Page 82 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
He stood more slowly.
“You needn’t thank me for this, not for any of it,” he said with a grimace. “It is the least I could do, given the circumstances.”
Lost in her own miseries and worries as she’d been, she had failed to properly appreciate until now the very real guilt he’d taken on.
As angry and hurt as she’d been the following morning when they’d awakened and realized he had no idea who she was or what they’d done, she now recognized his anger and concern had stemmed from the fact that she hadn’t been an actual Cyprian or experienced woman, but she’d, in fact, been a virgin.
Cressida took a step closer to him.
“Benedict,” she said softly, “I don’t want you to feel guilty. You have no reason to feel shame. As I told you, I was at The Devil’s Den of my own free will.” Or at least as much of a choice as she’d had.
“I wouldn’t undo any of it, even if you would have.” She added that last part before thinking better of it.
“Is that what you believe?” he asked.
The curve of his smile made his hard lips soft and teasing.
Nervous, she dampened her mouth.
“Isn’t it?” she asked.
He took a step closer.
“The only regret I had and still have, Cressida,” he said quietly, “is that you are a respectable lady. There can’t be any more of what we shared, and it is bloodykillingme.”
Even as her body swayed towards his with a longing to be in his arms, her heart hurt, but her body rejoiced in his words.
He wanted to make love to her. He just didn’t want to marry her. And as she’d always known, she wasn’t the lady he thought her to be, for she found herself going up on tiptoes and leaning in to take his mouth in a kiss that she had longed for since the last one they’d shared that morning.
He folded his arms around her, and unlike the kisses that had been almost violent, now it turned gentle and there was an equal beauty to it. Nay, maybe even more so.
He guided his lips over hers, slanting them continuously over and over again. His was a tender dance and one she was a little too happy to partner in.
Her moan was lost to his groan, and he filled his hands with her buttocks and drew her close to him. They came together as one in a fiery dance of passion. His tongue lashed against hers like an expertly wielded whip.
Breathless, her legs went out from under her, but Benedict caught her more tightly and drew her more closely against the hard ridge of his erection. He moved his mouth from hers and she cried out at the sudden loss, but he merely trailed a path of kisses down her cheek and lower, touching them everywhere to her chin, lower to her neck, and that place where her pulse waspounding wildly for him. He paused there to lightly suck and nip.
“Benedict,” she whimpered.
It was as though the sound of his name drew him, broke him from the spell. He jumped away from her like she was Medusa, about to turn him into stone.
“Forgive me,” he said tightly. “You should go. I should go. We should both go.”
Her toes curled up with the shame of his rejection. How disgusted he was by her and how eager he was to have her gone.
“Yes, of course, my lord. Yes, Benedict. I, I… Good night.”
And with that, Cressida took flight.
She didn’t stop running until she reached the safety of her rooms, and when there, she locked the door and closed her eyes.
Chapter 20
The following morning, seated in the breakfast room, Wakefield found himself doing something he did often with Cressida Smith—waiting.
And waiting he had been—again.
Despite his earlier vow to keep residence at his family townhouse, given the nature of Cressida’s late-night hunt around London, and his own equally late night, he’d decided it best he stay.
