“Darling, you’re so wet for me.” My words are pure praise. She is so exquisitely formed, and I can’t fathom how I’ll go on like this, how I’ll fight my own need. So I do the only thing I can. I kiss her. Kiss her as I use my fingers to pleasure her. Kiss her as my heart pounds in time to the pulse of her. Kiss her as I push to stand without moving my hand from between her legs.
“You’re so lovely I can barely fucking stand it.” I listen to myself, almost as from a distance, reminding myself that she’s not mine to take. Not yet. But I can kiss her. Christ, how I can kiss her, my body bearing her backwards as I support her, my palm at her back, my fingers working between her legs.
She moans, her hands sliding into my hair as we devour each other with long, lush kisses and whispered need. My hands are still shaking as I pull her upright and wrench down one side of her jeans, one side then the other, her body jerking with the movement so beautifully. Her excitement is painted in the flush of pink across her chest. I close my eyes to the sight, spinning her around, bending her over the table and pressing her down.
“Your skin is like silk,” I whisper, pressing my lips to the top of her spine. As a contrast, I begin to tug her jeans and underwear down to her knees. “And your pussy is where I want to make my home.”
I thrust my finger back into her so hard, her body bows. My name rings around the room as she begins to thrust back, riding my hand.
“Oh, God, yes!” Holland throws back her head, her hand coming around as though to touch me.
“Stay where I fucking put you,” I growl, unable to summon a suitable sense of disgrace as I hold her there by the neck. Especially not as her cries begin to crest. I whisper such filth to her as she presses back into my hand, thrust for thrust.
I whisper how she doesn’t get to touch. She only gets to come.
How wet and greedy her pussy is.
I whisper that my darling is so cock hungry.
“Yes,” she rasps, her cheek pressed to the worn pine. “I want it, Alexander. I want your cock inside me.”
Everything in me tightens. My jaw, my abs, the rock-hard pole trapped behind the zipper of my jeans. It takes every ounce of my strength not to give in, not to give up, because I want more than what she’s offering. But Christ, if there’s a temptation in the world bigger than Holland, I’ve yet to find it.
She mewls as I pull my fingers from her, pressing my teeth to the seam of her ass before sliding her jeans and underwear the rest of the way. Her sparkly running shoes bounce somewhere behind me then I’m on my feet, lifting her arse to the table and taking the wet heat of her pussy into my hand.
“You’re so fucking beautiful here,” I rasp, pressing my palm against her clit. “Swollen and pink and so fucking delicious.”
A low growl rises from my chest growl as she presses her hands behind her, arching into my hand, spreading her thighs wide. The sight of her . . . my brain short circuits. I drop to my knees, my palms pressed on her inner thighs. I inhale her. Suck. Finger fuck, moan my want and my desire into the very core of her. The sounds she makes are gasping and hoarse, her whispers senseless. As she tightens her hand in my hair, her thighs begin to quake.
There is no yesterday, and there is no tomorrow. There is only Holland. And my want of her.
32
Holly
I am a terrible person.
A terrible person who had somehow convinced herself she was staying on at the castle because she’s responsible, because she feels for the woman she works for and because she likes her kids. And because she knows what it feels like to be betrayed by a man—solidarity in sisterhood and all that.
But maybe I’m just a terrible person with has poor impulse control and no morals, and an unhealthy sideline in self-sabotage.
A terrible, terrible person.
I wrap my arm around the post at the bottom of my bed and press my head against the warm wood. Though not for long because the post is carved and not too comfortable. Alexander Dalforth will be the death of me, I’m sure. Just the thought of his name and, urgh!
I jump to my feet and straighten the counterpane, absolutely ignoring how just thinking of him makes my insides begin to pulse and my pulse race. And my head? Don’t even go there.
And that’s just from thinking his name—nothing else! Not how he has a neck that makes me feel like a vampire, or how my hands react to his chest like metal to a magnet. And don’t get me started on the man’s aural game or the way he insisted he wouldn’t—that. Not until I was sure of him.
Sure of what?
Sure he’s driving me crazy?
I ask you, what kind of sadist withholds the D?
Though, honestly, that’s not really a valid complaint. More of an observation that I made much later because, at the time, I didn’t have enough brain cells to raise a smile, let alone raise an opinion.
I shuffle over to the window to distract myself. I’ve an hour to kill before I need to step outside of this room for the school run.
Green. Blue. Gold.
Summer has arrived in Scotland this morning with a very poor sense of timing. If there was justice in this world, it would be raining because my ordeal continues. Because Alexander, the duke who could teach the men of the world a thing or two about oral sex as a whole meal as opposed to a prelude, is not leaving today.
Not. Leaving. Today.
As in, he’s not getting in his car and driving to the airport. He’s not going back to London as I’d thought—as I’d expected when I’d climbed onto his knee last night. As I’d begged him to take me to bed. As I’d silently promised myself this would be the last time. It hadn’t even been awkward as I’d come down from my orgasm high to find myself curled against him as his hand moved over my back reassuringly. As he’d crooned such words to me.
How beautiful I was.
How there was no one else like me.
How there was pleasure itself in seeing me come.
I’d felt so warm and so happy and blissed out to the maximum as he’d helped me on with my panties and jeans, then held out my shirt, allowing me to slip into it so easily. He’d poured me a glass of water, passed me my shoes, then held my hand as we’d made our way out of the kitchen and all the way up the stairs.
Maybe it wasn’t awkward because I wasn’t there. Not really. Maybe I was on some other plane, not ready to come back to earth from my orgasm. Whatever the reason, the steady stream of conversation he’d kept up seemed to help the zero awkwardness factor. And when we’d reached my bedroom door, he’d pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“This is where I leave you,” he’d murmured. “I’m afraid I might have to go and take care of some very urgent business.” When he’d winked, my gaze had dropped to his crotch with a giggle, like it was an invitation.
“I think I’ve been naked in more places in this house than I’ve been clothed,” I’d quipped. Because what else could I say? Want me to take a look at it? I’d already offered, and he, for whatever reason, had declined. “Which is weird because I’m not even a bikini at the beach kind of girl.”
“That statement is so sad, it almost brings tears to my eyes.”
“Well, flattery gets you a naked girl, I guess.” I’d shrugged, embarrassed, thrilled, and sad for reasons I couldn’t even contemplate.