Page 63 of Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match
She thought he must have been waiting for that breathless little plea. One hand clamped at her waist, as if to hold her perfectly still, and she sensed him bracing himself to end the torment at last.
A slice of light cut across the floor, shining through that scant inch at the bottom of the screen. The strains of music from the ballroom floated through the door. And Mercy froze, arrested by the sound of footsteps entering the room.
Thomas, too, stilled, poised upon the brink of a thrust, his fingers clenching on her hip. Still concealed in the shadows behind the screen, Mercy could only hope the ragged puff of her breath was not audible.
“Here,” a voice said to an unseen companion. “Another table for the card room.” Servants, she thought wildly, sent to retrieve additional furniture.
Another set of footsteps paced into the room, and the slice of light grew wider, stretching toward the far wall in an arc. “Is this one large enough, do you think?”
“Seems so. Chairs?”
“None of these; too fine. Her ladyship will be apoplectic if some drunkard stains the upholstery. We’ll fetch some from the dining room instead.”
Mercy held her breath, her fingers gripping the arms of the chair. Even her heartbeat seemed too loud in the quiet room, the frantic pound of it roaring in her ears.
And Thomas—Thomas was done with waiting. He bent over her back, cupped his hand over her mouth, and thrust inside her. A long, sure plunge that forced her onto her toes, and would certainly have wrenched a cry from her lungs if not for thestifling of his palm.
The chatter of the servants who had invaded the room faded to little more than a murmur in her mind, nothing but ambient noise. A slow withdrawal dragged across sensitive tissues, and preceded another decisive plunge. Measured and deliberate, he invaded her over and over, and she could only accept those urges he had unleashed.
Wicked in a way she had never imagined, and she reveled in the atavistic nature of Thomas unbound by convention, by propriety, by anything even remotely resembling civil behavior. He took her, and took her, unconcerned with the sounds of the footmen wrestling the heavy table out of the room one grumbling step at a time. They only served to mask the panting breaths he issued near her ear, the quiet rustle of their clothing, the stifled little sounds she might have made but for the pressure of his hand.
The light faded with the closing of the door at last, and she should have felt relief that they had gone undiscovered. Instead there was only the primal thrill of that illicit pleasure ratcheting up once more as his hand released her hip and slid down over her belly to rub her clitoris. The escalating pound of his hips against hers drove a series of gasps from her throat, which ended up muffled within the warm cup of his palm.
His thrusts grew wild and forceful, driving her inexorably toward that peak she had reached already only minutes ago, and she managed a spare shred of gratefulness the servants had left, because nobody could have mistaken the lascivious sound of flesh meeting flesh for anything other than what it was.
Every muscle tightened in a burst of pure, wrenching bliss. She screeched into his palm, and only a muted shred of sound slipped through the tight cage of his fingers, fading to nothing in a moment. Still he drove into her, as if he would force every last twitch of radiant pleasure from every last quivering muscle.
For a moment, just before her trembling arms gave out and her elbows buckled, she thought he might, in his frenzied intemperance, fail to withdraw. For a moment, as she sucked in breath after breath in the hope of clearing the swirling stars from her vision, she longed to feel him in those last moments, to know what it was like to have him spend himself inside her.
A last, erratic thrust, and then, with a hissed oath, he withdrew. The warm pulse of his seed landed across the upturned globes of her bottom, painting her tender skin with him. Now, she thought, as she closed her eyes and locked her knees to keep herself from wilting to the floor in sheer exhaustion, she knew what it meant to be ravished.
Thomas fumbled with his clothing and managed to produce a handkerchief from somewhere, with which he cleaned up the mess he’d made of her—at least to a point. “I’m sorry,” he whispered as he helped her straighten once more, upon legs that trembled like a bowl of blancmange. “Your hair is unsalvageable, I’m afraid.”
Of course it was. The elegant style had been fashioned for nothing more strenuous than a dance. Being bent over the back of a chair and pushed to her very limits had been well beyond what it had been made to bear. Probably her gown had seen some damage, too, given that he’d taken little care with it there at the end.
One arm encircled her waist, his warm hand resting upon the small of her back. “You’re all right?” he asked, and there was an odd hesitance in his voice, as if her silence had troubled him.
“Yes,” she said, and the word crackled over her dry lips as she tipped her cheek against his shoulder. Probably it was the last time she would beall rightfor some time. Perhaps ever. “But I am ready to go home.”
“Good.” He smiled against the top of her head, pressed a kiss to her mussed hair. “I’ll fetch the carriage while you repair yourhair. We’ll slip out as quietly we can. Mother probably assumes we’ve gone home already.” A last kiss to her temple, and he departed, leaving Mercy alone in the shadows behind the screen. Her hands still trembling, she pulled out her hairpins one by one, winding her hair back into some semblance of order and pinning it back into place.
With a deep draw of air into her lungs, she headed for the door, steeling herself mentally as she prepared for the inevitable breaking of two hearts this evening—his, and her own.
Chapter Twenty Three
Mercy had been quiet in the carriage. Suspiciously quiet. So quiet that Thomas had felt the weight of every unsaid word like a ball of lead within his stomach. She gazed out the window the entirety of the short journey home, her chin cradled in her hand and her eyes—distant. There were only a few inches that separated them, and yet she was miles away. Somewhere else entirely.
Had he hurt her? Frightened her? No—he’d astonished her, perhaps, but she had come so hard around him that he’d had to wrench himself free of her there at the last to protect her from an unintended pregnancy. Perhaps he hadsurprisedher, but he’d have staked his life on no more than that.
Her hand perched lightly in his own as he helped her alight from the carriage as they arrived, and her gaze slid away from his, falling to the ground. Not fear, he thought. Not hurt or anger—butshame.
His stomach clenched in concern, in uncertainty. Had he given it to her, that shame that he had read, however briefly, in her eyes? He had not, exactly, behaved with her as a gentleman ought to have done, though it had always been with the assumption of a forthcoming marriage.
He ought to have proposed first. The world was so very puritanical in its view of women, restricting their behavior farmore than men, despite the fact that he knew of few men who exhibited the same chastity they would have expected of women.Hehad been rather puritanical in his own opinions. He’d let his pride govern his actions. Had he sacrificed hers in the doing of it?
Before she could retract her hand from his, he closed his fingers around it. “Mercy, if I have erred—”
Her eyes snapped up to his, wide and startled, meeting his for no more than a moment before her gaze sheared toward the coachman. “Please, let’s go inside,” she said, pitching her voice low to avoid attracting undue attention. “We must speak.” She slipped her hand out of his, turning for the door.
