It was wrong. For any number of reasons.
Her impending marriage.
Caleb’s.
His connection to her family.
None of that, however, mattered. Not in this moment. There’d be time enough for reality and honor and every other reason later.
Her dark brows slipped a fraction, a question sparking to life in her gaze, and then that hesitation was gone, replaced with a bold glimmer that set her eyes to sparkling.
“Claire.” Her name emerged on a groan, a plea that she’d have the will to put this to a stop when desire made him weak. A prayer that she never would.
Then she touched him. She moved her palm in a windy, teasing path along his thigh.
He moaned. All the muscles within his leg coiled and bunched under her caress, that graceful back-and-forth glide that made his breath come a little harsher and a little faster.
She trailed a finger along the line of one of those muscle ridges. “I always wanted to paint the male figure and do so in a way true to life,” she murmured. “And yet, I’ll never have the skill to do such a form justice.”
If he were a stronger man, he’d be able to formulate a reply past the eddy of desire.
No… if she weren’t such a siren, with Eve’s touch.
He’d be able to speak about the skill of the paintings he’d seen and the promise of sketches that had been unfinished.
Claire gripped her fingers into his leg. “You are so hard,” she murmured, and a sound caught between a laugh and a cry spilled from his lips, emerging as a tortured, animalistic groan, which gave way to a hiss.
She moved with a surety to her movements, unfastening the front fall of his trousers.
“Claire,” he said hoarsely, mustering just that, her name, in a bid to get her to halt this, even as it would kill him.
Except, she ignored him and drew his length out. His fully erect length strained toward her, begging for her touch.
All at once, she went absolutely motionless and silent, with the grinding of the carriage wheels and Caleb’s sharp respirations the only noise between them. She was going to stop.
As she should.
As he should want her to.
This was wrong for so very many reasons, all of which had become jumbled and forgotten the moment she’d laid her hand upon his leg and begun her exploration of his body.
Claire angled her head. That slight adjustment sent more curls tumbling from the chignon that had been thoroughly ruined moments earlier.
Caleb tensed, bracing for her to quit whatever madness they’d embarked upon. After all, she was an innocent. And—
His hips shot up reflexively as she glided two fingers down his length. It jumped.
“This… looks nothing like the statues.” There was an artist’s inquisitiveness to her voice as she spoke. “It is harder… longer, and yet, somehow still soft, like velvet.” She stroked the tip of her finger around the head, pulling another deep-chested groan from him. “Look at how it pulses,” she remarked with the same awe and appreciation as if she’d discovered a new wonder of the world.
His head fell back against the seat, and his entire body shook with a mirth made painful for his desire. “Are you doing research for your work, sweetheart?”
“No.” Claire paused, and he picked his head up. “Well, perhaps a bit.” She flashed a coquette’s smile that brought him to laughter, which ended on another hiss that exploded from between Caleb’s clenched teeth as she wrapped him in her fist and squeezed.
She immediately stopped. “Have I hurt you?”
Caleb shot a hand out, covering her fingers with his. “No!” he rasped. “It feels… unless you want to stop?” He put that reminder there for her. Not wanting her to do anything with him here that she didn’t want to do.
In a wickedly wonderful answer to that question, she resumed her up-and-down strokes of his length, pulling a low groan from Caleb’s chest.
Closing his eyes once more, Caleb gave himself over to simply feeling. And her. And this moment. All of it. His hips moved of their own volition as she pumped him with her fist.
His breathing grew shallow.
And then… again, she stopped.
It was a physical chore to get his lungs to fulfill their sole purpose.
He’d not survive her stopping. Not now. He forced his eyes open.
“I want to taste you as you tasted me, Caleb,” she said simply.
“Claire,” he croaked.
She was already sliding to her knees and slowly trailed her tongue up his length and down. Gliding that flesh over his pulsing shaft. Then she closed her mouth over him, enveloping him in the softest, hottest, wettest place, the only place he wanted to be.
Nay, that wasn’t true.
He wanted to bury himself deep inside her.
Caleb curled his fingers in her hair and stroked those silken tendrils, and he gave himself over to the gift she gave.
Had passion ever burned as hot as this? So hot he wanted to be consumed by those flames and destroyed in that conflagration.
She flicked her tongue down the side of his shaft, alternately licking him and sucking. Devouring him.
The rocking of the carriage brought him deeper into the cavern of her mouth, so deep he nearly touched the back of her throat.
Sweat beaded his brow, and Caleb pumped his hips, quicker and harder, in time to her efforts.
It was too much.
“Claire,” he rasped, her name an entreaty, an endearment.
It had never been like this. Ever. This mindless grip of passion, where he was reduced to nothing beyond this aching need.
He glanced down, at the sight of her head bobbing over his length and her hips moving wildly as if she found pleasure in pleasuring him.
It was too much.
With a low groan, Caleb drew her away and gave himself over to his surrender, his climax hitting him hard and fast and almost painful for the sheer bliss of it. He angled toward the opposite wall and continued thrusting his hips until he’d spilled every drop of himself.
He collapsed in the folds of his bench. His body continued to shudder from the force of his release.
Everything that had transpired here had been a mistake, and yet, in the aftermath of making love with Claire Poplar, he couldn’t bring himself to feel a damned ounce of regret.
That sentiment would come later.
But for now, there was only this.
Chapter 15
After the embrace Claire had shared with Caleb back in London, she’d believed there could be no greater passion than that stolen exchange. It had been wicked and wonderful at the same time. Until he’d opened his mouth and ruined it.
Then there had been the moment of bliss at the Rotted Rooster.
Everything, however, to come before had been the manner of rapture she’d read of in forbidden novels she’d snuck and read and hid from her mother and maids.
But she’d never felt like this… ever.
This moment?
Seated across from him nearly an hour later, Claire found she didn’t want it to end. Not just the passion they’d known, but also the closeness they’d shared.
And yet, invariably it would, just as life had proven that all splendorous moments and times did. And then she’d be left with the memory of what she’d felt this day.
For, the problem with pleasant dreams was that they ultimately came to an end, and when they did, you were left with the reality that was life.