Page 76 of Lady Diana's Lost Lord
“Yes. Oh, yes.” And she laughed as he rushed her, wrapping her so tightly in his arms that she thought it might be weeks before she caught her breath once more. “I don’t want a long engagement,” she said between short, frantic kisses.
“We’ve been engaged long enough already.” His hands fisted in her hair, and his lips caught at hers. “I have a ring here in one of my pockets,” he murmured. “It’s—not precious. I’m afraid I can’t afford better. But itispretty, and Hannah is very proud of it, so—”
“I love it already.”
A brief huff of laughter, puffing against her lips. “You haven’t even seen it.”
“I don’t have to see it to love it.” Her fingers knotted in his cravat, struggling to loosen it from around his neck. Ben sighed as she freed him of it at last, and his hand whisked down her back, feeling for the buttons along her spine.
He caught himself before he’d managed more than one. “Christ. What the hell am I—” His gaze sharpened as he pulled a breath away from her. “Wherearewe?”
“My bedchamber.” The disgruntlement writ upon his face was a pure delight. “The drawing room is just a bit too public for the sort of proposal I had in mind.” Her hands shoved at his coat, pushing it over his shoulders. “Hadn’t you noticed?”
“You knew I hadn’t.” It was issued in a vaguely sulky tone, his concession to how skillfully she had manipulated him, when she had to have known that he would have followed anywhere she led. When he had been focused solely upon her to the exclusion of all else. Still, he allowed her to strip him of the coat, and it sailed to the floor and landed in a heap. “Your family is going to kill me,” he said against her lips as his fingers worked the buttons of her gown.
“Mm.” It was a hum of amusement, and perhaps a little agreement. “Only if they find us out. And even then…not before the wedding.”
Chapter Thirty
What did you mean,” Ben asked, as he bent to pull off his boots, “byit’ssafe?”
“Later,” Diana hummed lightly as she removed her spectacles and tugged her chemise off over her head, and all that lovely black hair spilled down her naked back. The ends of it just reached her bottom, and he knew—heknewthey were going to be caught, that one or both of her brothers would give him a sound thrashing, and that he would deserve it.
But the surety of a thrashing wasn’t going to stop him. Not when it had been more than a month since he’d last held her. Not when God alone knew when next they would have the luxury of uninterrupted privacy, and Diana’s sister-in-law was so graciously stuffing Hannah full of biscuits somewhere in the house. He shucked off his shirt, his trousers.
His hands trembled as he reached for her, and she came to him with a sigh of relief, warm and soft in his arms. Her bed was a great deal larger than any to which he had laid claim in the last several years, with a mattress stuffed full and tightly-strung ropes supporting it and a plush velvet counterpane spread across it.
“We have so much to discuss,” she said, turning her mouth to his. “But for now, I only want you to love me.”
“I do.” He forgot about the certain thrashing, the fact that it was the middle of the afternoon in a house that most assuredly did not belong to him, that they weren’t yet married. He forgot everything but the now-familiar silken texture of her skin beneath his fingers, the heat of her body as she settled against him. “God, I do love you.” He had almost lost her forever, and now—now he couldn’t imagine why. She had been so brave all of these years, weathering one Season after another with an absent fiancé and the gossip that went along with that silent rejection. His cowardice might have ruined them. Thank God she had given Hannah a bit of her own strength, her own perseverance.
They could face anything together, surmount any obstacle. His life, and Hannah’s, would have been so much poorer without her. And they were going to have to be married in a damned hurry, because he didn’t think he had it in him to spend even one more night away from her.
She slid beneath the covers with him, and he wondered if she knew how captivating she was, how completely she had entranced him. By the tiny smile that lingered there at the corner of her lips, he suspected she did.
Thiswas peace. The patter of the rain on the windows, and the fluff of soft blankets around them. Diana’s arm about his neck, pulling him down into the warmth of her embrace. The plump swell of her breasts against his chest and the smooth slide of her legs on his own. A sort of quiet intimacy he’d never thought to have with another. It was an indescribable pleasure only to hold her, to sweep the flat of his palm down the gentle slope of her back, to cup her hips in his hands, to kiss the curve of her cheek, the arch of her shoulder.
She said into the hollow of his throat, “I don’t want you to leave me this time.” Her fingers drifted down the wall of his chest, tickling over his abdomen, to take him in hand.
His breath whistled through his teeth. “There’s a chance that would result in a baby,” he said, and one hand made a fist in her hair, grasping a handful of that cool silk.
“I know.” He could feel the satisfied tilt of her smile against his throat. “Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
God, yes—he could see her in his mind’s eyes, belly rounded with his child. His fingers stroked the softness of her stomach and imagined it large and firm, cradling their baby within her. “We’ll have to be married quickly, then,” he whispered in her ear.
Her delighted laugh trickled up around them. With one hand she pressed at his shoulder, shoving him to his back in a flounce of clean white sheets and a puff of the feathery pillows beneath his head. Diana crawled over him, straddling his hips, limned in the grey afternoon light that slid in through the window.
Ben sucked in a breath as she sank over him, bathing his cock in her lush heat. Not inside her, not yet—but a slow torture as she braced her palms upon his chest and used him for her own pleasure, one luscious stroke after another.
Her breasts bobbed, and he lifted his hands to cup them in his palms, to run the pads of his thumbs over the tight points of her nipples. So soft andpliant, the delicate flesh filling his hands perfectly. Diana threw her head back, her jet black hair cascading down to tickle his thighs. That rosy passion flush spread from the apples of her cheeks down her throat, gilding her skin a glorious pink.
His hips arched unconsciously into the cant of her own, and he tensed his thighs against the zing of pleasure that skittered down his spine. “If you want a baby,” he said, through the clench of his teeth, “this is nothow you get one.”
“Mm.” It was an approving murmur, practically a purr, as she rocked her hips once more, sinking down on him fully, taking him inside her one slow inch at a time. “I suppose,” she said on a tiny gasp, “we haven’t got too very much time anyway.”
No; not in her brother’s house, where they could be discovered at any moment. Had she locked the door? He couldn’t remember. Hell, he could hardly remember his own name. She took him—and took him—and took him—and when at last she came to rest, they were both gasping.
If she moved an inch, he would spend. But God, he needed her tomove. Somehow his hands had ended up on her hips, clutching so tightly he was certain he’d leave bruises. Somehow, she didn’t seem to mind.
