She did as he’d ordered, but he knew that, ultimately, she would peek; she always did.
He settled beside her, his shoulders level with her thighs, and rested his palm on her stomach. The muscles beneath the fine skin fluttered under his touch, and his smile grew more intent.
He set himself to lingeringly trace her curves, first with his fingers, then with his lips and tongue. He didn’t hurry—rushing was for men who knew no better—but held himself to a slow exploration, knowing how the anticipation of his next touch ratcheted her sexual tension higher. Then higher.
After sculpting her hips and the tops of her thighs, he turned his attention to her garters and stockings. He peeled each away—slowly exposing her knees and the long, sleek curves of her calves. Her ankles, the bones so delicate, had always fascinated him, and he spent minutes tracing and caressing while she grew ever more restive and needy.
Then continuing to move to the same, torturously slow beat, he reversed direction, working from the perfect arches of her feet upward. Her breathing grew steadily more choppy as he progressed; by the time he closed his hands above her knees and parted her thighs, her chest was rising and falling dramatically, and from beneath the arm she’d draped over her face, he caught the glint of her eyes.
He smiled at her. “You can watch if you like.” Then he lowered his head and licked—and she tried valiantly to muffle her shriek as her body reacted and bucked.
He held her firmly and proceeded to return every iota of pleasure she’d earlier lavished on him.
She writhed and sobbed and moaned; the sounds she made fell like music on his ears—a music he cherished far more than anything else he’d ever heard.
He wielded decades of expertise honed over the past years to serve one ultimate aim—to bring her the most joy and sensual pleasure he was capable of bestowing.
In those heated moments as he pushed her on, holding her down as he used his tongue to pleasure her to climax, as he reached up and, finally, closed his hand about one of her swollen breasts and circled, then squeezed, her nipple, eliciting another breathless shriek, he knew nothing beyond the drive to devote himself to her, to her fulfillment.
Her tension peaked, then shattered, and her climax rolled over her in a long, rolling wave. It took her under, scrambled her mind, and more of her nectar, the most glorious ambrosia, hit his tongue. Slowly, he lapped and waited.
Eventually, the wave receded and left her temporarily wrung out, limp and splayed upon her bed.
He drew back and, with considerable pride, looked upon what he’d wrought.
The pleasure he derived from seeing her thus was immense and undeniable.
Then she stirred and held out a hand. Her eyes glinted from beneath her heavy lids. “Come.”
The murmured order was a command from a deity at whose altar he was more than ready to worship.
He crawled up her body and let himself down upon her, settling his hips between her widespread thighs, which she readily adjusted to accommodate him.
He fitted the head of his rock-hard erection to her slick entrance, then paused and caught her gaze. “I might not be the master of any musical instrument, but I adore making your body sing.”
Because in so many ways, you sing to my soul.
He saw her eyes widen, and he thrust into her scalding sheath and watched her lids fall. He saw her lips soften on a pleasured gasp, and satisfied, reassured, he closed his eyes and thrust fully home, and she clamped tight about him.
For several heartbeats, she held him there as if savoring the moment, then she eased her muscles, and he responded and withdrew, then thrust again, hard and sure, and they started dancing to the music they knew so well.
The analogy flooded his mind as their passions surged and desire soared and the rhythm of their joining built in a crescendo.
But he and she were not novices; he slowed, and together, they eased back, changed the tempo, and embarked on a second act in which, united and as one, they rode through a swirling symphony of their senses.
He lowered his head, and she raised hers, and their lips met again and held.
They moved together, bodies sliding, gripping, holding, needing, their skins growing heated and slick.
He orchestrated the interlude as far as he was able, searching for different elements—different notes—to add to the recurrent theme. She bent one knee and hooked her calf over his hip, altering the angle, and both of them gasped, then forged on.
Heat grew, desire swelled, and need grew claws and raked them, and ultimately, the compulsions of driving passion and a hunger too desperate to deny sent them plunging, racing, and with all reins long cindered, they careened up and over the peak, soaring into that moment of ecstasy that seared both body and mind.
Pleasure as bright as any star burst across his senses and obliterated all ability to think.
The moment held, extending like spun gold in their minds, then the threads thinned and faded, and the release of all tension left them helplessly spiraling from the heights into satiation’s sea.
It was still raining; if Devlin strained his ears, he could hear the distant patter on the roofs. He lay slumped beside Therese and marveled at the depth of contentment that filled him.
After long minutes of simply wallowing, he raised his head and glanced toward the window. When, earlier, he’d stirred enough to lift his weight from Therese’s limp and sleeping form, he’d realized they’d left a lamp burning and had got out of bed and turned the wick down. Then he’d thought and had crossed to the window and drawn back the curtains before returning to the warmth of his sated wife’s bed.
Where he belonged.
Confirming that it was still deepest night, but that the moon had traveled a good way across the heavens, he inwardly sighed. He thought back over the evening and their engagement on their return; if there was any lesson to be taken from the way they’d come together, the way they’d both set themselves to lavish pleasure on the other, it was surely that they were already lovers in all the ways that actually mattered. They always had been and always would be; no matter what he’d allowed her to believe, that was their reality.
One he needed to openly acknowledge.
That was what he was working to achieve.
Thinking back over recent days and reviewing the events of the evening, he accepted that he hadn’t yet accomplished enough in terms of rescripting her perceptions to be able to risk revealing his truth.
Not yet.
He’d advanced several steps, yet was still some way from his goal.
Although that fact was unpalatable, he swallowed it and, despite being tempted to stay longer, forced himself to draw away from Therese’s warmth and slide from the bed.
After collecting his discarded clothes, he walked across the room, then paused at the door leading to his apartments. He looked back at Therese, snuggled down in her bed, then forced himself to turn, open the door, and leave.
Soon, but not yet.
Chapter 7
At Devlin’s suggestion, the following afternoon, they indulged the children with a walk in the park, their ultimate destination being the Serpentine, where they would feed the ducks.
As arm in arm with her husband, Therese followed the children—attended by their nursemaids, Gillian and Patty, and the household’s youngest footman, Dennis—across the lawns, it occurred to her to ask, “Did you come out to feed the ducks when you were a boy?”