Page 22 of Tempting the Bluestocking
Her eyes went wide, then her expression turned sultry as she understood his meaning. He helped her arrange herself so she lay atop him, legs straddling his head and putting him in the perfect position. From the nest of dark curls cloaking her mons, the teasing glimpse of pink flesh made his mouth water and his arousal swell to painful limits. She moaned when he drew his tongue over her in one long lap, pressing against her clitoris, then making his slow way to her channel. He plunged his tongue inside her, his palate bathed with her earthy taste and his senses overwhelmed by the heady scent of her arousal.
Taking hold of his cock, Clare picked up where she’d left off, sucking him with rhythmic pulls that made his toes curl. He grasped her buttocks and spread her, revealing more of her cunny and taking aim at the swollen pink bud. His cock muffled her cry as he latched onto it and treated her to the same torment she exacted on him. Her wetness slicked his lips, and her hips began to undulate as she rode his tongue, seeking her own pleasure while giving him his. They moved together, him thrusting into her mouth and Clare rocking against him with wild abandon.
Never letting up with his mouth, he delved two fingers into her sheath and began to thrust at the same rhythm with which she sucked his cock. She released him from her mouth with a startled cry, her back arching to take him deeper. He slid in to his third knuckles, his fingers drenched in her juices as he fucked her with them the way he soon would with his cock.
A moment later, the wet rasp of her tongue against his bollocks nearly unmanned him. Sucking in a deep breath, he willed away climax and concentrated on taking her to the finish. She was close, shuddering atop him and her ministrations growing less adept. He quickened his fingers inside her, his lips pulling on her clitoris until she finally splintered. Throwing her head back, she groaned and shook, her cunt pulsating around his fingers as he stroked her through the climax. It seemed to go on and on, her thighs shaking and her voice growing hoarse as she came off like a flame stoked to a roaring inferno.
When at last she’d gone still with her head rested on his thigh and her breaths coming out in heavy pants, Edward turned her onto her back, then swiveled to come to rest between her legs. She seemed a world away, her eyes glassy as she recovered from her powerful climax. But, he couldn’t wait another moment to be inside her, and her legs fell wide open as he lunged between them, aiming his cock at her slick opening. He fell into her with a growl, clenching his teeth and holding back from spilling inside her then and there.
He wanted to savor every moment of this and make it last, but she’d brought him close to spending with her mouth and he hovered close to the edge. Gathering her legs over his shoulders, he slid deeper and began rolling his hips, trying to go farther with every thrust. His body seemed as desperate as his mind to be so connected to her that they no longer felt like separate people and became like one being. She stoked to life again, fingers digging into the rug as his pace became faster, his body breaking out with a light sheen of sweat. He watched the way the firelight played over her bared skin, the bounce of her breasts with every stroke, the delirious expression of pleasure that transformed her face into one of the most glorious things he’d ever seen.
“CeCe, I—”
He clenched his teeth around the words that had nearly escaped him in a fit of madness.
I adore you.
I love you.
You’ve bewitched me beyond all reason.
Even as far gone as he was at the moment, he couldn’t allow himself to tread that far and ruin what remained of their time together. She had given no indication of any such feelings for him, and might be repulsed to know he’d made more of their agreement than he ought have. He needed to tread with more care until he unraveled all the desires and hopes she held inside.
“You feel so bloody good,” he rasped instead, which was as much the truth as the other things he wanted to say.
“Yes, Edward,” she mewled, raising her hips to meet his battering thrusts. “Yes!”
She splintered again, her back arching up off the rug as she released in a torrent of pulsating flesh, wetness, heat, and throaty moans of ecstasy. Edward followed soon after, pulling free of her just before his seed spilled from him, streaking his hand and her open thighs. Bracing himself over her, he hung his head and struggled to catch his breath. At the same time, he worked to get a hold of himself and chase these delusions of love from his mind. He told himself he was mad, and that even if his feelings were real she couldn’t possibly feel the same way.
Opening his eyes, he groped about for his coat and withdrew his handkerchief from the breast pocket. He used it to clean her, then tossed it aside.
She opened her arms and he went to her, gathering her against him and turning so they lay facing each other, one of her legs draped over his. For a moment, he could have sworn he recognized something in her eyes—an answering sentiment to his own turbulent emotions. As if she might actually feel something as deep and real for him as he did for her. But then, she closed her eyes and burrowed her face in his chest, and he told himself he’d been mistaken. A trick of the light or wishful thinking, perhaps. He had obviously read what he’d seen all wrong.
Still, the longer he lay there holding her and realizing they’d come one day closer to parting ways, Edward found it difficult not to give in to the hope that perhaps he’d been right.
Chapter 9
Four more days passed Edward by without him finding the courage to ask Clare the question he’d been turning over in his mind ever since his meeting with Hugh and Benedict. It grew more imperative with each passing day for him to know whether she intended to extend their arrangement. He’d managed to gain back an important client for Norton & Rivers, with a shipment due to leave the London port in a few short weeks. Word had begun to spread that the line was back in business with a new owner at the helm, and while there was still much to be done, Edward foresaw a stunning comeback. All he needed was time and the funds to continue making improvements. And there would be no more money without Clare or another keeper filling his pockets.
But, the more he thought on the dilemma, the more he realized he simply could not do it. If he asked her for a few more months, then he’d want a year. If he got that year, he’d want more years. He’d want her life to become a part of his, her hand in marriage, the children she would bear him. He would want all the things he had no right to ask of her, not when she’d never wanted him for anything more than he’d already given, not when he could hardly afford to care for his siblings let alone a wife. Not when she might never come to love him as much as he loved her.
In the days following their desperate fucking on the floor of her study, he’d tried to convince himself that he was making too much of his feelings. He told himself it was an infatuation that would fade, that it had happened too quickly for him to be certain how he truly felt. But time to think had only affirmed what he knew to be sure. He wasn’t certain when it had happened: when he first heard her laugh, their first kiss, the time he’d seduced her with scientific terms, or even the moment she’d laid her father’s watch in his hands and told him why she clung to the broken timepiece. It didn’t matter when or how, not when he could look back on each of those encounters with such emotion welling within his chest and tearing him apart.
He loved her, and no amount of denial would change that.
Which was why the best thing he could do was allow their association to end. He’d only torture himself being with her when he knew there could never be anything more. It would hurt, but time and distance could mend that. Eventually, he would be able to look back on their month together with wistful fondness.
He came to this final decision one afternoon after hours of pondering it while toiling away in his office, the dark gloom of a foggy day a match for his mood. All there was left to do was ask Benedict to find him a new keeper, preferably one who would want him for longer than a month.
He’d just set his quill aside and decided to take a walk to clear his head, when the door swung open. A woman stood silhouetted in the opening, and he recognized Clare before she’d even stepped into the light of the tapers. He’d know her anywhere—her form, her posture, the way she walked as she approached his desk.
Her bright smile only drove the dagger deeper into his heart, such a sharp juxtaposition to his own dark mood. She must have noticed the tightness of his mouth and the furrows in his brow, because she faltered, her smile fading a bit.
“Are you very busy?” she asked. “I suppose this could wait, but I have news and I couldn’t wait to share it.”
Schooling his face into a more neutral expression, he stood and rounded the desk toward her. He took her hand and kissed the back of it, lingering for a moment to draw in that soothing lavender and rosemary scent.
“I am never too busy for you,” he said. “And your news must have been good for you to brave this ghastly weather to come visit me.”
