Page 62 of The Wolf of Mayfair
Perspiration beaded at her brow. Helia found herself soaring toward some peak. Higher and higher Anthony took her, on a seemingly ceaseless climb. She bit her lip hard.
Close. I am so close ...
To what?
And then . . .
Helia’s body tensed as she approached some invisible but gloriously brilliant peak.
“Come for me, Helia,” Anthony demanded; that rough command sent Helia tumbling over that precipice.
Yes! Yes! She’d follow wherever he led.
She wept his name and screamed, incoherent, desperate cries. All the while, she pressed herself against Anthony’s fingers, still buried in her channel until her body was replete with every last bit of pleasure he’d wrung from her.
Helia’s legs went limp.
Anthony swiftly caught her about the waist with an arm. His other remained firmly tucked between her legs, until she shivered and trembled in that place he’d touched.
Ever so slowly, Anthony withdrew his fingers. The shine of her fluid on those long digits gleamed in the sunlight.
Alternately shy and embarrassed, Helia buried her cheek against his shoulder and just remained that way, soothed and comforted by the feel of his arms about her.
With an aching tenderness, Anthony stroked his hand in a smooth, soothing circle over the small of her back. “Enjoy yourself, kitten?”
She gave a small nod against him.
Ever so gently, Anthony caught her chin in a delicate grip and angled her head up so their gazes met. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Helia,” he murmured.
Helia. There it was again. Somehow his saying her given name moved them to a deeper plane of intimacy. This man, who a short time ago had been a stranger. And yet, how quickly everything had changed. Reluctant friend though he may be, the care Mrs. Trowbridge said he’d shown Helia revealed a warmth he fought desperately to hide.
Helia examined the man who’d been her unlikely nursemaid and savior. Aye, she expected he did rouse terror in the breasts of most. She’d been no different.
In a short time, however, though gruff and nasty, he’d proven himself good-hearted.
Anthony had shown a crack in the mask he wore, and in so doing, he’d revealed glimpses of the man he truly was underneath his hard exterior.
I want to know everything about him.
She moved her eyes over the harsh planes of his gloriously chiseled face. He was nothing like the man she’d dreamed of for herself. That man would have been always affable, romantic, and uncomplicated. Anthony ... he was none of those things, and yet he’d bespelled her.
That organ in her breast which had previously found a normal tempo resumed a dangerously erratic beat.
God help Helia. If she were not careful, she could find herself losing her heart to the last man who wanted it.
Chapter 13
For those, who were charmed by her loveliness, spoke with enthusiasm of her talents; and others, who admired her playful imagination, declared, that her personal graces were unrivalled.
—Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho
Helia stared up at Wingrave with a dewy-eyed gaze that bore a tenderness no one had ever before directed upon him, and for good reason—he was thelastperson who either wanted or deserved such warmth.
He had never been in love, nor would he ever give himself over to that puling emotion.
For that matter, he didn’t even believe in its existence.
But with Helia still in his arms, and with that look in her expressive green eyes, he saw it plainly.
