Page 89 of The Heart of an Earl

He worked his way back up her body, stopping at each breast to tease the nipples into tight balls of tension begging to be freed. His fingers wandered about her thighs, slipping into her folds to draw her sex into a frenzied peak. With no control, her body arched up into him, her head burying into the bed as she clutched at the thick wine-hued damask coverlet.

Mewls bordering on soft screams ran ragged through her throat until he lifted himself from her body, setting his knees between her legs and drawing himself straight. His hands moved under her backside and he lifted her from the bed, holding her in the air as he set the tip of his shaft at her entrance.

While she wanted to grab his shoulders, lifting herself to hold his body onto hers, she wanted him deep in her all the more. Her hands gripping tight onto the coverlet, she angled her hips forward and he drove inward.

Full. Deep.

Reaching into her very soul. His shaft setting to fire every nuanced crevice of her body as he drew out and then plunged. Holding her high, holding her to the onslaught of his body until she was writhing under his grip, nonsensical words begging him for release, begging him not to stop.

Over the edge. Her world imploded into darkness and specs of light and Des. Nothing but Des.

A scream, low and savage, sent his body trembling and he drove into her, his cock expanding, filling her, pushing her deeper into the abyss of her body releasing all agony. Waves of raw, brutal pleasure ripped through her nerves.

He collapsed forward, gripping her body to his, making her one with him. The shudders of each of them drawing the other to new heights.

He had her. Fully and wholly, her body his.

She was home again. Home in his arms. A home that she hadn’t had in five years.

Des spun her onto the top of him, then shifted them, drawing their legs long onto the bed, Jules tight to his chest.

Her nose nuzzled into his skin, reveling in the scent of him. For all that had changed, for all that he hadn’t told her, he was the same. This, the essence of him—the essence of the two of them together—was the same.

Earth shattering and familiar.

{ Chapter 26 }

Her head popped up and she rearranged her limbs on top of him, balancing her chin on her left fist positioned on his breastbone. “That was worth scandal. But you’ll have to repeat it in short order so I don’t change my mind.”

He laughed, a low rumble that warmed her soul. “Anything to serve you, my minx. Give me five minutes, though.”

“I will be counting the seconds.” Her cheeks lifted in a madcap grin as her fingertips went to his jaw, dragging a line across the slight stubble that had appeared during the night. She’d always particularly liked him this way, when the gruff of his beard began to show—the feel of it against her skin. She’d wondered on it, long ago, why he’d always found time to shave when the rest of the crew let their beards grow. But once an earl, always an earl, she supposed. For all he said he didn’t want his title, he played the part well.

“I enjoyed meeting your daughter. Vicky appears to have…spirit.”

“Too much so.” He frowned.

She tapped his chin. “Is there such a thing?”

“Yes. As her father that is trying to find some common ground with her aside from the bouts we have about her behavior with men at functions such as these, there is such a thing as having too much spirit.” Des shifted his right hand under his head and the pillow. His left hand stayed splayed tight to her backside—just as it should be. “Though Vicky did an admirable job in being polite to you.”

Jules nodded. “She was quite charming—far more than just polite. Sloane and Reiner have raised a fine young lady.”

“Fine to everyone but me.” He sighed.

Her mouth pulled to the side. “Yes, I did see how she reacted to you in the gardens. And in the solarium. She wants nothing to do with you. But you were right in the gardens to intercede before that fop dragged her into the maze and ruined her, even if she clearly did not see it as helpful.”

“No.” His gaze moved up to the canopy above as his fingers trailed along the bumps of her spine, making her skin prickle. “I don’t know what to do with her. How to make her…how to change this.”

“You realize she hates you for abandoning her?”

“What?” Des’s look dropped to her. “How did you guess that? She has said as much directly to me, but I don’t understand it.”

Jules took a deep breath and pushed herself upright, her legs straddling him as she settled on his thighs. Des lifted himself and scooted them backward until he could lean against the headboard of the bed.

Her hands went to his face, capturing his cheeks between her palms. “I love you, Des, but you need to know I hated you in the same way as Vicky does for a long time.”

His eyes widened. “You hated me?”

---