He gently turned her onto her stomach and pulled her hips toward him, and as he at first teased, then entered her swiftly, deeply, she came apart. And the counterpane muffled her screams of bliss this time, and he plunged again and again, driving himself toward his own release. And wave after wave of bliss washed over her, his own cry of release echoing in her ears.
Drenched and gleaming perspiration, impressed with themselves and each other and sated for now, they lay quietly breathing. She used his shoulder as a pillow; his arms looped around her. She dragged a coverlet she’d knitted half up over the two of them.
He turned to face her. To behold this miracle of a woman. Lucien drew a finger softly, softly over her lips. They were swollen and rosy from the savage kissing but he wanted to kiss her again, and he supposed that made him a savage.
Her lips pressed lightly against his tracing finger. She drew it into her mouth to suck, to scrape her teeth lightly along it, and the shiver of pleasure made him close his eyes.
A tender vixen.
“Are you all right?” he whispered.
She nodded and smiled faintly. Her eyes closed.
He drew a feather-soft finger along the outline of her lips. Of her jaw. Across her straight dark gold brows. Memorizing the lines of her. Down, down, the satiny length of throat, to the bones at the base of it. He traced them. Her lips parted.
Her breath landed softly against his. Swifter now.
His cock was stirringagain.
“I do not know how to stop wanting you, Angelique,” he murmured. Half wonder, half amused agony.
“Never stop,” she whispered.
He let his hand wander, lightly, lightly, slowly, slowly. Between her breasts. Over, again and again, the soft mounds of them, circling the rosy ruche of her nipples. Down, down, along the seam between her ribs, over the curve of her belly, sliding beneath her arse, tangling in the curls between her legs, rising up again. Again, and again, drowsily, listening for her sighs, the tempo of her breath, to know when he should move his hand and let it settle between her legs to stroke, just as slowly, until she was reaching for him hungrily.
He moved to cover her, and when he was inside her they moved together languidly. Drugged and enchanted with lust and sex and joy, they gazed at each other.
He was going to sleep now, he knew.
“Angelique...”
“I’ll stay.”
He smiled drowsily.
Angelique would of course slip out of the room before the maids came. And she wouldn’t sleep at all. Then again, she might never need to sleep again. He was champagne and coffee and opium and fresh air all in one and surely all she needed from now on was to breathe him.
She didn’t say, “I will never really leave you again.”
But somehow they both knew this was true.
Everything ached deliciously: her cheeks from the start of his whiskers, her lips from endless kisses, her body from employing acrobatic and unfamiliar positions (rapidly becoming more familiar and more limber), and the soreness between her legs made her feel like the happiest wanton in the world.
And as she strolled through the market to do the shopping with Helga, Angelique was unaware that she left a trail of smiles behind her, and she hadn’t done much more than walk through the crowd. Such was her new radiance that she lit everyone up as though she were a personal emissary from the sun.
How was it that the most maddening man she knew was somehow also the most soothing person she knew? She understood now that at the core of all happiness—such a dazzling word, so evocative of rainbows and lambs—was peace and trust. Very adult kinds of things.
And dear God, sex was a revelation.
The past week was covered in a bit of golden, shimmery haze, rather like those thick London fogs, only more pleasant, of course. She was going about with lavender shadows beneath her eyes and offering misty answers to questions, but she decided the lavender shadows suited her, and she didn’t really feel tired at all, either. No feelings except satisfaction could seem to get through.
She attended to the business of The Grand Palace on the Thames by day, budget planning and dinner planning and maid squabbles and so forth. She ate at the dinner table and sat in the drawing room at night and was everything that was gracious and proper and expected of her as one of the proprietresses of The Grand Palace on the Thames.
And by night she crept down the stairs to join Lucien for a few hours of total impropriety.
Lucien whimsically imposed a curfew upon her. If she was even a minute after midnight, he demanded extra kisses by way of punishment. Alternately he demanded to be allowed to kiss her on the body part of her choice. His rules were more flexible than The Grand Palace on the Thames’s.
“I will not impose an epithet jar, because I should bankrupt you soon. The way you go on when I do...this...” He idly slid his hand between her legs, and his fingers played over her. And her laugh had become a sigh, and then a moan.