Love According To Lily (15 page)

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

She had probably shocked him. She had shocked herself. But she hadn’t been able to help it.

He began to breathe a little faster. She could see his chest rising and falling, so attuned to his every move was she.

They continued to gaze at each other, and she sat stiffly, tensely, waiting for something to happen. She felt panicked and shaky on the inside.

A log dropped in the hearth, and she jumped.

Whitby took a deep, slow breath and let it out completely before he spoke.

“Come and get on top of me, then,” he said in a sultry voice, his knee still bent under the sheet, his wrist still draped across it.

Lily’s stomach spun like a top, making her almost dizzy in her chair. She tried to steady her breathing, tried to keep herself from trembling. She took a few seconds to calm the workings of her body, then slowly rose out of the chair and lifted her skirts as she brought a knee up onto the bed.

Chapter 17

Lily kept her eyes fixed on Whitby’s as she crawled over him and came to straddle him beneath the sheet. He was large and hard, and she swiveled her hips in tiny circles to rub over him.

His big hands wrapped around her hips, and he, too, shifted on the bed beneath her, moving her around, grinding against her through the sheet and the thin fabric of her drawers.

All day she had hungered for this, never believing it would happen. Yet here she was, touching him and feeling him again. It was like a dream.

She gazed drowsily into his eyes and said, “I hope you don’t think I’m trying to seduce you to get what I want. Honestly, that’s not what’s on my mind right now. I have no strategies. All I want is to touch you and lay with you.”

He thrust his hips upward. “And yet I’m worried.”

She wiggled over him. “Please don’t be. I’ll stop when you say we should.”

“What if I
don’t
say we should? What if I can’t?”

“Is that a possibility?”

“Quite frankly, yes.”

She smiled, feeling very pleased with herself. “You mean to tell me you might not be able to resist me?”

He maneuvered her left, right, up and down, round and round. “If I were able to resist you, I would have already done it.”

Lily leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, thrusting her tongue into his mouth and kissing him deeply. He tasted like heaven.

She could never have imagined the erotic delight that would tingle and surge through her body from something as basic and fundamental as a kiss. But it was the most amazing kiss. His mouth was hot and wet, and he met her tongue with instinctive skill, probing and tasting her and moaning softly with a pleasure that quickened her blood.

He cupped his hand around the side of her neck, pulling her closer and deepening the kiss, then he dragged his lips across her cheek to her ear, where he nibbled on her lobe and breathed hotly and wetly, sending a torrent of tingling gooseflesh down her whole body to her toes.

“Whitby,” she whispered, nuzzling into him, still unconsciously thrusting her hips.

His lips found hers again as he slid a hand over her breast, but her corset restricted her from feeling the sensation of his thumb across her nipple. Whitby began a trail of kisses down the side of her neck, then rolled her over onto her back and leaned up on one elbow beside her, looking down at her.

“You see what a dishonorable rake I am? A true gentleman would marry you before any of this.”

“You can if you wish it.”

He gazed uneasily at her.

“But you don’t have to,” she said quickly, releasing him of any obligation. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“You’re a very naughty girl, Lily,” he said, then he sighed. “You’re making me insane. I shouldn’t have invited you into my bed like this. I should tell you to go back to your room like I did last night. But I can’t. ”

She laid her open palm on his cheek. “I’m glad, because I don’t want to go.”

“I won’t ruin you,” he assured her. “I want you to have a future. There are other things we can do tonight.”

“I just want to be with you. I don’t care about anything else.”

“But you should care. You’re young. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

Oh, she did not want to think of a whole lifetime without him. He was here now, and she felt as if this moment
was
her whole life. It would be the pinnacle, the hook that everything else hung upon. She would measure everything against it.

She continued to stare, blinking, into his eyes, wondering with concern if she was perhaps being overly romantic. Maybe this intensity would pass. Perhaps she was being carried away by her bodily passions and they were more powerful than she realized, and all this would fade when he was gone from her life, whether heaven took him, or he recovered and chose to avoid her after this.

She suspected she would understand it someday when her mind cleared and everything seemed normal again. But for now, she would just accept and enjoy this glorious night in his arms, for she had dreamed of it too many times to walk away now.

He pressed his mouth to hers and kissed her again, less intensely this time. He kept his eyes open and she did the same, watching him in the golden light. Then he rolled onto her and kissed her neck and down lower to the tops of her breasts, while he slowly unbuttoned her bodice.

He pressed it open and ran his hand over the surface of her corset, gracefully back and forth, then down over her hip and the top of her leg, his gaze following the movements of his hand, as if he were admiring all the places he was touching.

Lily lay quietly, watching his handsome face.

