The Earl Takes a Lover Read Online Free Page B

th—”
    â€œâ€”to explain—”
    â€œâ€”that I have one iota of interest in anything you have to say, you are an insufferable, arrogant, delusional, pig-faced lout—” He stopped her words with his mouth. Instantly, all that anger was transmuted into a different kind of intensity. She kissed him ferociously, openmouthed and greedy, a week’s worth of pent-up frustration goading her past her own lack of experience. Anger made her the aggressor. She bit his lower lip and sucked on his upper lip and tangled her tongue with his and held him to her mouth with hot fingers clamped to his face. Not that he needed to be held. He kissed her back, all resolve lost in the heady rush of passion. He backed her into a post, wrapping her legs around his hips, fighting with her dress, trying to lift the skirt up and drag the bodice down and hold her there and kiss her frantically, all at the same time. She was not ill. She was gloriously, passionately, violently angry and selfishly, he welcomed it: the only emotion able to snap the taut control he’d kept over himself for the last miserable week. He gave up on standing as a bad idea and sank with her in a tumble of arms and legs to the wooden floor of the gazebo. She took the opportunity to suck in great lungfuls of air. He let her mouth go, licking and biting her neck and shoulders instead. Control was hopeless with her. It was always this fast, hot explosion, this instant stiff cock and the liquefaction of everything else except the driving need to bury himself inside her and make her come, fast, so he could, too.
    He searched for bare skin and found it high up under her drawers, a short, silky stretch of thigh between stockings and garters. He held to that place and abandoned her neck for her bodice, working one breast free, clamping his lips on the reddish nipple and sucking hard. She groaned and arched her back; he pressed her nipple to the roof of his mouth and held it there with the rough salve of his tongue. Her breathing disintegrated, every panting exhalation ending on a high, breathy note. This was going to happen. If he had stopped to think, control might have reasserted its shaky tenure. The same savage joy coursing through him was in her as well; he took possession of it and moved his hand in that instant to touch the hot, wet, open cleft of her body.
    An explosion occurred, but it was not—grievously—either one of them. Pen went perfectly still beneath him, drawing away into herself. An irate male voice carried from the lawn. “For God’s sake, Templeton, no shooting this close to the house. You’re none so fine a shot as you think and Lady Dalrymple will not be amused if you shoot one of her swans—or one of her guests.” The answer was lost as the party of hunters moved away. Robin levered himself to his feet, half expecting Pen to run. She didn’t. She climbed jerkily to her own feet, anger or passion making her movements awkward. She stuffed her breast— his breast, he thought possessively, with regret—back into her bodice with a ruthless efficiency that made him cringe.
    â€œEither leave me alone—” she was shaking “—or finish what you start. This—” she waved a hand, encompassing the entire bloody situation in the gesture “—cannot go on.”
    â€œNo,” he agreed quietly, not far from shaking himself. “It can’t. It’s why I haven’t spoken to you for a week. It’s why we can’t be alone. There isn’t anything I want more, but I cannot do this.” He bowed to her and left.
    When Pen came down for supper she was informed of Lord Tufton’s regrets: his immediate presence was required in London. Pru told her, sharp-eyed. Pen couldn’t tell if she suspected anything, and didn’t care. Her body was one giant remorseless ache, and her mind was not in a much better state. Nonetheless, she composed herself,