“I want all of you, Georgina. Even as I want to hate you. I cannot.” He slipped inside inch by agonizing inch. “Tell me you want me.”
“I do,” she whimpered and with a hard thrust he pushed deep. “I’ve always wanted you.”
His eyes slid closed as her words washed over him. She could not ever love him as he loved her. Even with her deception and lies and the truth of her birth…he loved her. And he hated himself for it. She accepted every single inch of him. She squeezed him with clever inner thigh muscles, milking his shaft.
Adam flexed his hips.
Georgina gasped, buckling against him. But he wouldn’t let her fall. He gripped the sides of her hips and kept her upright, continuing to grind against her.
She pushed back as if trying to get closer to him, and it felt like blissful revenge that she should ache for him, that she was as tortured as he would be until he drew his last breath on this cruel earth. He would fuck her and leave. But for now he’d take what was his. He pumped his hips again. Hard. Punishing her with merciless strokes. She didn’t complain. She moaned loud enough to attract the notice of any person happening to pass by. He didn’t care.
“I love you,” Georgina moaned, arching against him.
He continued to plow into her, ignoring her breathy declaration.
Her head fell forward as she bowed to his masterful conquering. “I want you. Even if you do not you want me,” she breathed.
Adam nipped her lobe hard. He clenched his jaw to call back the words of love on his own lips. He could not bare himself to her. Not again.
She angled her head over her shoulder, looking at him through passion-glazed eyes. “How can someone who hates me make me feel like all I want in the world is right here?”
Ah, Georgina. I hate that you’ve lied to me. I don’t know how we can go on with all the mistruths between us. But I can never hate you.
“No more talking,” he demanded, his tone pleading to his own ears.
Adam filled his palms with her pale, plump breasts, rubbing the pebbled nipples between his thumb and forefinger. A spasm coursed through her body, and he felt it all the way to his shaft buried in her hot, honeyed core. It fueled his erection, sent blood rushing to his member.
She flung her head back, and her chocolate curls came undone in a cascade about them. “Yes, Adam!”
Adam grunted, feeling like a primal beast taming his mate. He continued to plow her. Harder. Deeper.
“Tell me you want me,” he demanded roughly, gripping her hips hard in his hands. Suddenly, it mattered very much that he knew she wanted him. He needed to know that her body and heart both ached with the same agonizing intensity.
She moaned in response. It wasn’t enough. He needed her to say it aloud. Needed her to know that for all her deceit and all her treachery, in this moment he was the one in complete and supreme control. “Tell me, Georgina,” he repeated. He pulled out of her.
She raised sooty lashes to look at him. Desire blazed in her fathomless eyes. “Only you. I only want you.” Her hips pumped as if seeking him.
He closed his eyes tight as her words washed over him and in that moment he allowed himself to believe the truth of those words. When nothing but lies had ever existed between them, he believed she’d never wanted anyone but him.
He slammed into her on a groan, his shaft convulsed in rippling tides of spent desire. Georgina’s body went rigid in his arms as she toppled over the precipice of ecstasy. Their breathy moans blended long after they’d reached sexual release.
Adam pulled away. Dropping her skirts, he stuffed himself back inside his breeches.
Georgina leaned over the balustrade, clinging to it as if it were the only thing keeping her from falling over. She panted roughly, while the round swell of her buttocks was presented to him like a carnal feast. Hunger roared through him and his shaft stirred at the sight.
Adam swiped a hand over his eyes, agony lanced his heart. Georgina had managed to penetrate his every defense. She’d crept inside his heart, mind, and now it would seem he didn’t even have control over his body’s cravings.
Words of love died on his lips.
He had to sever this connection, or she would use it to destroy him.
“Thank you for that, sweet Georgina.”
She sucked in a gasping breath, Adam straightened his jacket…and left with a feeling that he was as cruel and evil as the men who’d imprisoned him.
*
Georgina heard the steady click of her husband’s fast-retreating steps until they were no more than an echo bouncing around inside her head.
She focused on that curt, staccato rhythm for it saved her from thinking about the vile, ugly words he’d hurled at her only moments after demonstrating such beautiful mastery of her body. Stopped her from focusing on the fact that he’d taken her like a common street whore in a place where anyone could have seen them. And that she’d panted and moaned just like the whore he thought her to be.
Georgina became aware of the jagged stone biting into her flesh, cold and unyielding—just like her husband’s heart. She shoved herself back from the wall with a gasping sob. Tears fell down her cheeks and chest to stain the ground.
Her hair hung in a riot of untamed curls. She could only imagine the sight she made. If anyone were to see Adam Markham’s new wife good and tousled, as if she’d been taken against a stone wall… A cackling laugh escaped her that would surely have seen her committed to Bedlam had anyone heard it.
She buried her face in her hands and wept until her lungs ached. When she’d stumbled upon the tableau of Adam with his former love, her already broken heart had lost another layer. Then he’d confessed that nothing untoward had happened. Even though Georgina had seen them with their lips pressed against each other’s, she’d not thought of anything but his denial. What reason had Adam to lie? He’d already demonstrated he had few qualms when it came to hurting her with words. So why not let her believe he had been about to make love to Grace?
He had taken her into his arms and made almost violent love to her body. And she’d let him. Because she loved him and, shamefully, because she’d wanted it as much as he had. Mayhap more.
Now, Georgina had to acknowledge the truth—her husband would never forgive her and most certainly never love her.
She had to leave. The host’s library would no longer suit. Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, she swiped her hands across her cheeks, wiping away the evidence of her grief.
Georgina bent down to retrieve her scattered hairpins then set to work righting herself as best as possible.
“Hullo? Georgina?”
At the familiar voice, her body turned to stone. “Tony.”
He stood six feet away. He widened his eyes. The horror in blue-green irises so much like Adam’s told her exactly how she looked with her flyaway hair and badly rumpled skirts.
When he spoke, his words were surprisingly devoid of emotion. “My brother thought it best if I had your carriage brought round.”