“Yes, Quentin,” she said. “Yes.”
“I’ve wanted you, but not like this,” he murmured. “I wanted to love you the way you deserve to be loved.”
“I don’t know what I deserve,” she said. “But if you ever cared for me, give me something to take away.”
In answer he brushed his fingers up the length of her stocking, seeking bare flesh. Her unadorned, knee-length drawers posed no barrier to him. He opened them and touched her moist skin.
She arched up into his caresses. The memory of the last time flooded into her mind, joining with the present. She feared that her body’s completion might come too fast, before she could feel Quentin moving inside her.
“Don’t… wait,” she begged.
He whispered unintelligible endearments and joined her on the mattress. He parted her legs with his hands, raising her skirts to her waist.
Too slow. She didn’t want his tenderness now, only to be possessed, claimed by him forever. She seized the front of his shirt to bring him closer and all but tore at the buttons of his trousers. He was hard under her fingertips. She set him free and held him between her hands.
“Do you wish to make us both suffer?” she demanded fiercely. “Do you?”
He closed his eyes with a groan and flung himself down upon her. The drumming of his heartbeat pierced her bodice, the flesh and bone beneath to mingle with her own heart’s frantic pace. His skin was burning where it touched her, the cloth of his trousers deliciously rough on her flesh. His hips found their natural cradle between her thighs, and just as she rose to meet him she felt the clean, swift thrust of his entry.
Nothing had prepared her for this. There was an instant of discomfort, and then a sweet ache more beautiful than anything they’d done before. He moved, withdrew, then thrust again. Fire filled her womb. She throbbed in time to his motions, each pulse drawing him deeper.
He kissed her lips and her chin and her cheeks, murmuring her name like a nonsensical rhyme. She clenched her legs about his waist. Abruptly, with stunning ease, he lifted her from the mattress and carried her, still impaled, to the nearest wall. He held her there, his strong hands cupping her buttocks, and thrust again and again, making her feel what it was to be in another’s power and willingly submit.
It was that surrender that finally pushed her over the brink. Her body and her mind ceased all resistance. She gasped and pressed her head back against the wall as the waves of pleasure came. Still he did not finish, not until the pulsing had stopped and she went boneless in his arms. Then, with one last great thrust, he found his own completion.
He kissed her and let her slide to the floor. When her legs trembled in reaction, he swept her up and carried her back to the blankets, drawing her into his lap. She felt raw and fragile and lost in bliss.
Bliss that couldn’t last. It had no more substance than the fog outside these walls, no more solidity than sand on the ocean shore.
Like sand, it slipped through her fingers and was gone. But it left in its wake the hard, bright knowledge of what must be done.
She was afraid. Fear had been an abstract concept before this moment, no matter how much she’d thought herself capable of it. Never before had so much been at stake.
If she failed in this, it would mean Quentin’s sanity, if not his life. It might mean letting loose a creature prone to violence few men could envision, and relinquishing Quentin’s chance to fetter Boroskov.
She didn’t know if she could do what her plan demanded. Her deficiencies had become all too clear, and all too deadly. She must be far more daring, more cool-headed, and more skillful than her best image of herself, let alone the flawed woman she’d turned out to be.
Her mouth went dry, and her heart beat so loudly that Quentin must have heard. He shifted her about and held her face steady between his hands.