Page 78 of Making of a Scandal
When her gaze shot up, she found he’d come closer and was now hovering over her, one hand reaching out to fiddle with the pencil holder.
“Not the most romantic of gifts, but it seemed apropos. I noticed you struggling to keep up with your notes during the last meeting and thought this might help.”
“It’s lovely,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
It was the most thoughtful, beautiful gift anyone had ever given her, and she couldn’t even find the right words to tell him so.
In a moment of recklessness, she touched his hand, wanting him to know in some small way that she was grateful, that she hadn’t ceased caring about him. Most of all, she couldn’t help herself when he was standing so close, whole and real as if he’d stepped right out of her dreams.
His gaze fell to their hands, his jaw winding tight as he dragged in a harsh breath. “Touching me is a bad idea, goddess.”
The warning in his tone made her snatch her hand away, but he grasped her wrist, preventing escape.
“It makes me forget that you aren’t mine anymore,” he growled, jerking her closer and lowering his head until his mouth brushed her ear. “It makes me want things you no longer wish to give, for you cannot condescend to let yourself love a whore.”
She stiffened, trying to pull her arm out of his grip but failing when he tightened his fingers. “I never said—”
“But you’d fuck a whore, wouldn’t you? I’m good enough to bed you, but little else.”
“Dominick, please … that isn’t how I feel. Surely you must know that.”
“I don’t know how you feel, as you did not respond to my note, nor did you bother to show your face after you returned to London with your precious fiancé.”
He finally released her arm when she stepped away, glancing up and down the corridor to ensure they hadn’t been seen. They were fortunate this time, but she would take no chances. Gesturing toward the nearest door, she motioned for him to follow her.
She waited until they were ensconced inside a closet where Mrs. Fisher stored various supplies, with barely enough room for them to stand toe to toe.
“I’m sorry if you took my failure to tell you the news in person as some indication that I don’t care, or that I think of our time together as cheap and meaningless.”
“Don’t you? I believe you called it amistake.”
She pressed her hands against her face, grappling for words to sooth him while still avoiding damning herself. “Dominick—”
“Does Lewes know the whole of it?” he demanded, chasing her as she backed away, coming up against the shelves. She whimpered when he pressed a palm beneath her chin, his thumb stroking along her jaw. “Does he know how you fell apart in my arms, or how you spent so beautifully against my fingers, in my mouth, on my cock?”
His lips hovered over hers, and she tipped her head back, eyelids growing heavy as he weaved his seductive spell. Her body responded as if they’d never parted, her nipples tingling, her thighs clenching as a nagging pulsation started between them. She leaned back against the shelves as her knees went weak, right along with her resolve.
“He is aware of what transpired between us.”
Dominick snorted, his breath huffing against her cheek. “And you can bring yourself to marry him after that? I don’t know which of us I feel sorriest for—him for knowing he can never have what you gave me, myself for being forced to go on without you, or you for what you are very soon going to learn.”
“And what’s that?”
His hand moved to her nape, tipping her head back as he gave her a hard, menacing smile. “Every night, when he takes you to bed, it’s me you’ll be thinking of. I am the one you will long for while he’s rutting on top of you with no thought to your pleasure. He will never touch the parts of you that I have,Anni.”
She reared against him, fists raised to strike, to hurt him as he was hurting her. Yet, when her hands made contact, they were clutching at him and pulling him close instead of punishing him, clinging instead of pushing. He fell into her with a rough growl, hands brutal and commanding at her waist as he captured her lips in a ravaging kiss. Crates and baskets rattled on the shelves as he pressed her backward, dominating the kiss with a demanding tongue and hungry lips. His hands were everywhere, running down her neck and shoulders, cupping her breasts, palming her hips and moving around to squeeze her buttocks and lift her so her mound pressed against his stiff cock.
“Does Lewes make you feel like this?” he taunted, biting at her breast through her gown. “Do you get wet for him when he kisses you, like you do for me?”
He laughed at the glower she gave him, its edge blunted by the clear evidence of her need. Her chest heaved with every breath, her lips parted and swollen from his kiss. As he drew her skirts up and slipped a hand between her legs, he found irrefutable proof of his accusation.
“Fucking Christ,” he ground out as his fingers slipped over her clit and down to her entrance, finding her slick and swollen. “I knew it.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and gave in to the electric currents of pleasure racing through her at every stroke of his fingers. He kissed and bit at her lips while he added fuel to her arousal, making her burn with light pressure against her clit and shallow thrusts inside her channel. She clawed at him like a wildcat, fingers raking his scalp and clutching at his hair, nails scraping down his chest. He hauled one of her legs up, forcing her skirts high so he could watch his fingers disappear inside her. She clenched around them, hips surging as he fucked her with them, his thumb steadily teasing her clit. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since he’d touched her like this, and it was as if he were teaching her all over again what her body was capable of, what he could make her feel. Her breaths came in short pants, an occasional whimper slipping out as she hurtled toward climax.
“Nick!” she cried, the lightest fluttering beginning deep in her core.
He snatched his hand free of her and she clutched at him, grinding her teeth around a desperate scream. He balled his hands into fists and closed his eyes, neck straining as he appeared to wrestle with himself. Calliope gripped the edge of a shelf behind her for balance, her legs weak and her clitoris pulsing in a demanding rhythm, her inner channel clenching for want of what she’d been denied.
