He spasmed, and she knew that he was at the point beyond return. He scooted back to slide out of her mouth, and his weight sent more pressure to the plug. His eyes bulged, and he shouted as seed erupted from his cock onto his belly, shooting out of him with such force and volume that she came just from the sight of it.
They both stared at each other, panting.
“My God,” he rasped. “What have you done to me?”
She reached out and lazily rubbed his seed about his belly, enjoying the way it caught his hairs. “Made love to you?” she asked.
He rose onto his knees and reached behind himself to gingerly remove the plug. “Come here,” he said.
She wrinkled her nose. “You’re sticky.”
He winked at her. “I know.”
She laughed. “Sticky men are not one of my perverse pleasures, I’m afraid.”
She went to her dressing table to find a cloth. He watched her, smiling faintly.
“Is that—” he said softly. She turned around, not sure what he was looking at. His eyes were fixed on the amulet he’d sent to her, sitting in her open jewel case.
“Oh. Yes,” she said, returning to the bed with a linen. She leaned down to wipe his stomach clean.
“You kept it,” he murmured.
“Of course I kept it,” she said briskly, embarrassed as much by what this revealed about herself as by how much it seemed to move him.
The look on his face nearly broke her heart.
She softened. “I cannot remember a gift that touched me quite so much, Adam.”
His face. Oh, his face. “Sweet man, don’t look at me like that,” she whispered.
But he didn’t stop. Instead, he pulled her to him and held her so tight she almost couldn’t breathe.
“What are we doing, Sera?” he whispered in her ear.
She wished she knew. This felt different from Cornwall. It felt urgent and searing.
Dangerous.
She looked into his eyes and said the only honest thing she could. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”
He was quiet for a moment. “It frightens me.”
“Why?” she asked, though she did not fully want to hear the answer. She suspected she could provide her own reasons.
He was staring at the ceiling. “Because I want this. I want you. I want . . . more.”
You. More. He felt it too. She smiled so hard her face hurt, until she glanced over at him, and saw that he was not happy.
“But I have . . . commitments, Sera,” he said softly. “And so do you. And they don’t . . . they’re not the same, our obligations.”
She’d always expected there would be a pivot. But it had taken so long to come that she’d forgotten it lay in wait. He meant his children and her cause, of course. And he was right.
Their lives were not compatible.
But she didn’t want to give him up. How could she, after this?
“It needn’t be more than it is,” she said quietly, hoping not to sound like she was pleading. “A discreet arrangement between two friends.”
“I think you were right all along, my Sera. We aren’t friends.”
His voice was far away, like he was already halfway down the corridor, about to walk out the front door. She didn’t like it.
“What are we then?” she asked.
He kissed her shoulder and didn’t answer.
For a moment, they lay next to each other in silence. He slid his hand down her stomach to her mons and cupped it possessively. “Sera, promise me something.”
She held herself still. “Yes.”
“I wanted to be inside you, just now. I know you wanted it, too. But don’t tempt me, lass. Aye? I can’t make you pregnant. ’Twould be a disaster.”
Instinctively, she put a hand to her belly, her ribs tightening with a sharp stab of fear about her absent menses. “You’re right,” she said immediately. “I won’t. I promise.”
But she felt chilled.
He sat up. “I need to go. I have so much work to do it makes my eyes cross just to think about it.” His voice sounded awful—full of dread.
She rose and watched him dress. He was so thin. “You look tired. You can stay and rest, if you like.”
He laughed, unhappily. “I’d give anything to, but I’ve hours of drafting ahead of me.”
She wondered if his rush was truly caused by anxiety about his work, or if it was his apprehensions about her. “What is it that you’re working on?”
“A proposal for that armory I mentioned in Cornwall. Lots to do.”
He didn’t seem to wish to elaborate, and she wouldn’t press him. Still, she felt tense, watching him dress. Would this be the last time she watched him slide his breeches over his thighs? Tie the laces of his boots?
She hoped not.
He finished arranging his cravat and sat down beside her on the bed. “When can I see you again?”
This question made her feel warm inside. She’d been imagining things. He wanted to come back. She smiled. “I did invite you for supper Sunday.”
He kissed her. “Then I shall look forward to it.”
So would she.
Far more, she knew, than was remotely sensible.
How was it that you could come your bloody bollocks off with a woman whose very smile made your heartbeat lurch, and leave her townhouse feeling dreadful?
After days holed up in his studio from dawn until late at night, it should feel good to be outside at the scandalously early hour of half past seven, walking through the cool late summer evening, relaxed from a cleansing conversation and sexual release.
He should be elated.
He was, in fact, elated.
And yet, the dying twinges of pleasure mingled with the more nagging ones of guilt.
He had scarcely seen his children in a month. He was already behind in his revisions to the armory plans. Just this morning, Tregereth had written requesting changes to the renovation that would require Adam to return to Cornwall as soon as he was able.
Every minute spent with Seraphina had been stolen. And the theft was tinged with recklessness, for the fervor over her memoirs had only made her more notorious, and rumors of her involvement in kidnapping Lady Bell were adding to the fury.
He should not have come. He should certainly not have slept with her.
And yet he had wanted to linger longer than he had. He had wanted to spend the evening lolling in Seraphina’s bed making her laugh. He had wanted to fuck her senseless, then curl up in her arms and fall asleep.
He had wanted to pretend this other life—his real life—was not awaiting him.
He had never been good at limiting his ardor. Catriona called this quality intensity. What would she think of him, his Cat, giving short shrift to his work and their children to have a love affair? Would she not tell him to learn his bloody lesson? Focus on his duties before their children suffered for his sins again?
He walked back to the studio, determined to work long into the night to make up for the time he’d spent away. With every step closer, he felt lower.
He despised this work. Despised it. He had never realized until now.
For so long he’d thought that if he could only win projects of greater scale and public value, he’d be happy. He’d stop yearning for a different life. But doing Pendrake’s bidding made him feel worse, not better. It was impossible to separate the work from the politics. Adam felt like his soul was shrinking, day by day.