She broke free and sucked in a breath, gripping his shirt. He kissed her throat, trailing hot caresses into her hair, his tongue slipping along her sensitive earlobe.
“What if—” She gasped, his big palm hot and heavy on her behind. “What if I want it for the same reason as Lady Nathans?”
His mouth captured hers and she met him because she could not resist.
“What if that?” she insisted.
His eyes swam like pools of midnight water, his chest moving hard beneath her hands. “I don’t care anymore.”
She twined her arms around his neck and gave herself up to him. He kissed her and she knew only his mouth and hands and that she never wanted this glorious madness to end. Rain pattered onto the marble steps and her cheeks, thick droplets heating beneath his palm cupping her face then curving down her neck. She drank him in, tasting him, water slipping off his skin and between her lips in tendrils like nectar. Ravenous, she closed her teeth around his jaw, seeking him with every part of her. He pulled her tight to him and his kiss consumed.
The storm broke above, splitting the black sky with strident light, but they were fused. Ben slid his hand between their mouths, separating them, and Tavy took his finger with her tongue and sucked on it. He groaned, gripped her hand and pulled her down the steps.
The rain lashed at them, wind whipping sheets of water at an angle against her skirts. He urged her ahead through the darkness and she ran, her gown clinging and legs light, her body filled with feeling, thoroughly alive. Behind her, he laughed and it was like heaven opening up. She turned mid-stride, tripped, and he grabbed her up, covered her smiling mouth and made love to her with his kiss. The rain washed them in a blanket of sound, pure and clean. He drew away from her lips, holding her face in strong hands, water streaming down his brow and cheeks, and she blinked through the downpour to see him. He found her hand again, then the small of her back, and pressed her forward through the deluge.
She ran so that she could be in his arms again that much sooner.
He pulled her toward a door at the rear corner of the house and they stumbled inside. Ben pushed the door shut against the wind and without pausing drew her swiftly along the passageway, his fingers wrapped around hers. They emerged onto a corridor near the dining chamber. The house was dark and silent now, the sounds of the storm beating on windows and walls outside muffling their quick progress.
He halted abruptly, his grip tightening. Footsteps sounded ahead, then male voices. The glow of a lamp bobbed around a corner, approaching. Tavy’s heart hammered.
Ben dragged her across the corridor, opened a door and pulled her within. A single candle lit the billiards room furnished with only the broad flat table, chairs against the paneled walls, a rack of cues and a sideboard topped with crystal carafes. He turned the key in the lock, dropped her hand and moved silently to the opposite door to fix the bolt.
Shivering in her drenched clothes, Tavy pressed her palms and ear to the door and listened. The footsteps came close and halted. The doorknob rattled. Her pulse leapt. She did not dare breathe.
Lord Gosworth’s voice resonated through the thick wood. “Locked already. Blast Doreé’s Methodist butler, shutting all the best brandy away at the stroke of midnight Saturday.”
“S’pose my wife’s expecting me, in any case,” his companion mumbled.
“Good for you, lad.” A sound like a thwack upon wool. “Good for you.”
The footsteps receded. When they faded entirely, Tavy released her breath, then sucked it in abruptly. Ben’s hands covered hers pressed to the door, his body coming up against hers from behind. From shoulders to thighs he trapped her, hard and purposeful. He kissed her neck and she tilted her head to allow him, shivering with the pleasure. His fingers curled around her wrist, then along her arm, trailing to her breast. He stroked her through the sodden garments and her body tightened with prickling bursts.
Her breaths came humid against the door. She pushed into his palm and his touch grew firmer, his other hand smoothing to her waist and without hesitation between her legs. She caught up her breath. He caressed her in deep long strokes, kissing her throat and neck, her damp skin on fire beneath his mouth.
Tavy sighed, a sound heavy and foreign from the depths of her that he roused so easily. She wanted him, and she wanted this to go on forever, the delirium of his hands on her just like this, the sweet heaven of his male need pressing into her behind, startling but delicious. Where he caressed her, she ached. She tilted her forehead into the door and reached back to grip his hips and settle her body tighter to his.
He pulled her around, flattened her against him and kissed her hard, harder, until she could not breathe. Until she breathed only him.
Ben swept her up in his arms, took two strides and set her down upon the edge of the billiards table. His fevered gaze covered her, and beneath it, soaked to her skin, bedraggled like a street urchin, Tavy felt absolutely beautiful. He had always made her feel beautiful. Always.
Her skirts clung, but his hands upon her ankles and warm along her calves were sure. Petticoat, gown, and shift came up and she helped him, her fingers quivering, her body anticipating she didn’t know what but she wanted it. Wanted him so much. Her thighs were pale beneath his warm hands, but when she lifted her gaze, he was looking at her face. She pulled him forward and kissed him, wrapping her legs around his waist and bringing her tender flesh against the front of his trousers. He curved his hands around her behind and held her to him. He was taut and her breath fled, on fire for him but not knowing what to do.
“Ben?” she barely breathed, pressing into him. He slid his hands up to her breasts and held her and she grew faint, whispering his name as she shifted herself against his hardness, seeking relief for the delicious throbbing.
Gently he pressed her back onto the table. Then he knelt upon one knee, pulled her hips to him, and began again a dance with her body that Tavy had been dreaming about for seven endless years.
He stroked gently at first, his tongue soft against her need, and she nearly jumped from her skin. But he grasped her thighs tight and covered her with his mouth. Time ceased, the storm outside a bare echo of reality. She could not be still, thunder rocking through her with each kiss, each moment of pure pleasure in which she became more his. She arched her back, moving her hips to meet his hot caresses that drew her under. He stroked faster, harder, his tongue upon her a divine torture. Briefly, he dipped inside her, teasing. She gasped and gripped the edges of the table, frantic with the need to feel completion, frantic for more of his tongue in her until her breaths shallowed and her vision clouded.
“Please,” she groaned, straining against him. “Please, Ben.”
He took her beyond what she remembered, beyond what she dreamt, stroking her into pleasure so sublime and complete her entire body shuddered, trembling as the heat spread. She gasped for air, sobbing, no tears, only rich, sublime convulsions that embraced her from the depths of where he kissed to her lips.
She shook, breathless as he pulled her up and into his arms and buried his face in her hair. She clung to him and willed him not to release her, not to allow anything to end what she never wanted ended.
“This—” Her voice came forth raspy. “This table is lovely. But I want to be in your bed now.”
Wonderfully, he laughed. His hands spread then ran down her back, holding her firmly to his chest. He did not intend to release her, it seemed. It would not end. Not just yet.