Page 54 of Undercover with the Heiress
‘More, my darling. Let me taste your crisis.’ He moved so dexterously, without even upsetting the indentations of the mattress, and like a blur, Phineas settled his head between her splayed thighs just as the next vivid explosion of thunder and lightning hit almost simultaneously. Before the rumble had finished shaking the house, he’d drawn a slick line and buried his tongue inside her.
Her body forgot everything except the scrunched linen that she bunched into her palms, the heavenly play of his fingers as they moved faster, so unrelenting, and his mouth, kissing hard as if her body was his breath. And when she grunted, moaned,and struggled to inhale, the frenetic crescendo rumbled through her, loud with lust and release. Her cries wound through the melody of the rain. As the delicious spasms eased a little, Phineas lowered himself atop her. His cock pressed into her wetness, which was still pulsing with release, still craving more.
‘Yes?’
Barely a question, one word full of so many possibilities, and all of them stormed in his eyes, slate grey and full of love and longing. It was an infinite question about tomorrows, about family, about the possibility of children,hischildren. A question about her life spent beside him and his introspection, his quiet and his particularity. A man of so few words, and yet this one held an eternity. They’d spoken about the life they were holding one another back from, but in his question, he was abandoning himself to her and asking her to do the same. There were no secrets or unexpected sacrifices. Only tomorrow.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Forever and forever. I want all of it. I want to take every next step with you.’
Slow and gentle, Phineas entered her. He held himself tight, balancing on his forearms, but even with his delicate thrust, she cried out as pain bit low in her body. The centre of herself that still echoed with the perfection of his touch tore and split with agony. How could such an exquisite moment turn so brutal?
‘I’m sorry,’ Phineas panted. ‘Dear heavens, you feel so beautiful.’
Rosanna wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. His weight pressed into her, his body tight with anticipation, yet waiting. With her next inhalation, she let her body loosen. He moved deeper inside her, and now he stung a little less.
When he thrust again, tender and restrained, a whimper escaped his lips. He pushed his fingers through her hair as he sought her mouth, and all of her felt opened and exposed,weighed by his body. He moved inside her hesitantly, and she rose to meet him, searching for harmony. Every touch turned into an invitation, and like each moment of reckless passion they’d shared, he listened not for her words, but for her body to sing.
‘Do you still hurt?’ He withdrew, snatched a kiss, then moved inside her again with that same aching restraint.
She shook her head. ‘You feel nice. It feels… complete.’
‘My wife will feel more than nice in her bed.’ A slightly wicked glint twisted his mouth into a wry smile, and Phineas, his cock still inside her, his grasp possessive, leant back onto his haunches. As he moved, he hitched her body onto his thighs. Rosanna pushed the hair from her eyes and stifled a nervous laugh. ‘Spread a little more for me,’ he commanded. Rosanna stretched her thighs, and with his next thrust into her, he grasped her arse and pulled her higher.
A groan burst from her lips, high and surprised at the unexpected exhilaration. He bent his head and stared at the meeting of their bodies, lasciviousness drawing dark lines across his face, and when he caught her watching him watching them, he didn’t hide, he merely licked his lips. ‘Rosanna,’ he said, his tone strangled elation. ‘Look at me.’
Rosanna forced her eyes to remain open through the cacophony of perfection and the pounding that tensed her body, all of her moving to his rhythm. He held her gaze, his own demanding and fierce, and when she tried to close her eyes to surrender to the sensations raging through her, he grasped her chin and held her firm.
‘Me. You and me.’
His eyes fluttered as his thrusts slowed, but he did not break his determined gaze. She caught his cheek in her hand. He leant into her and planted a kiss in her palm. He spoke so softly that she only heard the indistinct shape of his confession, but she felthis love like a brand on her skin as he whispered what he might never say aloud.
I love you.
Rosanna reached for him, and he collapsed against her chest. She pulled him tight against her like she might absorb him, the two of them an incredible catastrophe of writhing, quaking ecstasy. If only she could dissolve into the mattress, meld into its comfort and his compression…. She would disappear into his strength, his vulnerability and his heaving breaths, and lose herself in every way. Lost and found, weary and rested. Still her own, but now also his.
Rosanna drew him against her. They settled in together, sharing her pillow, snug under his grey and black blankets.
‘Don’t ever leave me,’ Phineas whispered. ‘Promise.’
‘Where would I go?’ she asked. ‘I am already home.’
Chapter Twenty-three
Growing up, the time of the year when the sun only set for what felt like minutes, when evening became just a grey extension of day—it had all seemed normal. In the North, summer days had felt unending while winter days, drowned out by the monotony of the workhouse workday, were as short as an inch. It was only when he’d descended into the hull of a ship and traversed the seas, when he’d re-emerged on the other side of the world, that Phineas had come to comprehend days as a detail belonging to a place instead of an absolute thing. At the centre of the earth, days held some general, mirrored sense throughout the year. In the far north or south, days could last days, many days, and in winter, the night could stretch into eternity.
And in the first-floor bedroom of Number 1, Honeysuckle Street, in his wife’s bed, with his wife tucked into his side, he could not decide if the small summer night had proved inadequate. In the ashen hues of dusk, he had adored the feeling of her cheek on his chest as he too drifted off to sleep. When the moon dawdled across the window, he had nudged her awake and rolled her onto her back to make love to her again, without pain.Her little breaths and moans, pattering in harmony with the rain on the window, had rung harmoniously in his ears. But now, as the first sunbeams elongated across the floor, it was the most magnificent thing imaginable to watch the room fill with faint light so that he could count the freckles on her nose.
His wife.
Her husband.
Would he haul his few things down into this room? Or would she want to be placed higher in the house? He knew one thing—this two-bedroom nonsense would not be for him. Lying in his room above, knowing she was resting below and feeling the agony of separation had been hard enough before. To endure it now when he had finally been able to articulate his yearning and she had confessed to feeling the same—he wouldn’t be able to stand it. Maybe she could show him some of those catalogues and they could pick something to paper his room with, together. She would probably hate anything he suggested, just to be obstinate.
A lifetime of petty disagreements, of light snarking, of her refusal to be overruled, opened before him. He kissed the top of her head.
He could not wait.
A murmur and a movement answered him. Rosanna twisted against the sheets. She blinked a few times, cut off a yawn, and before he could draw her against his chest, she repositioned herself and sat upright, her arse against his hips, facing him. Even in waking she wasn’t slow or gradual. She tucked her legs beneath her like a nymph lounging by a stream or a mermaid luring boats to their demise, then flicked her hair over her shoulders. Her tresses formed a frame around her body, showcasing her glorious curves, the dark thatch between her legs and her areola, the delectable roundness stark against her pale skin. His wife. His own.
