Chapter 36

Having flung the chemise on the rug, she faced him.
"So, why don't you just tell me how and where you want me. Here? Or on the chaise-longue there?"
He turned sharply on his heel, reached the door with a speed that belied his shattered thigh-his state of arousal too-and slammed it shut. Then he turned the key.
What was wrong with him? If Tilly came by and saw him? Tilly coming by and seeing him was exactly what he'd wanted. He'd told her yesterday she could damn well pack her bags and get the hell out if she didn't like Cassidy Armstrong being here. But that was before, before Cassidy Armstrong stood here. Before his eyes drank in the sight of her long ivory legs, glowing in the soft firelight, her flawless breasts, and it hit him with the speed of a coach and four plunging down a crevice, this was all his to have, for whatever reason.
What he'd glimpsed through the beveled glass did not prepare him for this. She hadn't been able to put her fingers through the glass to reach for his trouser buttons, had she?
Christ, it was like being fifteen again. Fifteen with her.
"I asked you a question, Lord Hawley. You've not replied. So I'll just proceed shall I? Do you wish me to pleasure you this way ... or some other way?"
Keeping her gaze locked on his, she reached inside his trousers, grasped his burning flesh. Heat oozed through his pores and he slumped back against the door. A virgin? Like hell.
He swallowed the knot in his throat. He would like to grit his teeth, and have her satisfy him with these coral lips he'd dreamed of. Right here against the library door. Why not? But his hunger in that second, with what her cool fingers and coolly glittering eyes did to him, was for tasting her.
He reached out, grasped the sides of her face, and drew her mouth up to meet his. Jesus God. Nothing, certainly not drink, not these damned narcotics he let ravage his body on a daily basis, tasted as sweet as what he tasted here on her mouth.
He clasped his arm around her back and swung her around against the door. A couple of hurried movements, while pressing her there, and he removed his jacket and his neck-cloth. She stood there, cool as a mountain stream, one he wanted to bathe in, and reached for his shirt hem.
"Is this position all right? Or do you want me to turn around?"
He couldn't believe it. Ridiculous, when he helped her tug himself free of his boots, his trousers, but he was the first to admit, his whores didn't heat him to the core like this. He couldn't think beyond running his fingers over her skin, touching her, especially her warm, damp sex.
"This is how I want you," he murmured, lowering his mouth to her nipple as she stood there against the door, a nipple she palmed her breast to give him. Christ, he had never wanted anything so much as to just have her now against the library door.
"Then I'm glad, Lord Hawley."
She was too. She must be. He raised his head. She was perfectly prepared for him to enter her. Silky, soft, wet. Even the tight skin of her face somehow indicated how ready she was. The look jammed the breath in his lungs, so her faint breathing filled the silence. Clasping her buttocks, he hitched her off the floor.
He used one hand to guide himself inside. Last night she'd been tight as a strung drum. She gasped. Her hands fisted against the door. He hadn't managed this far last night. The thought had him grasping the sides of her face before he could stop himself. Her eyes were so dark. In spite of his resolution not to kiss her, he dragged them against his. The building pleasure was almost unbearable.
When he thought about the decorous virgins people wanted to shackle him to, she was there between him and the door, naked, warm, and that was what he wanted. No decorous wife would spread her legs like this, against a library door at ten in the morning. Cling to him, stark naked, her hands fisting his shoulders, her forehead against his chest, her breath coming in ragged pants.
He thrust. Heat sparked. He threw back his head, grunting as waves of the most intense, pulsating pleasure flooded him. Over and over. For a moment he swore he even saw stars at the backs of his eyes. He was so woozy with his relief, so milked by it, so unwilling to part with any of it, it was only at the last he remembered to jerk out of her. He'd said it was something he'd take care of.
She edged her leg down, unpeeling herself slowly. A log split open, the grandfather clock ticked. Only gradually did he become aware they did. And she? If there was one thing he shouldn't do, given the businesslike nature of the agreement, it was kiss her. Tenderness? He better not. Just because her throat still fluttered and she regarded him through beguilingly lowered, faintly trembling eyelashes. Regarded his damned chest rather.
"I-I trust I have proved that to your satisfaction, Lord Hawley. Now you won't mind if I get back to my papers?"
Actually he did mind. He minded terribly.
It was what drove him across the floor after her. Anyway, he wasn't entirely sure, although he had felt her arousal, she'd enjoyed him. Why should he be the one wanting her desperately again and she be only interested in these damned, fusty papers?
That was why what ignited him as he caught her against the table, the carnal images rocketing through his head were one thing, the knowledge that he could do a lot better than simply satisfy himself, as he had a moment ago, another.
"Lord Hawley-"
"Shh."
Despite having just had her, he did want her, didn't he, and it wasn't like a moment ago. He'd forgotten that women could be sweet like this. Forgotten how to distinguish one from the other in what he had somehow become. Or was it just her he remembered? Whatever the reason, women generally enjoyed him.
She would only let her back to these papers when she had.