Page 63 of The Lady’s Deception

Ought he to have paused to pay tribute to her lovely breasts, or to stroke the curve of her waist? Every inch of her demanded his devotion. But this, this was the shrine at which he longed to worship. He traced the back of his knuckles up and down her silken inner thigh, drew in the sharp tang of her arousal. “Here, love?” he whispered, slipping one fingertip into her wetness. “Is this where it aches? Shall I kiss it and make it better?”

“Yes-s-s.” Barely a hiss of sound. “Please.”

Obligingly, he touched his tongue to the place his finger had found, tasted the spice of her. Her hips bucked. Holding her open to him, he kissed her thighs, the delicate crease of skin where her legs joined her body, the top of her mound, before setting his mouth to her in earnest, lashing her with his tongue and then taking her nub between his lips. Moaning, she clawed at the bed linens, and he imagined the stinging pleasure of those nails set to his back.

Then she was muffling her cries against a pillow, coming long before he’d had his fill of her. He might never have his fill of her. It was like awakening from a dream to find it had come true, and by God, he wasn’t going to let it slip away from him again.

Almost reluctantly, he picked up the discarded towel to wipe his face, then rose from the floor and lay down beside her on the bed. The linen was cool against his overheated skin. She was still struggling to catch her breath. “I—I didn’t—know. Oh!”

As she curled against him, he wrapped an arm around her. “I’ll wager there’s quite a few lessons I could teach our governess.”

She gave a breathless, incredulous laugh. “Really?”

“Do you doubt me?”

A dangerous question. One small hand came up to rest against his chest, carving out space between them. “Sometimes, yes.” Oh, those eyes, clear as a summer sky. Honest. “But not tonight.” She nuzzled closer again, set her lips to his ear. “Now, tell me how I can soothe your ache.”

His body fairly throbbed with need. But when she spoke those words, his first thought was for another ache entirely: the pangs of grief and guilt that had been filling his chest and fogging his mind since last May.

Gently, he probed the edges of that familiar pain. Still tender. But not unbearably so. He’d been certain that opening his heart to another would only make matters worse. What if…what if giving in to his desire, his feelings for Rosamund, was actually the path toward healing?

“I think, maybe, you already have,” he said, and smiled when a frown of incomprehension wrinkled her brow. “But if you insist…” He rolled onto his back, lifting one arm to cradle his head, a posture that only highlighted his aroused state. “Do just as you please, love.”

“What if I do nothing at all?” Hoisting herself up on one elbow, she looked down at him, a glimmer of mischief in her eyes, her hair falling around them like a curtain of gold silk.

“Don’t think I haven’t enjoyed myself already tonight,” he said, trying to keep both disappointment and desperation from his voice.

“Oh, yes. I know. Why, when I first came in, it looked as if you were…”

“Taking matters into my own hands?” he suggested with a naughty grin, half for the delight of seeing her blush.

She ran a fingertip through the hair on his chest. “Will you show me?”

It was his turn to flush. “Show you how I—?” Until she’d entered his life, he’d never been at a loss for words.

She snagged her lower lip between her teeth and nodded.

Though he’d never performed that particular trick for an audience, his cock was only too ready for him to oblige her. He swept his hand over his flesh, up and down, before settling to a firmer grip. He couldn’t deny it felt good—he couldn’t remember ever being this hard. From beneath lowered lashes, he looked at her, wondering if she liked what she saw.

But she wasn’t watching the movement of his hand. She was watching his face, earnestly searching for something. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, leaning closer. “Sorry I hid from you. But you’ve been hiding too. Please, Paris. Show me.”

“Show you…?” He managed somehow to grind out the question. Or was it a question? He knew what she wanted from him.

Everything.

And what would she think when he gave it to her, when she saw his weakness, when everything he’d kept hidden spilled from him in a torrent?

Her cool hand slid over his belly and came to rest around his fist. Quickly he shifted so that she was touching him and he was guiding her, harder, faster. The telltale spasm began in his cods and spread upward, driving a groan out of his chest. Her greedy gaze alternated now between her hand and his face. “Yes,” she whispered. He could not control the rictus of desire as it contorted his features, and she saw it all, the indescribable expression that only a man’s lover ever glimpsed, utter vulnerability, a grimace of pleasure-pain, his lips parted on a muffled cry as he spent.

Heedless of the mess, she leaned over him and pressed her lips to his temple to catch a single tear that had leaked from beneath his lashes. “Thank you,” she breathed against his skin. “I needed to see you. All of you.”

After that, what other secrets could be worth keeping?

“I love you, sweet Roisín,” he murmured as he drifted to sleep.

Chapter 22

Rosamund woke in her own bed with a smile on her face. Not just because of what had happened last night, though her body still thrummed with remembered pleasure. And not entirely because of the last words he’d said. She didn’t know whether she ought to put much stock in that confession, under the circumstances. She certainly hadn’t expected it. But now that she had it, she was going to hold onto it.