Miller, Raine - The Undoing of a Libertine (Siren Publishing Classic) (25 page)

He stroked a hand up her leg and looked down at it. “Your legs are so finely made. I saw them that day in the rain.”

“You saw my legs?” she asked.

He nodded wickedly. “Oh yes, I saw. You took off your stockings to cross the creek and then had to put them back on again. I watched the whole delicious show. Thought my heart might give out from the beauty of you.”

“How shocking and devious on your part.”

“Are you angry, my sweet Gina?”

“No. If our situations had been reversed, I probably would have done the same. So, did you skulk behind a tree and stay quiet so I wouldn’t know?”

He slid his other hand up the other leg. “Exactly, my darling. Your perfect limbs stunned me silent anyway. I just had to keep still and not move.” He closed his eyes for a moment as if he was remembering the scene from that day. “You are beautiful,” he hummed.

“So are you. I think, have always thought, that you are a beautiful man.”

His hands came up to her shoulders and then to her neck and the base of her head, cradling her to his lips. Mouths met in a seeking rush to fuse together. He thrust his tongue deep into her, sweeping in a wide circle, searing over every plane of her mouth. When he pulled back, he sucked her tongue as far as he could pull it until his lips popped off with a wet draw. And then he delved back in for more.

Movement became as necessary as breathing. She couldn’t help the slow grinding her hips fell into as he plundered her mouth with his tongue.

Wide palms left her head and slipped down to cup her breasts. His thumbs and forefingers met to pinch the centers, drawing them into even tighter bundles. The glory of it brought forth a deep moan and a steep arch to her back. She needed to get her body closer—

“I meant what I said. Before… I want in you,” he breathed, his mouth now at her neck. His teeth came onto her skin and bit gently.

“Yesssss, please,” she begged.

Jeremy pushed her backward, his hands supporting her shoulder blades as he laid her far down onto the mattress so her head was now near the foot of the bed.

She was aware of him changing positions, transferring to his knees and opening her legs, bending her knees, splaying her wide for mounting, but that wasn’t what he did. Instead, he did something much different. Something so shocking and so unexpected she would have frozen in mortification, that was, until she felt it.

Oh dear God in heaven and the angels! Was that his mouth on her nether parts? Lips to lips, tongue to quim, soft to soft.
Sweet unimaginable bliss…
Oh God, she was going to die from the exquisite pleasure. Georgina was going to die and love every lick and swirl, every sucking draw, and every penetration of his tongue inside her as she moved toward death. He’d told her he wanted in her, and he was, thank Christ!
Please let it go on forever—

He started with long, slow licks, like she was a cat he petted. Each pass over her slit opened the folds a little more until her swollen nub was revealed itself for special attention. He covered it with his lips and drew it in a suck that slammed her hips right up off the bed as she ground against the sweet torture.

When he entered her with his tongue as far as he could get it, she could feel his nose pressing hard above. He cupped her bottom to lift her closer. Mouth, tongue, and lips worked together to ravish her sex, holding her captive, a slave to the sensations that drove her toward incineration.

The orgasm was so powerful, she cried out. No, it was more of a shout, but she couldn’t help it in the slightest because another one followed so quickly on its heels. The pleasure gripped her, shot her body to a place where she shattered apart, completely blown, no skeleton left inside her skin to keep her from becoming liquid.

* * * *

Ensnared in the gratification of pleasuring her, Jeremy felt the contractions of her orgasm on his tongue. That, and the taste of her honey down his throat and the sounds she was making, flipped a switch in him. He knew he was crossing into dangerous territory—a place he’d sworn he wouldn’t go with her.

But he loved Gina. He wouldn’t hurt her.
Goddamnit!
The need to break free of all this restraint was just so overpowering he couldn’t—stop. He just couldn’t hold back what he was going to do—

He twisted up so fast, and before he even knew what he’d done, he had both of her wrists gripped firmly in one hand. His other palm supported his weight. He penetrated her convulsing core, and the fucking started.
Yes…oh, yes!
Glorious, demanding, animalistic fucking. The kind that was all about carnality and, in its crushing dominance, pretty much blotted out every other paradigm he held to. His mouth found its way to her neck, latched on, and bit. None too gently.

He worked her wickedly fast, and if his sexed-up mind could even deduce that he should hold back for fear of scaring her, at least he didn’t last long.

A minute or so of fierce pumping and he was ejaculating and moaning into her throat, thrusting slower but getting his seed worked up in her good and deep. Somehow in his befogged brain, his male awareness told him this was imperative.
Get it up inside!

When at last he stilled, it was more of a collapse than anything.

He wasn’t even sure if he might have lost consciousness, and for how long. The first thing he felt were Gina’s wrists coming away from his now-slackened grip. That jolted him into wakefulness real quick. He pushed up on his palms and looked down at her.
Oh no! No—no—no—no—no!

Her eyes were closed, and the streak of a tear tracked from each. On her neck was a huge love bite, the delicate skin marking quickly from the voracious nursing he’d done.

