Page 45 of Becoming Lady Dalton
“Since a man has touched you. How long?”
“Nine years.”
“Did you touch yourself like this?” he rasped.
“Yes.” Viola dropped her gaze to his cravat. With nimble fingers, she loosened the knot and licked the spot where his pulse leapt at her every touch. “But it isn’t the same as you pleasing me.”
“Do I please you?”
“Very much.”
Piers needed no more encouragement. He dipped his fingers inside her slick passage and worked her like she was the last woman he would ever be with. He poured his wish into her body, claiming every bit of her she would permit.
Viola responded with a force that brought him to the point of priapism. She pulsed around his fingers, taking his fingers deep. Piers crooked his fingertips against her velvety wall. Viola bucked against him, lost her balance, and slid a few inches down. He propped her up with his knee.
“End this farce. Come home with me,” he pleaded into her aftermath.
“I cannot.”
The chasm was back, pushing him back from her, expanding the distance between them. Before he could find the courage to leap it, Piers found himself on the other side.
“Why?” he demanded. He let go of her leg, and Viola dropped it, her skirts falling between them like a curtain at intermission.
Viola drew a ragged breath.
“Because I am not ... quite a widow, after all.”
Piers caught a glimpse of the tears in her eyes as Viola fled, leaving him with the scent of her pleasure on his fingertips and the certainty that he wouldn’t be getting close to her again.
Ever.
24
Viola liftedher skirts and raced down the hallway back to the safety of the ballroom. Gran would be there. She would know how to smooth things over.
Tears burned her eyes.You’ve betrayed your vows.
Not completely—but she’d wanted to. She would’ve done, had she not fled. Right there against the door, with its carved ornamentations scraping her back raw. Viola would have given herself over to Piers’ touch for the sheer joy of letting go. She was so damned tired of pretense.
A few steps before she would have crashed into public view, Viola remembered herself. She stopped and patted her carefully done curls into place. One of her earbobs was missing. No matter. It was only paste. Perhaps the clasp had come loose. A duplicate was easily procured. Viola removed the other, to avoid the appearance of asymmetry, and slunk into the room on the heels of a footman.
“Oof!”
Knocked off-balance in more ways than one, Viola gave way to the smaller woman who had accidentally crashed into her.
“Miss Lowry. I apologize for tripping over you in my distraction.” Viola barely glanced at the girl. Instead, she scanned the room for her grandmother. She needed comfort. She needed someone who would understand what she had just done and not condemn her. Viola had more than enough self-censure boiling within her breast. She wanted to leave, now.
There was no choice but to go to Samuel and confess. He might forgive her. More likely, he would kill himself trying to beat her. Her self-loathing was a beast from the fathoms of the ocean, swallowing her whole.
The American straightened and brushed an invisible speck of dust away.
“Are you in a hurry?” she asked in her soft American drawl.
“No. Have you seen my grandmother?” Viola asked, swallowing the strain in her tone.
Miss Lowry inclined her chin toward the card room. “I believe she’s fleecing Admiral Saxon out of his pension at Whist.”
“Thank you.” Viola gathered her skirts and sauntered toward the card room as quickly as she dared. She nodded at Lady Whitney, the hostess. The woman’s frosty glance bounced off her as Piers burst into view. He scanned the room, caught sight of her, and stalked toward her.
