Thank God he knew what she wanted. He grabbed her hips, his hands sliding down to fill themselves with her bottom as he squeezed and caressed her, making the molten heat between her legs intensify. Just that quickly it no longer mattered that they were in her drawing room. All that mattered was that she knew she had locked the door, so they wouldn’t be disturbed. Tomorrow would be soon enough to face the consequences of her want. Being with him might not be wise, but she’d be bloody well damned if she would let that stop her.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders at the same time he lifted her against him, settling his hips into the cradle of hers as his mouth took hers again. He was hard and solid along her front but even more so where he pressed intimately between her thighs. She flexed her hips, grinding herself against him as he took her mouth, his need almost brutal in its intensity, but she didn’t care that her lips might be bruised tomorrow. Something about the idea made it more exciting, ratcheting up her arousal by another degree.
Her hands moved between them, trying and failing to feel more of him. There were too many clothes. She pushed at his frock coat, and his hips anchored her between him and the wall as he let go of her to let the coat drop to the floor, followed by his waistcoat. Instead of holding her again, he jerked at the tail of her nightdress, tugging it upward. She nearly jumped out of her own skin when his bare palms touched her legs, and then her buttocks. She sighed in gratification as he squeezed the globes, opening her up to the press of his erection.
“My God, Helena, you feel as good as I knew you would.” His face looked like that of a man in pain, his features taut and hardened with need. To tease them both, he moved his hips, thrusting them against her as if he were moving inside her except the coarse wool of his trousers was in the way.
She cried out as the solid ridge of him dragged over her swollen clitoris. “Maxwell, I need your touch.”
He gave a soft laugh and took her mouth again. She thought he meant to tease her more, but he granted her request instead. Levering an arm around her hips to support her, his other hand found its way between them. He pinched her swollen flesh to the point of pain, making her squeal in a sharp sound that he swallowed with his kiss. Almost immediately after, he soothed the rough touch with soft, gentle circles of his thumb.
Pleasure wound tight in her belly with each stroke to the point she couldn’t keep up with his kissing anymore. She closed her eyes, lost to the magic of his touch. When he pushed one thick finger inside her, her body gripped at him, eager for all that he would give her. She cried out softly as he filled her with another, then bit at his shoulder to keep other cries from falling out of her. Someone would come check on her if she didn’t stop the sounds, but she couldn’t seem to control herself as he thrust his fingers in and out of her, and her hips moved of their own volition, riding him with abandon. Before she even knew it was upon her, an orgasm shattered through her, sending shards of pleasure ricocheting inside her. She held on to him like a lifeline as the remnants moved through her in delicious waves until the tremors finally subsided.
Maxwell pressed a kiss to her temple and gently withdrew his fingers. “Better?” he whispered as she slowly came back to herself and tried to catch her breath. She could still feel her heartbeat in every extremity as he smoothly let her go and tugged her nightdress back into place.
“No,” she whispered, tightening her grip on his shoulders.
“I’ve waited so long for that,” he whispered back, dragging his lips across her cheekbone. But she could already sense him withdrawing, as if they could ever get back to normal after this.
“Maxwell.” She didn’t like the plaintive note in her voice, but neither could she stop it. “Don’t go.”
A breath of laughter rushed past her ear, and a twinge of anger rose from the ashes of her recent pleasure. Her hand traveled from his shoulder, down his chest, across the flat and hard plains of his stomach, to the magnificently rigid length of erect maleness in his trousers. She palmed him, savoring the thick breadth of him. Her body went weak all over again as she imagined him inside her.
“I want you inside me.”
He stilled in what she could only assume was shock, even though it didn’t make sense. What had he thought they were doing? To encourage him, she squeezed him as good as she was able with the layer of wool between them.
He took in a shuddering breath as he pressed his forehead to hers. “We can’t, Helena.” She pressed harder with her palm, working up and down his length from root to tip in an imitation of a massage. He let out another shaky breath. “I didn’t bring a sheath.”
She vaguely knew that he meant a rubber sheath, though Arthur had never worn one with her. “We do not need one.”
He let out a soft groan as his hips moved in rhythm to her stroking and he trembled against her. “We do. I don’t trust myself to withdraw . . . not with you.”
She flushed with pleasure at that. To think that he wanted her so badly that he might lose control. Her aching body grasped at emptiness, needing him to fill her. She knew that she was wet enough he could slide in with relative ease. It was as if the earlier climax had only roused her appetite for more of him.
“You won’t have to. I . . . I can’t . . . It’s not . . .” He couldn’t get her with child, but to tell him that would lead to more questions that she didn’t want to answer. Not now.
“You’re not at that point in your cycle?”
She nodded her agreement, anything to get him inside her. “Yes, that’s right.”
He drew back and looked down at her, tilting her chin up with his fingers. “You’re certain?” He looked at her with such fierce tenderness that she nearly melted into a puddle of need right there.
She nodded again.
“Is the door locked?” he asked, and she could tell he was close to capitulating.
“Yes, Maxwell.” Before he could say anything, she grabbed at his trousers, seeking to unfasten them, but he brushed her rather ineffective hands out of the way.
“Undress,” he said in a no-nonsense tone that had her shrugging out of her dressing gown before she could think.
Grabbing his frock coat, she spread it on the rug before the hearth and gripped the hem of her nightdress, hesitating before pulling it over her head. She’d never been completely naked before a man and certainly not in her drawing room. Her husband had only made love to her in bed. Not once had they ever done the act anywhere else. Sometimes she was naked, but it was always under the covers with very little light.
“Off.” His voice was unsympathetic in his demand. She looked up to see him looming over her, his brow furrowed with an almost painful need.
Biting her bottom lip for something to ground her in the moment, she slowly tugged up the nightdress. She didn’t even feel the cool air or the heat from the fire. Every part of her was focused on him and the heat coming from within her in throbbing waves of desire. After tugging it off over her head, she dropped it beside her and settled back to lie on his coat. The silk lining felt decadent against her naked skin, and his scent rose up around her.