The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

er eyes. And then she had the gall to raise her hand and lightly touch her fingers to his chin. “You have just a bit of a dimple. I’ve always liked chin dimples.”

That was all it took. He sucked in his breath, began kissing her again, and in a remarkably short time, he was moving inside her again, and it no longer surprised him at all. He wanted to make it last longer this time, and it did, at least a full minute longer before he was jerking above her like a palsied man and she was heaving, so frantic that it seemed to him in one single sane moment that she wanted him all at once, just as he did her. When his hot fingers found her, she cried out into his mouth, her breath hot and fierce, and he poured himself into her.

“I want you on top of me,” he said into her ear when he could draw a breath. She said nothing, not that he expected her to. She was utterly relaxed beneath him, probably asleep, he thought. Then he simply collapsed, his head beside hers. It was as if someone had slammed a door down on his head, only it didn’t hurt at all, and his sleep was very deep and profound. He just winked out, holding her tightly, still deep inside her, her arms holding him hard against her. He felt her hands on his back, warm even through his clothes and he realized in some part of his brain, that he’d just pulled his breeches down and that he still had on his shirt and his jacket.

He was a pig, but he would think about it later.

He awoke at the touch of a wet tongue on his left ear. “Spenser,” she said, then licked him again. He reared up over her, balancing himself on his elbows and looked down at her face.

She looked dreamy, vague, and excited, a combination that ignited him instantly, no delay whatsoever.

“Spenser,” she said again, and when he leaned down to kiss her mouth, to taste her, to revel in her, she said, “I’ve seen pictures of the woman on top of the man. I would like to try it. You don’t believe I am too big, do you?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “But not just yet, Helen, not just yet. I’m sorry, but I just can’t. I’m an old man, Helen—” And then he was moving deep inside her again, growing harder and harder by the moment as her mouth was on his, and she was biting him, licking him, and his world once again spun out of control.

“I’m going to die,” he said when at last they were both breathing hard, pressed hard together, his face only an inch above hers because he didn’t have the strength to push himself up higher. “I am thirty-three and I’m going to die. Helen, I may be a man of interesting habits and experiences, but this goes beyond anything I’ve ever known in my life. I’m tired now. Would you like to sleep for just a little while with me?”

She drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. There was a slight smile on her mouth. He kissed her, then once again they were asleep in Lord Prith’s gazebo.

Lord Beecham awoke to realize his butt was bare and he was cold. It was twilight. He slowly eased off Helen. He fastened his breeches and pulled on his boots. He stood over Helen, just watching her breathe. Her legs were glorious, long and white and sleekly muscled, his seed smeared on them, and he groaned with the feelings that flooded through him. He hadn’t asked for this. Life had been perfectly pleasant.

Of course life had been pleasant. What had he done to make it unpleasant? He had enjoyed himself, done precisely what he wanted to do whenever he wanted to do it. He wasn’t vicious or petty, but it was rare that he saw things outside his pleasant existence.

He looked down at Helen.

She wanted him for a partner. She wanted to find that damned lamp more than anything else in this entire world. He didn’t doubt for a moment that she wanted that damned lamp more than she wanted him, except for the few moments when he touched her and she touched him and they came together as fast, as violently as a winter storm lashing out of a midnight-black sky.

He lightly touched his palm to her thigh. Slowly, very slowly, she opened her eyes. She didn’t move, just looked up at him. She smiled at him. “I didn’t get to be on top,” she said.

His muscles nearly went into a spasm. “Next time, I swear to you, next time.”

“It is too much,” she said then. “Simply too much. This cannot continue.”

He had thought the same thing, recognizing the strangeness of this immense need for her, so different from the other women who had come into his life. But to hear her actually say the words made him go right over the edge. It made him nearly wild with rage.

He jerked up and removed his hand from her leg. He straightened. His voice was colder than a delicious vanilla ice at Gunther’s. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Of course it will continue. It is too much, but we will figure all that out sooner or later. Keep these inane conclusions to yourself, Helen. I have promised that next time you will be on top.”

She frowned at him. She cocked her head to one side, regarding him from beneath her lashes. Then she sat up and looked down at herself. She said blankly, not looking at him, “I am wet with you. Very wet.”

“Yes.” He handed her his handkerchief. He turned away to walk to the narrow arched entrance of the gazebo.

“I’ll return your handkerchief to you tomorrow.”

“Yes, do that, since I imagine that you will be needing it again.”

She didn’t say anything at all, just walked around him, down the gazebo steps, across the vast expanse of lawn and into the library entrance on the east side of the hall.

He didn’t move, just watched her. At first her steps weren’t all that steady, and he knew it was because of the special strain he’d put on her muscles, something she wasn’t used to. He smiled. He realized something else then. This proud, very independent woman was fighting him for all she was worth. It cannot continue. Like hell, he thought.

At that moment, he realized that he himself had lost all perspective on this situation.

It was a mighty lust, a lust the strength of which he had never experienced before in his life. And perhaps that was all it was—lust, an incredible lust, a lust that would bring a man to his knees in short order, or simply smite him dead from overindulgence.

This had to be dealt with. He knew there would be no dealing with anything as long as she was beside him, just there so he could make love to her, and not stop.

He had some soul-deep thinking to do. It could be that the conclusion of his thinking just might end up changing the course of his life.

The thought of taking a wife didn’t freeze the blood in his veins. Odd that it didn’t. He was thirty-three years old. He would have thought that life would have settled into its lifelong pattern by now, but, Lord love him, it hadn’t.