away, and he tried to take assurance from that. After many moments, she said quietly, “This is only my second post as a governess. My first was for a couple who were known for their artistic, progressive ways. It was…much freer than my life had ever been before. The rules and dictates that govern society weren’t much regarded with them.”
Her voice was rich with pleasure, and her eyes shone with fond remembrance.
“They traveled throughout the Continent,” she went on, her gaze far away, “and I traveled with them, teaching their daughter. When I wasn’t occupied with my duties, my employers gave me free rein to do as I pleased, and so I saw all the beautiful, glittering capitals, living as a local, discovering things about the world I had never known before.”
She continued. “I took lovers. Sophisticated, unconventional men who helped me see that physical love, that sex, was a thing to be celebrated and enjoyed not just by men, but women too. Women could crave pleasure and seek it out absent of shame. And so I did.”
“Sounds incredible,” he murmured. He battled with a tiny, jealous demon—no doubt those lovers she’d known had been men of experience, unlike himself. Yet those men weren’t here with her now. He was, and only moments before, she’d said he had surpassed her fantasy. In the absence of marriage, he could at the least give her ecstasy.
“It was.” A shadow fell across her face, and she stared down at her hand, still holding his. “Then my employer, the husband, took an interest in me. Said that my eyes and body were opened now, and he’d been waiting for the right time to bring me to his bed.”
“You didn’t want to become his lover,” Owen said, reading her expression of dismay.
“In the absence of my own family, I’d begun to think of him as kin. A brother, or an uncle, but never anyone I desired. Not the way I desired you.” She sent him the tiniest, fleeting smile.
He squeezed her hand, torn between pleasure to hear her attraction to him, and dreading what came next in her tale.
“When I told him so…” Her look turned bitter. “He threatened me. Said I would lose my position, and he’d turn me out without a character, and without paying me the wages I was owed.”