To heaven. She came to it in a rush, in a glorious, mind-numbing crescendo of desperation; he watched her crest, watched her body rise beneath his, clinging, holding, then helplessly surrendering, letting go and releasing.
At the last moment, he bent his head and drank her cry, in a sudden surge of primal possessiveness ravaged her mouth—
And his reins snapped. Broke. Flew apart.
His body plundered hers, desperately seeking—and then he was there, joining with her, senses reaching and twining with hers, his body hers as hers was his and the glory fused them.
He was lost, in that instant blind, deaf and dumb, beyond thought or words or reason. Held above her, his body shuddered, racked by pleasure one last time as he emptied himself into her yielded flesh, into the hot, indescribably soft haven her body had become.
His, all his.
With a groan, he surrendered, let himself down upon her, wrapped her in his arms and held her close.
Two hours later, Deverell lay back on Phoebe’s pillows and ruthlessly channeled his thoughts away from the soft, warm, too-tempting female body curled with her back against his side.
She fitted perfectly, heaven-made for him.
And his rapacious needs, but that was one of the realizations he was battling to block from his mind. Later would be soon enough to dwell on such matters. Now…now he needed distraction.
The candles had guttered, plunging the room into a comfortable dark. His eyes had adjusted; it was almost pitch black, but he could make out the furniture, enough to be able to rise, dress, and leave without noise.
Not that he had any intention of doing so just yet.
Once again he steered his mind away from the prospect of what might transpire between now and him leaving. Jaw setting, he refocused on other things—any other thing that might fill his mind; he had to at least give her a little more time to recover from what had, even to his jaded senses, been an engagement of significant and quite startling sensual dimensions.
Dwelling on elements of that engagement wasn’t going to help.
The only other thing engaging enough to distract him was his wider plans for her, and how they were progressing. All in all, he was pleased, indeed, smugly satisfied. The unexpected chance to learn the secret of the agency wasn’t an opportunity he could have passed up; he’d had to grasp the moment to pressure her into telling him all…not that she had. She had carefully avoided any mention of what had moved her—a well-bred, wealthy young lady of the haut ton—to embark on such an esoteric career.
His eyes narrowed in the darkness; the reason wasn’t hard to guess. Some bastard—some marauding wolf in gentleman’s clothing—had tried to force her…. He cut off the thought, blocked the mental vision; his reacton to it was too violent and might disturb her, still slumped and slumbering by his side. Regardless, said ravening wolf had clearly not succeeded in raping her; his actions, however, had left scars.
He would never forget the fear he’d inadvertently triggered, more than once. He’d overcome it, worked his way around it, but that fear had been deeply etched. She was—as he’d known from the first moment of setting eyes on her—a sensual woman. Highly and richly so, the sort of woman made for men like him who could match and fully appreciate them. Yet that fear had blocked her path, had prevented her from enjoying her own nature, from developing and taking pleasure in it as she could and should, from being all she could be…but he was there now.
Tonight had been fated in more ways than one, a scheduled step in his plan to use her sensual nature to persuade her into matrimony, yet after learning the true nature of her agency and how she ran it, after guessing the connection to her fear—regardless of any plan, he would have made love to Phoebe tonight, compelled to demonstrate that her fear was only a hurdle, not a barrier, that all the pleasures a woman could enjoy could still be hers.
And on some other level entirely, after the dangers of the night he’d felt driven to capture and possess her, to make her finally, ineradicably, and indisputably his.
He shifted, seeking a more comfortable position, more in his mind than in the bed. The emotions she evoked in him were not entirely familiar; even the familiar urge to conquer and possess was edged with something deeper, more fundamental and powerful.
Those new and altered feelings made him uneasy, a trifle wary, but he had his goal before him, and that hadn’t changed. Not in the slightest.
He wanted Phoebe as his wife, was now beyond determined on that. Beyond committed. And on that path, he was progressing well.
This evening she had, albeit under duress, accepted him as her protector. An hour ago, entirely willingly, she’d accepted him as her lover. Of the three positions he’d so sapiently named, he had only one more to claim, but wisdom dictated he consolidate his hold on the two he’d claimed tonight before he made a bid for the last.
He glanced at her. Hair deliciously tousled—as it never otherwise was—she looked like the houri he’d told her she should train to become.
A niggle intruded, his imperative need to ask her about the man who had harmed her. He would one day, but instinct suggested now was not the time to raise that issue—their intimacy was too new, too fragile.
So…as there was nothing he could sensibly do to strengthen his position as her protector, wisdom dictated…
Turning toward her, he raised a hand, set his palm to the curve of her naked shoulder, then slid it slowly down.
Phoebe came awake to find her body had woken before her, that it was already heated, responding in wanton abandon to caresses so explicit she might have blushed if she hadn’t already been so flushed. So filled with sultry passion.
Lying on her side, sunk in her bed, with Deverell a hard, hot male wall behind her, she closed her eyes and followed the intimate play of his fingers. Let her senses submerge beneath the tide of sensual longing.
Felt the tide catch her, felt desire swell and rise.