“What have I done? Gina. Oh, fuck…goddamn! Forgive me…”

Her eyes snapped open. She looked stricken, just absolutely devastated, pinned underneath him, his cock still halfway stiff, buried to his balls. Shallow breaths moved her beautiful breasts up and down.

“No, Jeremy…” she told him.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

—John Milton,
Paradise Lost
(1667)

The sight of her husband leaping off her and out of the room was not what Georgina was expecting.

“No! I am well, truly! Wait! Jeremy, wait!” She called after him, but he didn’t even slow, like he didn’t even hear her.

She did not get up immediately because she couldn’t. Her body was sapped after that session with him on the bed.
Hell’s bells!
Her blood hummed from what he’d done to her in a very good and very wonderful way.

Georgina realized he was horrified by how he’d taken her, but she wasn’t. His desire was apparent, and if he needed her fierce like that sometimes, then she wanted to give it to him. For her to comfort and serve him was her duty, her
right
as a wife! She felt the tingle of anger.

As she waited for him to come back, her irritation grew. Jeremy needed to get over this worry about treating her like a fragile bloom. She thought she’d explained it clearly to him enough times! He didn’t frighten her and never had. His loving her body was certainly glorious, and from the first time, a heady surprise, but never hurtful or frightening.

An hour passed. The room next door was quiet. She heard no sounds apart from the fire dying in the grate.

Where was he? Where would he go? Frustration mounting, she made a decision, left the warm bed that smelled of him, and returned to her rooms.

Quickly donning a gown and robe, Georgina went to her dressing table to arrange her hair into some semblance of normal. Frowning, she tilted her neck at the mirror. There was a large mark—ah, it was a love bite. He’d made it when he’d suckled, no, bit at her neck.

She shivered at the remembrance. The pain of the bite had made for sweeter pleasure, and she longed to feel it again. His face had looked so tragic when he’d stirred above her after his fiery release. Realizing that seeing the mark he’d made would probably upset him more, she wisely arranged her hair to one side and covered it up.

Tonight was cold. She found a green shawl, wrapped it around her, and left her rooms in search of her much loved, but very misguided husband.

After Georgina explored all of the usual places, Jeremy stubbornly remained absent. His study, the library, billiard room, and guest bedrooms were all searched, and he was not in any of them.

Mrs. Richards came to her rescue though. The woman appeared in the hall, silent as a cat, when Georgina stepped into it after checking in a guest suite.

“Oh Lord! You startled me,” Georgina gasped, bringing her hand to her throat.

“Good evening, madam,” the housekeeper replied smoothly, with not a trace of surprise that anything was out of order with the mistress of the house skulking about in her nightclothes by candlelight. “Such cold in the air. It is good you have covered up well,” she said, eying Georgina’s shawl. “That is a lovely shawl you have, madam.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Richards.” Georgina looked straight into the housekeeper’s intelligent eyes.

“It will warm you, should you choose to look at the portraits.”

“Portraits?”

“Yes, madam. I should imagine it is
very
cold in the portrait gallery tonight.” She bade Georgina a graceful leave and glided away.

Bless that woman.
Mrs. Richards was a definite jewel, Georgina thought. It was a good thing to have an ally. She made her way to the gallery on the second floor, wondering what she would say to him.

* * * *

Jeremy brooded. Her scent clung to him all over and just served to remind him. How could he have lost control like that? The look of her, the tears—

Damn it all to hell, what must she think of him? How could he ever repair the damage he’d done? She wouldn’t love him now. She would probably be afraid of him. God, it would kill him if she cringed away from him in fear.

He stared up into the eyes of the enigmatic woman in the portrait, hoping she could impart some wisdom. Jeremy must be such a disappointment to her, and it was ironic, too, after all this time, all these years of telling himself he’d never be like his father, yet here he was stepping right into the role—

“You must be very cold with only that robe covering you.”

He snapped his head around, in disbelief that she’d come after him. Gina looked as gorgeous as ever, wrapped in a green shawl he’d never seen her wear. Green was her color—definitely. She wore it splendidly.

“Coldhearted, yes, I know.”

“No. You are never that. And I should not have had to come searching for you like this!” She sounded angry more than frightened, he thought. “Mrs. Richards must think—God I don’t know what she thinks now!” she sputtered, stamping her foot. “No doubt we are providing good gossip for the servants.”

Yes, she was definitely angry, and looking down fiercely as she stood over him, her cheeks pink, eyes sparking, arms folded, and more beautiful than ever. And she wasn’t done speaking her piece either.

“Why are Mr. and Mrs. Greymont flittering about the house in their nightclothes, and in the dead of night?
Well, I don’t know. It is very unseemly though! Maybe they’re having a spat.
I heard the master stormed from their chamber with the mistress calling out to him to stay with her.
Well, I heard the new mistress searched all over the house for an hour before she found him sitting alone in the portrait gallery!
My God, the master must be truly dicked in the nob to be sittin’ in there. He’s going to freeze his arse off!”

Listening to her mock tirade between the servants was good medicine. The short laugh slipped out of him before he could pull it back. She was so witty and beautiful and brave and… everything.