Page 93 of The Tempting of Thomas Carrick
Her wits long gone, operating on instinct alone, she studied his face. There was a hardness, an angularity that hadn’t been there before, as if the moment had stripped away all superficial softness and left only the true bedrock behind.
That sight—what she could see revealed—fascinated her. Raising one hand, she lightly trailed her fingertips down one chiseled cheek.
He’d been surveying her body; he turned his head and met her eyes.
His were gold in amber, and they burned with a passionate, possessive flame.
His lids lowered. He turned his head a fraction more and kissed her fingertips. Then he caught her hand and pressed a searing kiss to her palm.
Raising his eyes to hers again, he held her gaze—and set his other hand to her breast.
And plunged them back into the fire—theirs, born of their desires, of their passionate natures, and fueled by a need neither could deny.
He moved one thigh up and wide. Holding her open, he pushed deeply into her. Anchoring her as he wished, sinking deep between her thighs, he filled her.
Closing his eyes, he gave himself up to the moment, to her.
She raised her arms, wrapped them about him, and drew him closer yet. Until his body was truly riding hers; the friction of his hair-dusted limbs and chest against her skin was beyond exquisite.
She surrendered and claimed, opened her arms and embraced him—this, all.
Thomas bowed his head and, in the final desperation, found her lips, covered them with his, sank into her mouth, and let the pounding need of their combined passions have its way as he raced them up and on—and then over the final, impossibly high and jagged peak.
She was burning beneath him, as ferocious in her passion as he as they soared into that critical moment of heightened need—of shattering oneness.
Of true intimacy.
Glory beckoned and she fell. She came apart, and he drank deep, drank in her cry, let his greedy senses draw her passion and total surrender deep into his soul—then his thoughts disintegrated. He was dimly aware of plunging into her body, of the clinging rippling clutch of her sheath, of his own body finding an elementally shattering release—but as ecstasy painted a sunburst on the inside of his lids, what he was most deeply conscious of was the incredible peace.
The sense of rightness and belonging that filled his soul.
He was too wracked by passion to fear it, too deeply exposed to do anything other than recognize just how precious such a feeling was.
He accepted it, let it stretch.
With her pinned beneath him, he let himself slump into her arms, and let her hold him as they and their senses tumbled over the edge into satiation, into the pleasured oblivion of their sensual sea.
CHAPTER 14
In his chamber below Lucilla’s room, Thomas washed and got ready to face another day of ambling about Casphairn Manor.
Until Lucilla had got him into her bedroom, the previous evening had been asubtleseduction; in many ways, the day had been, too. Once she’d shut her bedroom door behind them, the seduction had turned blatant, yet…while on one level he wasn’t entirely at ease with how far into uncharted territory they’d ventured, most of him was still reveling in the aftermath—a curious sense of freedom.
She was the only bed partner—the only female of any sort—with whom he’d openly been simply himself. He’d adopted the façade of a gentleman of society so long ago, he’d forgotten what it was like to set it aside and simply be him.
He’d forgotten a lot about being simply him. About what he truly liked, about what appealed to the real him.
So many of the previous day’s interludes had reminded him of what he had, in his early years, liked about living in the country; those moments had reawoken a forgotten appreciation for the minor mundane occurrences that made up the heartbeat of country life. In this sort of country.
He’d been born not far away. He’d spent some of the most formative of his months and years close by, in these lands.
He hadn’t realized the connection still lived, buried beneath the layers of his Glasgow personality, the sophisticated façade he’d fallen into the habit of using as a perpetual mask while living there…where, if he was honest, he’d grown increasingly bored over the last several years. Not with the business, the running of it, but with all the other aspects of living there.
He’d missed coming back to these lands, missed connecting with his roots. Roots he hadn’t realized had remained so strong, so immutable.
But for today and those following, until his leg was sufficiently healed to ride Phantom back to Glasgow, he could indulge his inner self; he was, indeed, looking forward to discovering what the day might bring.
He heard Lucilla’s footsteps coming down the stone stairs; an instant later, she tapped on his door. Shrugging on his coat, he walked to the door, opened it, and found her waiting outside.
