Page 99 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
Wakefield found that hot place between her legs, her curls drenched from her longing. He petted her and stroked her. All the while, his own desire grew to fiery heights.
At her very visible, spiraling passion, Wakefield took her lips again feverishly and continued to tease her and stroke her with his fingers.
That one night they’d shared at The Devil’s Den had led to a complicated, messy morning and every day thereafter. But from it, he had learned every last way in which Cressida longed to be pleasured. How she liked it, how she wanted it, and he devoted himself to her and her needs.
Falling to his knees, he parted her legs wider. Unlike the first time, she didn’t ask what he was doing. She parted for him. Wakefield buried his face between her legs and attended her. He licked at her, sucked at her folds, and drove his tongue within her in time to the same rhythm and motion that mimicked the very way he wanted to bury himself bollocks deep inside her.
Cressida moaned his name and took his head firmly in hand, tangling her fingers in his hair and forcibly keeping him where she wanted him, as if he had any intention of leaving. Wakefield renewed his efforts. He devoured her like the dessert she was.
Sweat beaded it at his brow. He could tell she was close.
“I want to taste you,” he pressed against her drenched curls. “Come for me.”
His naughty words always drove her over. That was something else he discovered about his winsome minx. Cressida’s body tensed, and even as he felt her body tighten up, he continued to eat her, and then, knowing it would drive her over the edge, he slid a finger inside and teased that most sensitive place that drove all women wild.
Cressida’s body went completely stiff and then, crying out his name, Cressida came violently.
She ground herself against his face and wept, screaming his name, pleading and begging.
Wakefield didn’t let up until she’d sagged against the table. Her entire body went limp when she was replete, and she laid down like the table was her mattress.
He placed a gentle kiss upon the creamy expanse of her slender thigh and guided her skirts down. She continued to lie there, staring up at the ceiling, her hands folded upon her stomach as if in prayer.
Wakefield took up the place next to her, and they remained that way for he knew not how long. Time didn’t really seem toexist with Cressida. When he was in her company, the practical things called seconds, minutes, and hours ceased to be.
At last, he felt her body shift and knew before she even looked at him that she was turning her head. This is where the magic ended. This is where the moment merged and shifted and brought them crashing into reality.
Reluctantly, Wakefield angled his head towards hers, slowly bracing for the inevitable shame, regret, and sadness she wore so often because of him. Instead, a soft smile played with her lips still swollen from their kiss.
“Would it be wrong if I said that was far more delicious than any bread I’ve ever baked?"
Wakefield went still and then erupted into a full boisterous laugh.
Cressida’s like mirth melded like a song with his own.
Wakefield angled himself and slid a hand under her head. He drew her about the shoulders and pulled her closer to him. Both their bodies were shaking with laughter.
When he’d sought out Markham, he’d gone to the man knowing Cressida Smith was a danger to him. What he’d not anticipated was the very terrifying way she made him feel inside, and long for things he’d long ago given up on believing in.
Chapter 25
Cressida had spent most of her life carrying the weight of shame—shame for who she was, for the family she came from, for the choices she’d made just to survive. But when she was with Benedict, that burden lifted—if only a little. If only for a moment. Because when he looked at her, when he touched her, when he spoke of her as though she were remarkable…she could almost believe it.
And now, lying beside him in the quiet hush of his kitchen, their limbs tangled, the table beneath them still warm from what they’d done—what she might’ve once believed should be her greatest source of disgrace—there was no shame. Not this time.
Instead, there was a stillness, a peace, a bone-deep rightness. Not just in being with him, but in beingher—the woman she had become, the woman her choices had shaped. In his arms, she felt safe. Wanted. Known. And for the first time in her life, entirely unashamed.
“Forgive me,” he said. “This isn’t comfortable.”
He shifted, and her heart cried out at the loss.
Then, in one fluid motion, Benedict drew her so that she lay draped over him, his chest, and his hard, muscular body. Now he was her mattress.
“Better?” he asked with a teasing glint in his eyes.
“Infinitely,” she lied.
Being next to him, around him, under him, in whatever way she’d been with him, brought with it an all-consuming warmth. It was the kind of closeness she’d never known before—and suspected she might never know again. Not like this. Not with anyone else. But the memory of it—ofhim—would live on, vivid and golden-edged, even when she was an old woman lying alone in her bed, her bones aching and her hair silvered with time. Thewarmth would remain, she was certain of it. As real as it felt now. As whole.