I
would do anything for him right now
, she thought to herself.
I would give him everything I have to give
.

His eyes met hers again, then he glanced to her breasts briefly. She saw a flirtatious spark—that familiar animal gaze that always turned her to liquid—and knew exactly what he was thinking. He wanted her corset out of the way.

She grinned and began to unhook it in the front while he watched. When the last hook came undone, she sat up and awkwardly pulled it out from under her open bodice, and tossed it to the floor. Her breasts fell free, with nothing but her thin, cotton chemise to cover them.

He tugged it up in the front and took a nipple in his mouth, suckling and flicking his tongue over it. Lily breathed faster as she weaved her fingers through his hair and cupped his head in her hand.

“Oh, Whitby,” she whispered, feeling dizzy with desire. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you?”

“I have an idea,” he replied teasingly as he continued.

She had no clue how long he pleasured her that way. It seemed like a very long time—his tongue flicking continuously, staying with one breast until she feared she might faint, then moving to the other. Dozens of pulsing bursts of delight coursed through her body while she writhed on the bed.

He began to kiss her on the mouth again, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tightly. She felt his hand sliding down over her hip again and gathering her skirts into a fist… slowly lifting them and caressing the outside of her thigh over her drawers. A moment later, the ribbon at her waist came loose and his hand was sliding inside.

Lily gasped at the shock of feeling a man’s hand touch her curls, then venture lower. A wet, sweltering heat flooded from within her, under the skillful stroke of his finger as he massaged in small circles, while still devouring her mouth with his own. There was a smooth rhythm to his movements—his lips and tongue, his hand, his hips.

She returned his kiss with fervor, holding his head in her hands, thrusting her own hips to match the movements of his finger between her legs.

“I want to touch you, too,” she said into his mouth, sliding her own hand under the sheet to the top of his hard, muscular thigh.

“Be my guest,” he replied.

She pulled his nightshirt up and touched between his legs, overwhelmed by what she was feeling—his private anatomy, so hot to her touch, soft in some places, hard in others. She wrapped her hand around him and stroked, not sure if she was doing it correctly, but assuming she was doing fine when he moaned.

“Ah, Lily, you’re always surprising me. You seem to have a natural talent in certain areas.”

“Do I? I have no understanding of what I’m doing.”

“You don’t need to understand it. Just keep doing it.”

And so she did…

A short time later, he tugged at her drawers, pulling them down over her hips. She kicked them all the way off, and he rolled on top of her and settled himself between her thighs.

Her skirts were bunched up around her waist. She still wore her bodice and chemise, though everything was open or shoved out of the way. He pulled his nightshirt off over his head and tossed it aside.

He was completely naked on top of her now, and she could only imagine what they looked like. She ran her hands up and down the glorious hard muscles on his back and buttocks.

She could feel him between her legs, poised there at her damp opening, and she wanted to rub against him. She thrust her hips.

“I knew this was going to be difficult,” he whispered, leaning up on one arm to look down at her. “Yet I went ahead with it, didn’t I?”

She thrust her hips again.

“Be careful,” he said.

“I don’t want to be careful. I just want more of you.”

He rested his forehead upon hers and closed his eyes. “And I want more of you. I can’t believe how badly I want you, Lily, and I’m feeling very healthy all of a sudden.”

She smiled. “Maybe I’m your cure.”

“You’re definitely a cure for something.”

She kissed him with a profound depth of feeling. “I want to feel you inside me,” she whispered. “Please, Whitby, I won’t ask any more than that. Just make love to me. Make me a happy woman.”

She felt his desire grow; he moaned as he kissed her neck and shoulders.

“I would have to marry you,” he said. “I would want to, Lily.”

“You wouldn’t have to, but I would, if it’s what you wanted.”

“But I’m ill.”

She cupped his face in both her hands. “All the more reason to make the most of the time we have. Even if you have only a month to live, let’s enjoy it. We could make love every day, and I… I know you don’t love me the way I love you, but I can live with that. I just want a chance to try and make you happy.”

He slid into position, pushed gently, causing her some discomfort, but she wanted it. She wanted the pain and the pleasure and whatever else came with it.

He paused. “This is insane, Lily. I’ve lost my mind. I’m feeling very selfish.”

“I feel selfish, too.”

He lay still and quiet for a long moment. Then he kissed her on the cheek. “Marry me. I want to marry you.” He pushed again, not too hard, not all the way…

Feeling the discomfort again, Lily sucked in a breath. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Say yes, Lily, hurry, because I’m going to make love to you.”

“Yes,” she replied, so overcome with desire, she could barely think.

Without another second’s hesitation, he pushed slowly but firmly into her, groaning with relief while she cried out in pain.