Page 93 of Broken

Lilly shook his head from side to side and smiled. “You are not a degenerate. You’re wonderful. I love you.”

He smiled as she denied his faults, but then scowled fiercely. “You are not broken. I have never known a stronger woman than you,” Giles said, firmly clasping her hips.

“People will think you took pity on me or that I tricked you into marriage. Whenever you leave me, they will say I was too needy. They will say that I drove you away with my demands.”

“I like that you need me, Lilly. I want you to.” Giles turned his face and pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand, letting his lips caress her as she liked him to. “I won’t ever leave you. You were going to leave me for the delights of a small village in Wales, remember?”

“I guess that makes me foolish too.” She brushed her fingers through his hair. “So what do we do now? We were betrothed once. The way I understand matters of marriage when the couple is wildly in love, someone needs to go down on bended knee. I warn you that if you expect me to do it, you might have to help me to my feet again afterward.”

“It will be my pleasure to do the truly hazardous tasks in this marriage,” Giles promised.

Lilly grinned. “So?”

Giles sank to his knees and clasped both Lilly’s hands in his. “Marry me, Lilly. Stay with me and share my life. Let me give you every pleasure I can, and some we invent together.”

When Lilly nodded, Giles swept her into his arms and carried her to his bed.

“Stay with me from now on. I have the worst trouble sleeping without you beside me, darling.”

Lilly laughed. “Do you know I have the same difficulty?”

“A perfect match then.”

She kissed him into silence and tangled her fingers in his hair, holding him close to express how much she desired him. How could she have given him up?

Giles broke the kiss, rolled her over, and then went to work on the buttons of her gown. As each patch of flesh became exposed, Giles dug his fingers deep into Lilly’s muscles, alternating with his lips until she was breathless with want. He touched her skin lavishly and made her crave him in ways she did not believe possible.

As Lilly melted into the mattress, she prayed that this time Giles would not be a gentleman. That he would not be proper. She liked the wicked man as he had always been. She knew exactly what she was getting herself into. A lifetime of pleasure at his hands.

She helped raise herself, and her gown and chemise were stripped from her in a moment. His fingers pushed under her stockings and he massaged her out of them with long, languid strokes, pausing to rub the arch of her foot and out to her toes. Lips pressed to her foot and she flexed in response.

This was what she wanted from him. This drugging pleasure bound by trust, warmth, and friendship.

From there, he kissed up the back of her leg, kissing every inch of her skin until he reached the source of her most recent pain.

“You’ll have a bruise,” he told her before pressing his lips gently to the tender spot. She shuddered as pleasure washed over her.

Reaching behind her back, she struggled to touch any part of him she could find. He pressed his lips into the crease of her thigh, and her hips arched upwards to meet him.

He kissed her back, buried his lips into her neck, and suckled hard. Cloth scraped against her bottom and she wriggled into Giles. He settled beside her and pulled the pins from her hair, smoothing out the strands along her back and tickling her skin with the ends.

Lilly shuddered and turned over. “How much longer are you going to make me wait before you steal my virtue?”

* * *

“Tonight,” he promised.

Lilly move on top of Giles and he was utterly breathless at the look in her eye. She was every bit as aroused as he. Dear God, the shudder that went through her when he had kissed her bottom defied description. As she attacked his clothing, he let himself be lulled by her movements, attempting to regain some control. As her lips settled on his neck, he started counting the number of plain women he had danced with in the past.

When his shirt was gone, he had moved on to the number of grim-looking men in parliament. That certainly cooled him. But when she had his trousers at his knees and took him in her hand, he lost all the benefits of those disturbing images. He rolled her over to her back and removed her hand from his cock. “If you kept that up, I will leave you disappointed,” he warned.

The bounce of her breasts distracted him, and he took a hard nipple into his mouth and drew on it, shaping her breasts with his hands. He switched to her other breast and ran his tongue around the nipple as she pressed her chest upwards. He took in the hard peak with less finesse than he liked. Her painful grip on his hair assured him she welcomed his rougher play.

He raised himself to kiss her again, watching her as they rubbed together, seeing her gray eyes glowing in the candlelight. He kissed down the length of her body, settled between her bent knees and ran his hand over her thigh, upward into her blonde curls. He liked that she did not flinch from his close scrutiny, because he found himself fascinated by her pale curls and the pink lips beneath.

As his fingertips teased and parted her lower lips, they became slick with her moisture and his pulse raced, hungry for her around him. He lowered his mouth and tasted her, careful to keep his cock from touching anything. He did not want to come on the sheets tonight.

A low moan from her told him that she would be ready when the time came. Giles removed his mouth and pushed a finger inside her, pressing until his knuckles touched her springy curls and could go no farther. Lilly’s back arched and she thrashed upon the bed as he worked inside her, feeling the soft passage tighten around his finger.