His tongue touched her skin, and she was seared with fire.
And then he spoke. “That night . . . in my gardens.”
“You pretended not to recognize me.” She should be furious about it. But she wasn’t. There was a part of her that was grateful for it, because he’d freed her from the riot of conflicted thoughts she had held that night, and given her something else—the fantasy that they were simply lovers.
There had never been anything simple about them.
And tonight, they grew ever more complex.
“I recognized you,” he said. “Of course I recognized you.”
A kiss to the back of her neck, soft and perfect, sending a shiver of desire through her. Another lick of fire.
“I will never not know you,” he whispered, hot and perfect against her skin, and she was at once grateful not to be looking at him and desperate to see him as he confessed what should be a sin and was instead something far closer to heaven. “There will never be a time I do not know the shape, the sound, the scent of you, like sweet, spiced cream.”
She swallowed as he continued with his worship, one kiss after another, as though it hadn’t occurred to him that he might go faster.
As though it hadn’t occurred to him that she might lose her mind if he didn’t go faster, dammit.
“That night,” he told her shoulder blades as he worked the ties of her corset, loosening her, freeing her. “I told you that when I am with you, I feel like Apollo.”
“I remember,” she said, the words coming on a barely-there breath as he loosened the last ties, and his fingers found purchase inside, sliding over her skin, flushed and uncomfortable from the binding stays. She gasped at the unbearable pleasure of the touch. “He—” One hand tracked around her body and came to the underside of her breast, full and aching. He stilled, as though waiting for her to finish. “He turned a corner in a forest and saw a woman naked in a swimming hole.”
A rumble of amusement sounded at her back, the sound only amplifying the pleasure of his touch as he lifted her breast in his hand and rubbed his thumb over her nipple in a slow, languid circle. “She wasn’t naked in a swimming hole.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“I was distracted, if I recall.”
“And is it possible you could be similarly distracted now?” she asked.
He gave a little tut of concern at her ear. “I’m telling you a story.” His other hand came to join the first—to lift the opposite breast. To stroke the opposite nipple.
“I’m sorry,” she said, writhing against him. “Go on.” He pinched one nipple, just enough to sting. And she gasped, “Please.”
“Mmm—” That rumble again.
Grace tried to focus on the story. “What was she doing then?”
“She was killing a lion.”
He released her, pushing the dress and the corset down over her arms and her hips, until the golden fabric pooled at her feet, the slide of silk against her skin a wicked tease, making her want to step back into his arms, and let him have his way with her. Every way he could think of.
Before she could make good on the desire, he clasped her hips in his hands and pulled her tight to him, the magnificent hard length of him against her bottom. She pressed back, and he lifted one of her arms, wrapping it around his neck, one of his hands returning to a breast as the other slid over the curve of her belly.
“Touch me,” she said, softly. “Please.”
He growled, his fingers sliding into the thatch of hair that covered the most secret part of her, one finger teasing at the place she ached for him. She turned her face toward him, finding his glittering eyes. “Ewan.” She sighed.
“Cyrene.”
“What?”
That magnificent finger moved. “Cyrene, the lion killer.”
“Mmm.” She tilted her hips, loving the little brush of pleasure he gave her. “Tell me.”
“She was born delicate and beautiful, the only child of a great warrior,” he said, that hand working so lightly—too lightly—against her. “And no one believed she was worthy of battle.”
“Ah. Taken for granted,” she said, her fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck.
“Exactly that,” he said. “She wanted the battlefield, but she got a different kind of field—left home to tend sheep, always, as her father went to war.”
“Tasty treats for lions, them.”
He nipped her earlobe, sending a shiver of pleasure through her. “Exactly. And one day, as she was tending her flock, a lion came, and Cyrene, the great warrior, slayed it.”
“Enter Apollo,” she said, breathless, rocking her hips against him. “Faster.”
He stopped.
She swore.
“You learned that curse word here.” She could hear the wicked smile in his voice—the pleasure he took in directing hers. She turned to face him, wanting to see it. She’d spent a lifetime imagining the way he would smile in this moment, as he toyed with her pleasure and they pretended the world beyond did not exist.
His gaze tracked over her body as she turned, over every inch of her, each swell, each curve, every scar left from the fights of her youth.
She watched him catalogue them, following her legs down and back up, settling for a long moment on the dark thatch of curls that hid the most private part of her.
When he returned his attention to her face, he said, dark and delicious, “Apollo was laid low.”
And Grace, queen of Covent Garden, who could stop riots with a single word, realized she had never felt more powerful in her life than she did in that moment, as this man, strong and handsome and powerful in his own right, was lost in her.
He pulled her to him, lifting her high in his arms and taking her to the bed, where he laid her down, letting her pull him to join her on the rough silk coverlet. Letting her kiss him, long and lush, with a slow sweep of tongue and a slow suck of lip, until they were both aching.
This.
This was her pleasure. Being wanted. Being desired. Not for her money or her power or the position she held, but for herself.
But it wasn’t all. It wasn’t enough.
The pleasure was in the reciprocity. In being wanted and wanting in return. In giving and receiving. In needing and providing.
There was the pleasure for which she had spent a lifetime searching.
And here it was, in Ewan, her first love. And now, she suspected, her last.
He pulled away from her and pressed a kiss high on her cheek. Another at the corner of her eye. Another on her jaw. “She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen,” he whispered, and she was suddenly desperate for the rest of the story.
With a sly smile, she said, “Everyone loves a girl who can fight.”
Those amber eyes tracked over hers, taking her in. “Truth.” And that single, soft syllable threatened to set her aflame. Before she could explore it, he continued, his fingertips lightly tracing over her arm, to her hip, where she shivered in anticipation for more. “Apollo had been a god a very long time, you see, and he’d seen many beautiful women, but never one who was so fierce and so committed to her path. A warrior. He fell instantly in love, proposing to her on the spot.”
“What then?” she said, breathless. “Did she tumble into his arms and they lived happily ever after?”