Page 58 of My Hellion, My Heart
His horse arrived first, and Henry bid Irina a distracted good evening before departing.
Lord Remi was becoming more of a nuisance and a mystery by the day. Henry needed better information, and he apparently couldn’t rely on his known contacts.
He’d have to go digging himself.
Chapter Sixteen
A siren in lavender silk leaned against the billiards table, tempting him beyond reason. Irina’s gaze hinged on Henry’s as he approached. One shoulder of that beguilingly sinful dress had slipped, exposing her skin, and as he raked her over with his eyes, he noticed she wore no slippers. Something about her bare feet, those elegant, perfect toes buried in the plush carpet, drove an instant possessive need into him. A need to bare every inch of supple flesh to his greedy gaze. A need to take her. Claim her. To make her his and his alone. From the way his siren was looking at him, her lips parted and her eyes heavy with longing, he knew she would welcome it. She wanted him just as much as he did her.
Irina’s nipples strained through the thin fabric of her dress, and Henry touched them, his thumbs rubbing rough circles as he kneaded her breasts. She threw her head back and moaned as he dragged the top of her bodice down. Her breasts came free, spilling into view, and then Henry’s hands and mouth were on them. His tongue swirled the hard peak of one nipple while pinching the tip of the other, and Irina cried out his name. He didn’t care if anyone heard.
There were voices then, muffled and murmuring, but he could not stop. Let them watch. Henry felt himself bulging against the constraints of his trousers, so hard and swollen he could barely breathe. His desire was a wild, bucking thing, trapped and in anguish, thrashing for release.
He felt her hot breath against his ear as her hand grasped and stroked his length, only heightening the sweet torment. Henry lifted her upon the table and pushed her back until she was fully reclined on the red felt. Her dress was gone now, her naked form writhing beneath him, her legs parting in eager welcome. He climbed onto the table and kneed her thighs farther apart. He would not be gentle. He couldn’t be. She screamed her pleasure as he drove into her, thrusting hard and deep and fast, again and again, marking her as his own as his seed rushed into her.
Henry moaned his satisfaction and opened his eyes. He was not atop the billiards table. He was not atop Irina.
He was alone. Staring at his bedchamber ceiling. In his bed. And his smalls were wet, plastered to his thighs. Henry swore under his breath as he realized it had been a dream. A blissfully erotic dream that had been so real, he’d spent himself in his sleep.
Hell.
He lay still for a few moments, his heart thundering back to its normal rhythm, and felt a rapid hollowing sensation in his chest. Not because he had only bedded Irina in a dream, but because she was not truly there, at his side. It had been years since he’d allowed a woman to spend the night through in his bed, what with the constant threat of his body becoming a weapon during one of his night terrors. But for the first time, Henry wondered what it might be like to wake to the sight of her. He pictured her sable hair spread out in waves across his pillows, her violet eyes sleepy in the early morning sunshine. She’d sleep in the nude, he imagined, his sheets a flimsy covering, barely veiling her nipples. He would greet them first, nipping them with his teeth through the linen and then pulling the sheet low to expose the rest of her, his mouth traveling down her bare stomach to the dark curls below.
Henry opened his eyes again and felt once more the sticky cling of his smalls. He could not lie in bed fantasizing about Irina all day, and he wanted to get up and cleaned before Marbury knocked upon the door and let himself in for Henry’s morning ablutions.
He tore off his smalls, washed himself, and found a clean, ironed and starched pair in his dressing room moments before his valet arrived. Still grappling with the disturbing remnants of his dream and his surprisingly undisciplined climax, Henry dressed, and after, Marbury performed his usual morning shave and trimmed his hair. He frowned.
He hadn’t been with anyone but Françoise since Hyde Park. Since the first time he had left for Essex…when Irina had raced him, and when she had coaxed him out of one of his episodes. That had beenweeksago. Sweet Christ, it was no wonder he’d spent himself.
Heading downstairs and walking past his own billiards room, Henry felt an immediate visceral twitch in his groin and suppressed a groan. He would be ruined for billiards forever. Tugging on his suddenly too-tight cravat, he headed for his study. Henry knew what would put Irina Volkonsky firmly out of his mind, and that was an in-depth and thorough analysis of his tenant ledgers. He was meeting Lord Northridge for a local horse auction at the breeder stables in the neighboring village of Horton, which gave him two uninterrupted hours.
Once ensconced behind his desk, however, Henry could not concentrate, though not for lack of trying. After an hour of staring at the same columns and raking through his hair a thousand times, he rose and called for Carlton.
“Where is the countess?”
“In the music room, my lord,” Carlton answered.
Henry found his mother sitting at the pianoforte. He recognized the lilting strains of Haydn’s sonata in E-flat major, her favorite of his musical compositions. The sound of it immediately drew him back to his childhood. Dismissing the waiting maids and without alerting her to his presence, he sat in the armchair directly behind her and closed his eyes. It was exactly what he needed. Though her health had been declining, her skill had not. Her fingers danced over the keys as she played the second movement, the melancholy notes delving into his soul.
When she finished, he gave her a standing ovation. “You continue to astound me with your talent, Mother dear.”
She blushed from his praise. “Henry! I did not see you come in.”
“Will you play another piece?” he asked.
“Which would you like?”
He swallowed. “Beethoven, number five, the adagio.”
His mother slid him an arch glance, and he kept his face composed. It was arguably one of Beethoven’s most romantic pieces. As she began the first few bars, he closed his eyes in bliss. The music flowed over him, doing what nothing else could. He’d first heard it in Vienna, amidst reports that the composer had written it hiding in his brother’s home there while under attack from Napoleon. It astounded him that such beauty could be created in the midst of so much horror.
“Thank you,” Henry said when she finished, standing and walking over to kiss her on the brow. “I’ll leave you to it.”
His mother cleared her throat and shifted on the bench to face him, reaching for his hands. “Henry, I’m glad you are here. I did want to speak with you about Lady Carmichael.”
“Rose?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. “I thought you approved?”
“Of course I do. Her mother is my best friend, after all, and I know why you have chosen her,” she said. “She will no doubt make an excellent wife. And dear William…I should be happy to have him as a grandson, and she will no doubt procure you an heir.”
