Page 57 of Seductive Reprise
“Fuck,” he breathed. “You’re gorgeous.”
“Please,” she begged, but whether she sought his forgiveness to soothe her guilt, or his mouth to end her agony, Yusef did not know.
Falling to his knees before her, he decided it might as well be one and the same. He began with slow, exploratory kisses along the insides of her thighs, running his tongue along the tops of her stockings. He decided he quite liked her like this, open to him, yet still in her hosiery. He buried his nose in her soft curls, breathing in, drunk on her scent.
“Was he your lover,” he growled, “or something more?” The thought of Rose giving her heart to another devastated him, a pain he couldn’t even fathom if it were true. The rage he felt thinking of her with someone else choked him, thickening his throat. But if she’d…feltsomething for this man? The sorrow and pain he glimpsed terrified him.
“It ended months ago,” she said as she lifted her hips from the bed, seeking him. “I don’t want him. I only…” Her hands found his head, and she caressed his hair, sighing. “I’ve always lovedyour hair. It’s so thick, but silky at the same time.” She dropped the conversation about her ex-lover to muse about Yusef.
He licked along the length of her slit, tasting her arousal. Rose called out, her fingers tightening in his hair. He repeated the action several more times, licking her clean. Only then did he venture higher, brushing her clit with his lips.
“It’s always been you,” she cried, writhing underneath him. “I saw you in the drawing room at Icknield Court and…” She moaned again as he began again with his tongue. And then she couldn’t speak for a long while, capable only of low groans and delicate little gasps as he made love to her with his mouth.
The anger he felt began to wane, and his greedy possessiveness along with it, as he was overtaken by the heady scent of her, the slight tang of her wetness. Suddenly all thoughts of the intervening years fell away, and it was the most natural thing, the continuation of their youthful courtship here in his bed. For she’d always been on his mind, in his heart, and he had her with him now, underneath him.
“And you,” she started again, practically panting her words as her climax neared, “I’d never thought that anything, anyone could be as beautiful as you.”
Feeling overwhelmed, he nearly halted his rhythm, but steeled himself, ignoring the painful throbbing of his cock. For if he broke away to take hold of it, he’d finish right then and there. And he would not be denied her, not tonight.
Her breath caught, and she lifted her legs, stretching them out behind him, her thighs around his ears as a long moan escaped her lips. His heart raced, but he kept going, not ready to yield even as she came. Her limbs relaxed for a moment and then she gasped sharply, calling out his name as her hips lurched forward, pressing her sex firmly against his face. He relented only when she reached down and forced him back as she cried, “No, no, it’s enough, it’s enough, it’s too…”
She fell back onto the bed, panting, her hands over her face. Her hair had fallen completely from its pins now, fanning out around her head, her shoulders.
It did nothing to cool his desire.
Yusef stood.
This time he didn’t speak, and neither did she. He crawled atop her and gently pulled her hands from her face. Then he kissed her, his lips wet with her arousal, hungrily swallowing first her moans, and then her gasp as he slid his cock into place between her slick lower lips.
It hadn’t been Icknield Court for him. It’d been the yard of The Bit and Bridle, the first time she’d emerged from the inn, her cheeks flushed in the winter air, her face grown into that of a young woman, with a defiant set to her jaw. And then again that last time, at Flixton Hall, when she’d allowed him to kiss her just like this, like they’d never kissed before. Desperate, drowning in desire, unable to find their way out before their tempers sparked and they fed the fires of anger and hurt rather than the flames of passion.
Yusef drove into her. It was like nothing he could have imagined, and he felt himself losing control, but he hung on, just barely. Then she snaked one leg around his waist and drew him closer.Christ, he cursed, pulling back to thrust again, deep inside her, then again once more.
Thankfully he retained his senses enough to leave her before it was too late.
He came with a low, guttural yell.
Too awash in a heavy, pleasant glow to feel remorse at his pathetic stamina, he grabbed the closest bit of fabric within reach—her destroyed chemise—and mopped himself off. He swiped half-heartedly at the spot on the coverlet where he’d come before throwing the ruined garment to the floor,then collapsed upon her, still kissing her jaw, her neck, her collarbone.
Rose’s hand gently smoothed his hair down. She repeated the motion, as if soothing him, even as he didn’t require soothing; Yusef had never before felt so at ease.
They did not speak, nor even look at one another. This was all they needed, to just be there, together. Safe and satiated, they lay there, holding each other in a loose, happy embrace.
Chapter Twenty
Flixton Hall, Cheshire, 1862
“It’s amazing,” Rose breathed,craning her neck so she might absorb every detail in the long gallery, the walls of which reached up to an absurd height. Before her was an enormous array of portraits of prior Deaton-Palgraves, arranged in orderly regiments, lit by lamps laid out in an equally symmetrical fashion.
“I wonder how they keep the frames so clean. Just consider the dusting, all the way up there.” She cast about for ways to draw him into conversation. Their letter-writing had become more frequent these past few months, as she had begun her education in London and was finally free of her father’s censorious eye, but this was the first time they had actually seen each other in a year. “It boggles the mind,” she said, and looked to him expectantly.
He shrugged in reply.
Joseph seemed closed-off, his demeanor far different from the warm earnestness of his recent written words. It was as if they were struggling to move their friendship—or something beyond friendship, as she’d hardly dared to hope—from the page back into real life.
Rose had hardly been able to wait for this day to arrive. She had longed to see Joseph again, even as it had seemed so impossible that he, a duke’s son, might think of her as anything more than an amusing correspondent, that she had even endured the company of Elmer, the butcher’s boy, on two appallingly dull outings.
But now that she studied art in a bustling, important city, perhaps she might one day be interesting and elegant enough for him.
