But he didn’t stay for long. He dragged his mouth lower, over her still-clothed breast, her stomach, her hip. He hooked his hands behind her knees and tugged her to the edge of the desk. She leaned up on her elbows, staring at him. He held her stare with even certainty and she trembled from head to toe.
There was something infinitely wicked in those dark eyes that normally were so unreadable. Her sex twitched at the sight of it, her legs shook. She couldn’t look away as he dragged a chair closer and took a seat. When he opened her legs and pushed up her skirt, she was bared to him. Right there at eye level.
She blushed, resting back on the desk a moment so she wouldn’t have to watch him watch her in this most private place. She felt him do it, though. Felt the heat of his stare sweep across her with as much intensity as his fingers had a few days ago.
She flexed out of pure instinct and he made a rumbling sound deep in his throat. A growl, something possessive and animal. Then his mouth dropped between her thighs and he licked her pussy.
She jolted. If it had been a long time since she had a man inside of her, it was even longer since one did that. And her husband hadn’t had the beard, which scraped along her sensitive flesh and brought her to the edge almost immediately.
He swirled his tongue around her clitoris, sucking until she gripped at the edge of the desk for purchase. Then he backed away, teasing and tormenting every fold of her flesh. She found herself lifting into him, sitting up to cup his head, hold him tight to her as she ground against him in desperation. He clenched her backside, rocking her more firmly against his mouth as he sucked and licked, spearing her with his tongue between tormenting her clitoris. The pleasure built, a wall he crafted with every sweep of his tongue. She wanted it. Wanted him to give her that release more than she wanted anything else in the world.
In that moment, nothing else existed but this. That was the true gift. When he did this, she forgot all the rest and surrendered purely to sensation.
“Please,” she heard herself moan as she gripped his shoulders with her thighs. “Please, please.”
He looked up at her without slowing his pace. Those dark eyes snared hers, holding steady, never wavering. She bucked against him, her entire body tingling, her legs shaking. And then he sucked her harder, faster, and the pleasure rocked her. She cried out, jerking against him so hard she feared she’d harm him. But he didn’t slow. He gave her no quarter, tucking her tighter to his mouth, tormenting her even as she quaked and begged and wept with release.
It felt like it went on for a lifetime. That it would never end because he had no desire to end it, and she surrendered, relaxing back, smoothing her hands over her breasts through the silky gown as her moans eased and the twitching spurts of pure sensation slowed.
Only then did he pull away. He leaned over her, caging her in with his hands, his lips and beard glistening with her release. She reached for him, drawing him down to her, tasting herself on his mouth. She had no idea what would happen next, but she didn’t want this to end. Even though she had no idea what that meant for her, for him, and for the future beyond the next moment.
Chapter 9
Oscar had been with a great many women. Sex had never been something he’d been taught to keep as a secret or a shame. When he wanted, he took. He’d kept mistresses and had shorter affairs over the years. He saw no shame in pleasure, as long as it was given and received by both parties.
But he’d never felt so out of control in any of those affairs as he did in this one with Imogen. Even now, as he caged her in on the desk, she didn’t just kiss him. She licked her essence from his lips and his cock jolted. God, how he wanted to fuck her.
Instead, he pulled away, grabbed her hand and tugged her to a seated position. He couldn’t think straight right now. He needed to think.
She shook her head as he reached out to draw her skirt back down over her legs. “I’ve never met a man like you.”
He backed up a step. “I would wager that’s true. You are accustomed to gentlemen.”
“You think you’re not that?” she asked, tilting her head and meeting his stare. There was nothing artful about her, it seemed. She was never trying to gain some advantage by anything she did. That was such a rare thing that he almost didn’t know how to respond to it.
Perhaps that was why it was more prudent to walk away.
“I’m not that,” he said. “I’m the first bastard son of the Duke of Roseford.”
“Roseford,” she repeated, and her surprise was plain on her face.
He tried not to let his pain be as plain on his own. “Ah, yes. The world knows of his twisted legacy. Of the bastard seed he spread all across the country. I am many things, but a gentleman is not one of them.”
She wrinkled her brow. “Is that meant to…to shock me? To make me think differently of you? I really don’t care about your birth, Oscar. And I think a gentleman is more made by his actions than his blood. You have shown yourself to be that by saving my life. And by the way you have pleasured me twice and seem to have no interest in claiming your own release, despite the fact that you are quite clearly…” She blushed and motioned toward his groin. “Aroused.”
He tilted his head. This woman had done nothing but surprise him from the moment she’d careened into his chest and altered the very carefully charted course of his life. She was facing dangerous and terrifying circumstances, and yet she still maintained humor and elegance in their face. It wasn’t out of some blindness to the situation, but it seemed her character was to make the best of whatever would come.
And she certainly confronted him without flinching. That wasn’t something many men did easily. Oscar had ensured that, by creating a persona meant to intimidate. But she was waving at his cock without hesitation and calling him a gentleman of all things.
It was extremely unsettling. Not terrible. Just…unexpected. And it made him want her more, which was outrageous because how was it possible? Wanting her had become a constant drumbeat in his head, distracting him from everything else.
He cleared his throat. “You say I have no interest in fucking you.” He used the lewd term on purpose, and she flushed at it, but didn’t turn away.
“You haven’t, despite multiple chances,” she said. “What else am I to assume?”
“Assume nothing,” he said. “Because you are very wrong. I want you, Imogen. I burn from wanting you. I cannot sleep from wanting you.”
Her lips parted and she sucked in her breath with the same little sound she made when he touched her pussy. God, how he loved that sound.
“Oscar,” she whispered, and he reveled in his name rolling from her lips.
“I have avoided you these past few days not because I didn’t want you, but because I fear I want you too much,” he continued, because he needed to say it. To lay it out on the line for her so she could make an informed decision about what to do next. He owed her that, especially considering what she’d been through. “I have avoided you because I didn’t want to…bully you into entering into an affair with me that you don’t…want. That you feel you must be party to because you owe me a debt of some kind.”
Her gaze softened and then slid down to look at him. His body. His cock, which was not helping the situation down there in the slightest. He felt hard enough to pound nails, it almost hurt.