Page 23 of When Hearts Are Wylde
But he stunned her. Because when he looked at her, need was written plainly across his features. Not simply physical. It wasn’t lust or desire or passion—he needed her. And for the first time, he wasn’t trying to hide it. “Because I couldn’t bear to part with them,” he admitted softly. “Because they would be the part of you I could keep forever. The only part. And I wasn’t even worthy of them. I carelessly let them fall into the hands of someone who means you harm.”
“I kept yours, as well,” she admitted. “And I’ve read them through again and again. Searching for some hint, some tiny scrap of indication that your feelings for me had begun cool.”
“My feelings for you will never cool. You are a fever in my blood and an insidious madness invading my brain—every thought, every dream… you are there. A living phantom to torment me.” He moved toward her then — not much, but enough that she could feel the heat radiating from him. “Hermione— tell me to step back. To leave you be. Tell me that I can’t have you again.”
His nearness was like the most potent of spirits, or perhaps the opium others had fallen prey to. But she had no desire to resist, no desire to push him away, even when she knew she should. “I don’t wish to tell you that at all. I didn’t come here just to talk, Leo. I came because… my life as I know it is over. When I marry, Baxter, and I must, there will be no more clandestine meetings. I won’t be able to slip out, even if I were inclined to do so. He will watch my every move. He will critique my every word and action… But now, now is for pleasures past and present, even if not for the future.”
His voice was low, almost a growl. “You cannot know what you’re asking.”
But she did know. She had known for years. “I am asking for one night,” she told him. “For the memory of what might have been, if we had been different. If our lives had been different. If fate had smiled on us in some small way.”
His gaze was a tether, holding her there, and for a heartbeat she thought he might refuse her. Then he murmured, “If we were different, you might have been my salvation instead of my ruin.”
A faint smile touched her lips, though it felt carved from equal parts sorrow and defiance. “And you might have been my greatest happiness instead of my heartbreak.”
They stood in silence, the fire snapping softly behind him, her pulse roaring in her ears. When his hand lifted, brushing along her cheek, she let herself lean into the touch, memorizing the feel of his skin against hers, the warmth that sank deep.
In that moment, she could almost believe in the life they might have had — if he had not been so convinced of his own unworthiness, if she had asked for more from him, if the world had been just a fraction kinder.
His other hand came to rest at her waist, and the heat of it burned through the layers of her cloak and gown. Like they were no more than a wisp of fabric. She made no move to step back. Her breath caught as she searched his face, silently offering him the chance to deny her.
He didn’t take it.
When his mouth met hers, it wasn’t tentative or careful. It was the breaking of something long restrained — the shattering of years of self denial, of loving him from afar, and ultimately, letting him go. And Hermione knew, with a clarity that was almost painful, that no matter how this night ended, it would be etched into her soul for as long as she lived.
How many nights had he lain awake in his bed remembering the press of her lithe form against him? How many countless bottles of brandy had he consumed to try and wipe the taste of her from his mind? But as he kissed her—taking, claiming and giving in kind—he accepted one undeniable truth. She would never be stripped from his memory. With resignation, he accepted the fact that she would be a part of him forever, down to the marrow.
God help him, he should have stopped it the instant her lips touched his. That would have been the merciful thing — for bothof them. But mercy had never been his strength where Hermione was concerned. The moment she yielded to him, every resolution he had built, constructed stone by stone like the walls of a fortress, crumbled under the siege of need.
Her taste, her scent, the sound of her breath catching against his mouth — it all dragged him under, drowning him in the familiar intoxication of her. He felt her fingers curl in his coat, dragging him closer, until there was no space between them at all, only heat and the urgent rhythm of hearts that beat in defiance of reason.
He backed her toward the desk without thought, guided by the kind of hunger that had nothing to do with food or drink and everything to do with the woman in his arms. It was instinctive and primal. It called to a part of him that was far, far removed from the bored nobleman the world saw. Her cloak fell away beneath his hands, pooling at her feet, and he drank in the sight of her — flushed, luminous in the firelight, every line and curve of her body remembered and rediscovered in the same breath.
“This is madness,” he murmured against her throat, though his hands betrayed him, skimming over the fine muslin of her gown, feeling the tremor that ran through her when his palms found the curve of her hips.
“Then let it be madness,” she whispered, and the rawness in her voice near undid him.
He had meant to keep some distance — to taste only what memory would allow and then stop before either of them went too far. But the first brush of her hand against his chest made restraint a laughable notion. She slid her fingers higher, over the knot of his cravat, and he caught her wrist, meaning to still her. Instead, he brought it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the pulse that fluttered there.nThe delicate scent of her perfume, dabbed lightly on her wrist, teased his senses.
When she shifted against him, he realized with dawning horror and exquisite pleasure just how far gone they both were. Her thigh pressed to his, her body arching into his touch, and he could feel her heat even through the layers between them.
He sat her on the edge of the desk, beyond thought or intent, his hands cradling her hips. She gasped softly as he trailed his mouth down the slope of her neck, his teeth grazing tender flesh. Her fingers tangled in his hair, holding him to her as though she feared he might vanish.
“Hermione—” It was meant to be a warning, but it came out ragged, as much a plea as a protest.
“I know,” she breathed, tilting her head back. “And I don’t care. Thought, regret—all that can come later. For now… just don’t stop.”
The words were his undoing. He let himself go — let himself feel everything he had been denying for so long. His hand slipped beneath her skirts, not in a crude rush, but with reverence, stroking along the smooth length of her stocking-clad thigh, burning ever texture, every shiver from her into his memory, until he reached the bare skin above her stockings. Still he moved further, his hands stroking over silken thighs. Her sharp intake of breath was a sound he would remember long after this night.
When his fingers found her, she was already slick with need. Her hips lifted into his touch, her breath shattering into gasps and broken syllables of his name. He kissed her fiercely to swallow those sounds, each stroke of his hand drawing her closer to the edge. Her body trembled against him, and when she came, she clung to him as though she might fall into a void without his arms around her.
He was shaking himself, aching with the force of his own desire. He had meant to see her undone, to give her that much, and stop there. But when she pressed her palm againstthe hard length straining beneath his trousers, any hope of restraint vanished. Her touch was firm, knowing, both familiar and thrilling all at once. When her fingers moved over him, his breath left him in a groan torn from the deepest part of him. Buttons were freed, her hand slipping beneath the fabric and eliciting a groan of surrender from him.
He wanted her so desperately that it didn’t take long at all. The first touch of her hand and it felt as though the very earth trembled beneath his feet. And she knew him just as he knew her. How he liked to be touched, where she could touch him to drive him wild.
It came swiftly--that white-hot rush, the tension racking his body and then receding with such force it left him weak. And for the first time in a very long time, he felt whole again. As if the broken pieces of him had finally been put to rights.
His forehead dropped to hers, their ragged breaths mingling in the minuscule space that existed between them. For the longest time, neither of them spoke. Only the crackle of the fire and the thumping of their own hearts could be heard. He knew he should say something — an apology, a warning, perhaps even the truth.
