Page 32 of Loving Mister Stratford
With quite literally nothing else around them upon which to focus his mind, Simon could only watch Odette’s movements, the graceful sway of her hips as she moved throughout the townhouse.
He was so enthralled with the tilt of her lips that he hardly heard her ask,“Your face is so serious; what has consumed your mind so?”
He took an opportunity to cast a broad sweep throughout the room into which he’d followed Odette—some sort of private sitting room, he supposed—before meeting her eyes.“I’m wondering what you think of all of this.”
“It’s so much more than I ever wanted or could have dreamed of,” she replied airily and made her way toward him from across the narrow room. His blood began to sing as if her every movement called to his very essence.“But how can we accept such a gift?”
“The solicitor indicated nothing is preventing us from moving in immediately. This property legally belongs to us and there are papers to prove it.”
“Us?” The angle of her smile was something his brother, George, would have described as coy, he was sure, but Simon wasn’t given to such observations. And he sincerely doubted Odette had a coy bone in her body, especially not when it came to him. One thing he appreciated the most about their time together was the lack of artifice from their very first interaction.
“Of course, us,” he responded, his eyes riveted on her lips.“This will be our home. Together.”
Odette’s hand trailed down his sleeve until her fingers laced with his.“I like that thought very much.” There was a flicker of something in her eyes, something he couldn’t read. So he waited in silence for her to continue.“I wonder, though, if I might at least ask my mother if she has any idea as to the identity of our mysterious benefactor. I know your father’s solicitor is looking into it and I know she couldn’t have been the one to purchase this house, but I believe it would go a long way to assuaging my concerns if I at least ask her.”
Simon didn’t have much warmth toward the woman who had birthed his wife. Though he and Odette still had yet to expressly discuss it, he was firm in his belief that the French actress had played her role of a lifetime arranging the compromising situation in which he and Odette had found themselves. Then again, he supposed he did have her to thank for the past several days of finally having Odette in his arms…
“If that is what you wish to do, then by all means.”
His response must have been the right one because her fingers squeezed his in gratitude and she rose on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. He couldn’t help but inhale deeply of her delicious scent. His groin stirred with a fierceness that was almost crippling.
He couldn’t help it; he held onto Odette’s fingers when she would have stepped back.
Simon brought her hand up and pressed a kiss to the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. Her delectable lips parted ever so slightly, even more so when the next caress landed upon the sensitive skin on the inside of her elbow. He tugged her closer still and wrapped an arm around her waist.
“What are you doing?” she breathed, gazing up at him with wide, innocent eyes that aroused him to no end.
“Kissing my wife.” He followed through with his statement by pressing his lips on the soft skin of her collarbone and then the slope of her neck.
“Well, that much is clear,” she tried to laugh airily, but the tremor in her tone gave her away.“I mean, why are you doing this here?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” he retorted. This was so unlike him. She made him reckless. She made him wild. He needed a steady supply of Odette if he was going to retain any shred of sanity. Sleeping without her the prior night had been torture. Spending the morning in her presence had been a tease. And now he had her alone and all to himself, and he couldn’t resist.
“What if someone comes in?”
“Well, then they’d be trespassing, wouldn’t they?” He gestured around them with a tilt of his head.“Until we’re informed otherwise—which seems highly unlikely at this point—this home belongs to us. And, as we have yet to hire any staff, we are more alone than most people in London. Anyone who might interrupt us is trespassing and will be forcibly removed;” he placed a kiss on her temple;“or run through with a sword for their untimely interruption.”
Simon claimed Odette’s mouth, kissing her deeply, tracing the seam of her lips with his tongue until she opened for him. An unconscious groan of approval rumbled through his chest like thunder heralding a tempest. She was so responsive, so eager… He loved how she felt against him, how soft and warm her body was, the way she moved and smiled, every sigh and breathless gasp with which she awarded him. Of their own volition, his palms cupped her rear, kneading it as he pressed her fully to his rolling hips and thickening arousal. She clutched his lapels in her tiny hands, hanging onto him as if he were her anchor in a storm when she stretched up on the tips of her toes.
His brain slowed and narrowed its focus onto just the two of them in that sunny room with its honey-blond wood floors and bare walls, tall windows and white crown molding.
He began maneuvering them to the nearest wall, which just so happened to be closest to the hearth with its carved marble columns and ornate mantle, a judgmental lion’s head as its centerpiece. He caught her when the heel of her slipper became snagged in the hem of her pink dress and, rather than simply set her to rights and continue, he bent and hiked Odette into his arms. She made a little yelp of surprise as he hitched his arms beneath her supple thighs and wrapped her legs around his hips, but she melted rather quickly once again and wound her arms around his neck, meeting his ravenous kisses with her own. She eked out a little squeak of surprise when her back met the wall, but it only urged Simon on as he used it for leverage to press them together more closely.
She tasted like the late-summer berries she’d had with luncheon, but she made him feel as if he’d drunk a whole bottle of brandy. She was sweet and intoxicating, she slowed his world and his whirling mind to the crawl of molasses. His throbbing cock strained for the heat of her core. Despite his best efforts, he’d thought of little else these past eighteen hours other than having her back in his arms. Beneath him. On top of him. Here, pinned between his body and the wall, thighs spread wide and wet just for him, her heart racing in anticipation of the joy he could give her.
Reaching between them, Simon’s fingers sifted through the layers of her skirts until he found the lace of her garters and reached higher to locate the slit in her drawers. The flesh he found was already dewey with her desire. She practically purred against his lips when he caressed the petals of her sex, swirling and drawing the infinity symbol, omega, and the Sigma notation again and again as she mewled in the most delicious of ways, her slickness coating his fingers like the most succulent, forbidden honey. His mouth salivated with the mere thought of tasting her, but it would have to wait. His body could handle no further delays.
Simultaneously, he bent his head to partake of her delectable décolletage and rip open the falls of his breeches. He nearly groaned like a randy youth when he was finally able to take his cock in his hand and rub it through the moisture with which her body had awarded him. If he failed her in all else, at least Simon knew he could give Odette this; he knew he could fulfill this need and bring her incandescent physical pleasure.
Her thighs hugged him more tightly and Simon took that as his cue to allow himself to slide home. His breath was ripped from his chest as he was enveloped in her tight, wet heat. Her flesh stretching to accommodate his girth, the way her inner walls sucked him more deeply until he was buried to the hilt, caused his sanity to slip.
Nothing in his life had ever felt so right as when his body was joined with Odette’s.
It was part of what terrified him.
He cupped the lush curves of her bottom to tilt her hips, canting her pelvis to meet his deep thrusts. What began as tender quickly turned into something far more frenzied and fueled by overpowering need. Every pull of her slick muscles against his cock, every soft cry of Odette’s incredulous joy when their bodies met again, and again, and again worked Simon higher. He wanted to fill her with his seed; he basked in the knowledge that she would forever be his, alone.
The combination of her scent and her taste drove him beyond all reason. Her narrow sheath fluttered around him and he knew she was already close. His own crisis began with a tingle in the base of his spine. He pressed himself closer, grinding his pelvis against her in a way that created just the right friction exactly where he knew she craved it the most.
