Page 44 of Becoming Lady Dalton
Never mind the footmen gawping after him. Let the servants talk. Let the ladies whisper behind their fans and laugh at his expense.
Viola had turned down a darkened hallway. His eyes found her gown in the gloom. Her pale arms pressed against the dark wood of a door.
“It’s locked,” she half-sobbed, half gasped.
“Why are you running away?” he demanded, his breath coming hard. Less with the effort of chasing her than with the effort of restraining himself from touching her. Because he didn’t want to offer comfort. He wanted to take. He wanted to drive her into bliss that obliterated the pain pulling her away from him.
“I’m not. I was trying to find privacy.” The quaver in her voice shredded his tenuous control.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t pretend anymore, Piers. I can’t pretend I’m indifferent while you court Lady Margaret, when I am, in bloody fact, mad with jealousy.” Viola dropped her forehead against the door. Piers winced.
“Good,” he growled.
“No, Piers, it is anything butgood,” she moaned, gripping the door handle as though if she let go, she would fall to the ground in a puddle. Or as if she could tear it off the hinges if she only pulled hard enough. Her shoulders slumped. “It is awful. Because I cannot be with you. But neither can I bear to let you go.”
Piers stilled, an arm’s distance from her. The chasm between them yawned. Need and longing howled within him.
“I am not going to marry Margaret. I’ve informed Evendaw of the fact.”
Viola’s shoulders stilled. Her grip loosened fractionally on the iron bars of the heavy door. The tight vise around Piers’ chest eased.
“I recommend you do. She will give you what I cannot—an heir.”
“That is not a promise you or anyone can make, Viola,” he murmured. “We all like to believe that we have control over our lives, when in truth we live in a state of constant uncertainty. Lady Margaret is young enough not to understand this, yet it’s not about age as much as it is experience. Why else do you think Evendaw pushes her toward marriage? Because he is certain it will be the best way to exert control over her. I have known the appeal of certainty. As you have. Now, we know full well that certainty is a fiction. There are only the promises of our hearts that bind us from day to day, for as long as we walk this earth.”
The chasm between them shrank to a crack. Piers edged closer to her back, envious of the thick curls draped over the nape of her neck.
“I married a lady like Margaret once, newly out. She gave me a daughter and died within the year. Were it up to me, I would let her enjoy her first season before she takes on responsibilities. But it is not,” he whispered against the soft curve beneath her ear. The lobe was bare of decoration, he noted discordantly.
Viola turned in a tight circle. The heavy weight of her skirt dragged over his toes. When she raised her face to meet his gaze, Piers almost drowned in her twin pools of desire. Viola lifted her chin to close the distance. In a breath, the chasm between them was obliterated. There was nothing to hold them apart, only the magnetic attraction that had pulled them together from their first meeting, electrified.
“We are of a like kind, love,” he said low.
When her lips touched his, Piers bent to taste her like manna. Sure and unhesitating Viola opened to him. Her arm came up around his neck to draw him close. The press of her breasts against his chest sent hot blood coursing southward. Piers pressed her against the locked wooden door, and Viola moaned against his mouth.
Piers snaked his arm around her waist, anchoring her hips against his. With her back hard against the wall, her legs parted beneath the heavy skirt. He skimmed one hand down the back of her bustled gown and detected the curve of her bottom beneath layers of fabric. It was Viola’s turn to moan as he nudged her hips against his in a full-body embrace.
Pinned against the wall, Viola arched, presenting the creamy tops of her full breasts over the low bodice of her dress. Piers kissed his way down her neck, inhaling her subtle scent. Warm and womanly, with a hint of cinnamon as if she’d spent the afternoon baking.
Hungrily they consumed one another, pouring the passion they’d repressed into their kiss. Piers felt drunk on the taste of her. His cock strained at the barrier of his trousers. Viola shifted to grind against him, but they were frustrated by fabric.
Viola’s hips shifted as she lifted one leg to pin it around his waist. There was too much barrier—always too many barriers—and Piers dropped one arm to catch her beneath the knee and shoved her against the door. She panted against his neck.
“Touch me,” she demanded.
Piers stroked the fine cambric of her drawers, seeking the slit that would give him access to her most private, feminine place. Garters like bars on a prison window hindered him. He grunted. Viola gasped and bit his lower lip, not gently.
His mouth found hers at the same moment he tore past the fabric and stroked her softest place. The woman in his arms sighed. Piers groaned. He needed to take her now almost as desperately as he needed to take her somewhere private and soft where they could make a proper evening of this. He wanted to savor her, not careen headlong to the finish.
“More. Harder.”
Piers obliged. He sank his fingers inside her slick passage. Heat welcomed him. The devil’s doorbell slipped beneath his thumb. He gave it a firm stroke, and Viola shuddered. She was close.
“How long has it been?” he demanded.
“What?” She focused on his face with eyes hooded with desire.
