Page 95 of The Defiant One
"I say, this is a most unusual reaction," he teased.
Celsie couldn't take any more. In one swift movement she lunged upwards, spilling Andrew off the sofa and onto the floor. He landed with a hard oomph on his back, the fall knocking the breath out of him and sending the vial skittering across the floor. In a flash Celsie was on him, her hand ripping at his breeches, little sobs coming from her throat.
She was maddened, desperate, strong, but no match for him. He caught her flailing hands, rolling her over onto her back and kissing her hard on the mouth. She broke free, one hand sliding up his nape and through his hair, the other raking his back through the shirt.
"Celsie, hold still —"
"I can't — I'm trying, Andrew, but I just can't!"
He fumbled with his breeches, but she was thrashing too much, whimpering with need, heels digging into the floor and her body shaking violently. She tried to reach him through his breeches. Andrew grabbed her arm, pinning her to the floor, trapping her before she could reach for him and send him careening over the edge.
And then he looked down and saw that her wild fighting had sent her skirts up, and there was nothing between him and the rug on which she lay but long white thighs, downy curls, and a damp slit of pink, plush, flesh.
Andrew groaned, pulled her up a foot or two on the floor, and holding her legs open with both hands, buried his face between them.
At first touch of his bristled cheeks scraping her inner thighs, she arched upward on a half wail, half sob. His hands anchored her thighs apart, the thumbs pressing into her flesh, and a moment later he was kissing her, his tongue hot, his mouth wide-open against her inner flesh. Celsie gave a harsh cry and arched her back, one hand breaking free, her nails clawing at the rug and bunching it in one fist. She felt his tongue darting out to probe and excite the nub of flesh that still burned out of control from the potion, felt him stroking and kissing and licking, and now everything inside her was gathering forces and careening toward a violent explosion.
"Andrew — I need you inside me, need you inside me, now —"
He only pressed his mouth harder against her, his tongue sliding between her wet folds in search of the very core of her, stroking, stroking —
"Andrew —"
And then Celsie cried out as everything inside her splintered and blew apart. Convulsing, she bucked upwards and tumbled Andrew onto his back, clawing at his breeches, ripping away the drop front with desperate fingers. He sprang hard and free against her belly, already thundering toward climax himself; just in time, Celsie got him inside her, and he came with a hoarse, ripping groan that mirrored her own cries as he fell with her over the precipice.
She lay there atop him, damp with sweat, her face buried in the curve of his neck and shoulder, and both of them breathing like winded horses.
"You and your damned experiments!"
"You asked for it!"
"Yes, well, next time, you're the one who's going to see what it feels like!"
He guffawed. She laughed. And then he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pinned her to his spent body.
"If I survive a month, let alone a week, of being married to you, it's going to be a damned miracle," he said. And then, flinging out an arm, he caught the corner of the rug, dragged it over the both of them as a makeshift blanket, and for the first time in days, finally shut his eyes.
Beneath his back the floor was hard and drafty, but they were exhausted.
"I was wrong, Celsie," he murmured, feeling sleep rushing down on him as he snuggled her tightly against his heart.
"Wrong?"
"About being only half in love with you . . . "
She smiled. He put his lips against her cheek.
Oblivion came quickly to them both.
And on the high, soft bed, Freckles, snoring deeply, slept on.
Chapter 29
At about the time that Andrew and Celsie finally crawled into bed some hours later, shivering and squeezing to one side so as not to disturb the sprawled-out Freckles, Gerald was having tea with the very virtuous, heavily dowered, passably pretty, and altogether silly Miss Sarah Madden.
He had a small vial in the pocket of his jacket, his portion of the aphrodisiac, though he had done nothing himself to obtain it. He did not begrudge Eva the lion's share of the stuff; if she needed it to bring down tyrants of power, to force marriages that would benefit America, to do whatever it was she needed it to do, well, that was her prerogative. He patted his pocket; he had his prerogatives, too.
"More tea, my lord?" asked Miss Sarah, lifting the teapot.
