Page 50 of The Rake
“I might be experienced in bedding women in every imaginable way, but the truth of wanting you, needing you so completely, with a desire that is so all-consuming it eats me up inside, that is entirely new to me. It has been haunting me.” He clasped her hand more tightly and that need he spoke of played over his handsome face, so much so that Margot felt her stomach clench, and unbidden, her knees gave way, bringing her down onto the floor in front of him so that their gazes were aligned. Langley smiled and continued, “I have no thought for another woman. I am rendered as a virgin in your presence, fresh, eager, yearning for your touch. Why didn’t you tell me that I was in love with you? It is you who have put me in this state and only you can lift me up or leave me here. You are my love, body, mind, and soul. You are my Amazon. Please say you will marry me?”
CHAPTER 24
There was a small piece of satisfaction in watching Margot’s expressive face move from its stilted mask of stiffness, to see the welling of tears in her eyes. Not that he wanted her to cry, but Langley was pleased his speech had registered with her.
Still, doubt was lingering within him. She was not moving any closer. He speculated that he had shocked her, then had a fleeting thought that she might be repulsed by his offer. In truth he had never made such a declaration to another woman before, nor wanted to. But he had assumed after such a speech his Amazon in question would at least reply.
“My love?” There was a lightly tentative note to his voice.
When he tried to pull back, with the plan of fetching some wine for her, Margot’s hands tightened on his, keeping him close. They were a foot apart, both on their knees watching each other. Posed in front of the fireplace.
“Why didn’t I tell you?” She fixed him with a sharp, perceptive look. “You think it is my job to explain love to you? To have it set out before you, so you would understand?” She balled up her fists and slammed them into his chest. There really wasn’t any force behind it, and when she stared up at him, their eyes ona level, Langley finally felt a degree of relief flood through him. She wanted to be here, she wanted to be close to him—aye, she needed to tell him that he was an idiot, but then… “Get that smug look off your face, my lord.”
Snaking his hand around her back, Langley pulled Margot close, crushing her flattened hands which had come to rest on his chest, keeping her tight to him. It was exhilarating to have her nearby. To no longer deny the feelings that flooded through him, to grin down at her, and to steal a kiss. This was the kiss he had wanted earlier. She was delicious, warm, and tantalising—everything he had been picturing and yet so much more besides. How had he managed to stay away for so many days? It beggared belief, his patience, but now they were reunited, his body craved the sweet release the two of them would find together.
There was artistry and comfort in her touch, and the languid ease with which he stroked her back spurred him on. It was such an erotic thrill, richer and sweeter than he would have ever previously expected, that when he rolled them both down onto the rug completely, Langley felt quite sure his heart might explode from happiness. He wanted to laugh, to feel the lightness wash through him. Yet this was all doing battle against his overwhelming need for Margot.
His hands were unsteady as they crept beneath her skirts, his prior statement to feeling far more like a virgin than she was, was achingly true.
“Wait,” she said, and Langley forced himself to pause.
“What is wrong?”
“Don’t you want to know if I love you too? Or did you just assume all women do?” Margot arched her brow at him, and Langley resisted the urge to kiss it.
“No, of course not… Do you? Love me, I mean?”
Margot blushed, suddenly shy, and then nodded. “I think I have for weeks, despite myself. And then entirely for you.”If anything, the joyous happiness he had experienced earlier bubbled and burst through him, expanding in every direction within him. He’d known what it was to be wanted previously, but to be loved, this was something else.
She unnerved and excited him, challenging him physically and mentally, he realised as they struggled, kissed, and fumbled together, rendering all his previous experience mute and dull in comparison to the inferno Margot brought to light. When his seeking fingers found her wet curls, her mouth, which was curved against his, broke into a grin that matched his own, and then as he slipped two fingers inside her as she looked at him, it was to watch in delight as her neck arched back and she pleasured herself against him.
She gasped, a half moan. “Silvester.” There was something in the way she managed to say his name, it seemed like it was a prayer. A needful call for release, for coupling, for connection. For love, that’s what it was.
“There you are my Amazon, my love.” He pushed the strand of her dark hair out of her face, and tucked it behind her ear.
Margot’s body was half leant, half draped over him. They lay sprawled in front of the fireplace, the rug beneath him. Her own hands struggled to loosen the folds of his breeches, freeing him from the material confines. All semblance of restraint between the two of them was gone, and in its place simple, desperate, raw need.
He dragged Margot more firmly on top of him, coaxing her forward so she was astride him. For one moment she looked uncertain, as if she might change her mind. Leaning down between them, Langley stroked the peak of her sex, coating his fingers in her desire, angling her so he could slip more easily inside her sheath.
Sitting up on his elbow, he kissed her cheek and then her lips as Margot adjusted herself, easing herself down onto hiscock. When he was held in her tight, all-compassing warmth, the sensation made him gasp aloud.
“Now you ride me,” he said as her wide eyes met his. With one quick surge up within her, Margot laughed with pleasure and then she started to move. Her limbs were unsteady, but soon she found her rhythm, claiming him as she gained confidence to ride him with more skill.
When Langley’s hands fumbled beneath her gown, catching and holding on to her bottom, getting her to grind down with the pressure of his fingers, the sensation was sharp, enticing, and released within him a full-bodied satisfaction in feeling and knowing her form so well. It was not merely physical. He realised that was the key—it transcended that element and instead encompassed all what they were to each other.
“I love you,” he said as she rocked back and forth on top of him, desire and need awash between their bodies, catching and causing the other to be driven to even greater heights of want.
He was grateful when Margot let out a tremendous sigh, a catch within her voice as she nodded, all sense of logic gone as her body pulsed and spasmed around him. As she vibrated against him, calling and crying out her climax. The tightening around him, not to mention the look on her face, caused its own reaction in Langley, deep from within him a rush of heat, of feeling triggered, and seconds after she had finished, he found his own completion. His hands grasped her to him still, unable to let her go, fearful suddenly he would never know the same true sense of connection again. When he looked up and caught Margot watching his face with such warm grace that was so uniquely her, he felt a solace he had never known possible from fucking before. But he knew it now, and by God no one would ever take it from him again. No one would ever take Margot from him.
“When do you wish to marry?” he asked as he pulled her down onto the rug next to him, his hands busy smoothing and stroking her hair and then along her back. He was entirely unable to stop touching her.
Margot seemed to tolerate it well enough as she nestled into the crook of his arm. “I did think I would like my parents to be there. To meet you.”
Somehow Langley had his doubts a vicar and his wife would find much to approve in him. Besides, that suggestion meant waiting weeks and weeks to get the banns called and then journey up to Berwick-upon-Tweed, or have the Keatings make the trip down south, which might even take longer. The vicar could even wish to perform the ceremony himself. No, his selfish heart argued, it needed to be sooner. Instead of voicing that, he said, “If you wish.”
To this Margot grinned, as her hand trailed across his chest, her curiosity fighting away any shyness she might have originally shown. “I thought you were most eager. Pressing almost.”
“I am.” Langley put his hand behind his head, determined to enjoy the sense of contentment that lapped around the pair of them. She had agreed to wed him, and his heart rejoiced. He had feared more than anything she would refuse—that he had learnt finally to love, and it would be for nought. Margot would see his selfish heart and want nothing to do with him. But she hadn’t. She loved him in spite of everything.
