Page 74 of Atone, Adonis

“My horse. She’s my favorite girl, after you of course.”

She was quiet for a long time, the sunlight making her chestnut hair gleam and turning her skin a warm, golden brown that was so beautiful it nearly hurt.

“Fred—” she said slowly. “Your horse is an Irish Hunter, correct?”

“Yes.”

“So you are telling me that you named your Irish Hunter horse…Hunter?”

“Of course. It’s a perfectly fitting name.” He still had her wrapped in his arms and he could feel her shaking. It took him a moment to realize she was laughing at him. “What is so funny, Jules?”

The effort to hold back her laugh was causing tears to shine in her blinking eyes.

“Fred. FRED. You named your Irish Hunter, Hunter. It’s objectively funny. Although I suppose it is also fitting. That a person with as many ridiculous names as you have would give your horse the dullest one around.”

“It is not dull,” he protested, even though he found himself smiling. “And Starlight, I believe, had already been taken.”

“And Moonbeam? Or Destiny? Wellington has sadly already cornered the market on Copenhagen.”

And then she really did laugh and he couldn’t help but draw her closer. “Come here,” he growled and settled her on his lap. “I’ll show you destiny.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all.” She was still laughing even as he brought his mouth down to hers to kiss her.

But when he began to slide his thumb down the column of her throat, he was gratified to hear she was making some other noise entirely.

“Jules,” he whispered, disengaging from her kiss-swollen lips for only a moment. “Can I touch you, dearheart?”

She held his gaze, her eyes luminously dark and round, as she took his hand and guided it up under her skirts.

“Please,” she said.

He turned them so she was lying flush against the squab and he was balanced atop her, able to pepper her face and neck and collarbones, every part of her he could reach, with light, feathery kisses. And then he dropped to his knees, his erection already impossibly long and hard against his thigh.

He sat back on his heels, his knees on the floor of the carriage, and slowly lifted up her skirts, pleased they had hours to go before they reached Dorset. He knew how he wanted to spend them.

“Here, Jules?” he asked, his voice already thick and hoarse.

“Yes.”

He leaned up to kiss her then, swallowing the rest of her reply. And then he was back on his knees, moving his lips to her ankle, her calf, her thigh. Her skirts came down over his head so he was enveloped in the scent and smell of her. He licked the soft, smooth surface of her inner thigh and listened to her whimper. And then he moved up and up, her skin becoming even more impossibly tender as he made his way to the soft, wet place between her legs.

And this—this—was what he’d been hungry for. He nuzzled his nose into her thigh.

“Open your knees for me, dearheart,” he growled and then he leaned in to taste her.

He made some noise deep in his throat as he traced the seam of her, beginning at her beautiful, round arse and licking his way up. Her hips twitched in the air, bucking slightly from the squabs, and he growled again in approval. She was stretched out and open for him, a feast ready to be devoured and he was going to devour it. For as long as either of them could stand it.

He licked her again, traveling the same route but pausing this time in the places where she’d moaned the last time, her little nub of pleasure that had already come out of its sheath, ready to be caressed. Or the slick, tender place beneath it, which made her squeal in pleasure. Or here—he slipped his tongue inside her and she made some low, guttural noise that made him begin to leak against the inside of his thigh.

“Fred,” Jules moaned and he hummed back at her, the vibrations of his mouth making her buck her hips again. “Fred—”

He laved at her with his tongue—wet and delicious—while he undid his trouser flap with his hands. He was already so hard it was nearly painful and he pressed his hand against his cock for just a moment’s relief.

He gripped himself, taking a few lazy strokes that made him shudder. He kept his mouth where it was on Jules but added his fingers too in the way he knew she liked now. First one and then a second, pressed deeply inside her and curved to the front.

“Fred—Fred, there.” Her hands were in his hair now, clutching at him.

He liked that, the feel of her tugging at his scalp. The way she moaned and grunted, losing herself entirely. He couldn’t stop himself now, from reaching down, his hips rutting against his own hand. He had to squeeze the base of his shaft for a long minute to calm himself. He wanted this to last—the taste of her was too exquisite to cut short.