Page 38 of Never Love a Lord
Sybilla had no time to voice her outrage at his departure before he had seized her ankles and dragged her to the edge of the bed. Then he leaned over and lifted her from the mattress, throwing her over his shoulder. She gave a shrieking laugh.
“Julian! What are you doing?” His body turned with a jerk into a semicircle and then she was flying back through the air, bouncing as she landed on the sheet of the mattress, the coverlet still in his hand billowing up from the bed.
“What few clothes you are wearing will be off of you in a moment, and I don’t wish for you to catch cold.” His grin was pure sin and Sybilla caught her lower lip in her teeth and bit down as she watched him. He looked so delicious, she wanted to sink her teeth into his chest.
“My clothes?” she teased as he crawled onto the bed toward her. “Why, whatever for?”
“Because . . .” He reached her, pulling the coverlet up to their shoulders and then sliding his hand down her stomach. Down, down . . . He kissed her lightly. “I’m going to make love to you.” He kissed her again, and his hand slid into the junction of her legs. He pulled up firmly. “And make love to you.” Again he kissed her, and then he spoke against her mouth while he dragged up the hem of her thin gown to touch her bare skin. “And make it, and make it, and make it.”
Sybilla cried out in the back of her throat as he tortured her, and then her hands found his skin, and she sought to absorb him with her palms against his chest, his broad, sculpted shoulders. He was so warm, golden, as if he radiated sunshine, his muscles rounded and hard, the goodness of his body dripping like honey onto her skin.
She could barely hold on to her peak as he drove her, and so she ran her own hand down his front, into the loosened waistband of his pant, opening it until she had him firmly in her grip. The conflicting sensations of velvety softness and iron-hard length were heady, and when Julian Griffin gave voice to his own moan, Sybilla took her chance.
“Love me now,” she demanded against his jaw, and tightened her fingers for emphasis before sliding her palm against him. “Now, Julian.”
Then his hand was gone from between her legs, and in a moment the fingers of his right hand gripped her cheeks. He leaned close to her face, staring into her eyes. Her knees were open beneath the heavy coverlet, her gown around her waist.
“No,” he growled. His fingers tightened as he shifted his hips and she felt the length of him high up on her thigh, so close. “You may be used to getting your way, Sybilla Foxe, but not here, not with me. You asked for this, and I will oblige you, lady, but I will do to you what I please, when I want to do it.” He moved his hips again, and the tip of him touched her.
He spoke against her lips, puckered in his grip. “Do you understand me?” And then he was almost in her.
Sybilla let go then, going over the edge, her body grasping for him, her hips arching as she cried, “Yes, Julian.”
And when she was back from her journey over the edge of the world, his touch gentled. He moved over her, stroking her face, kissing her lips so softly, licking her, murmuring his praise. Then he slid into her aching flesh, still pulsing around him, and he began to push her toward oblivion again.
And again.
And again.
Neither one of them saw his chamber door open slightly in the small hours of dawn. They didn’t see the still shadow that was the brief witness to their continued passion. And they did not see the door shut again slowly, silently.
Chapter 14
Julian knew he was smiling before his eyes even opened. And he also knew that Sybilla Foxe would not be next to him.
He turned his head on the pillow and opened his eyes. He was alone in his bed, but he could still smell the scent of her on the linens where she’d lain. Where she’d loved him, and let him love her until nearly dawn. He sighed and looked back to the beamed ceiling.
This was a dangerous game, for both of them. He’d never wanted a woman more in his life, and now that he’d had Sybilla Foxe, he felt that his hunger had grown rather than been satisfied. He wanted her at his disposal, wanted access to her thoughts, her feelings, the innermost sanctum of her soul where the true woman dwelt, forgetting the tales and the rumors and the vivid portrait painted by gossip and history.
But he was here on a mission for his king, his friend, and upon the successful dispatch of his duties, Julian would be rewarded with the one thing that Sybilla Foxe held most dear—what she was willing to sacrifice heaven for: Fallstowe.
And what would Edward think, should he discover that Julian had become intimate with the accused? Julian knew one of the main reasons Edward had selected him for the mission was the assumption that Julian would not be swayed by the Foxe matriarch’s legendary wiles. He’d just lost Cateline four months ago; he had an infant daughter to think of. He would not risk returning a failure and jeopardizing his and Lucy’s future.
Would he?
No. No, if he returned a failure, they all lost: Edward would withdraw his offer of Fallstowe and likely turn Julian out, and Sybilla would lose her home any matter. The monarch was out for blood now, and he would not be denied any longer. But . . .
Could there be a future at Fallstowe for Julian, Lucy, and Sybilla? Could Sybilla trust him enough to let him be her witness to the king, to lay bare all the information the king sought, and then counter the king for the castle and the lady? Perhaps if he told her that Fallstowe would fall to him. Perhaps she would see that there was a chance to retain her home.
But then Julian would never know. He would never know if she had stayed only for Fallstowe.
Does it matter?he asked himself angrily. You cannot keep it from her any longer, especially now. If she chooses Fallstowe, she also chooses you. Sybilla is not Cateline. You no longer need a woman to legitimize you. Instead of marriage saving you, you would be saving Sybilla Foxe.
But there was Lucy to think of. Sybilla Foxe would become his daughter’s mother, and Sybilla had been very forthright in her feelings toward offspring. Julian would not have his daughter subjected to the disinterest of an ambivalent maternal figure. Lucy needed love. She deserved to be loved, thoroughly, madly, completely, for who she was.
So did Sybilla Foxe.
Julian sighed again and then threw the covers off his body, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed with a groan. He felt muscles he hadn’t remembered he possessed. One half of the louvered shutter on the window across the room stood open, and Julian saw the bright countryside beyond.
