She deserved far more.
“Right now I’m going to make you come,” he promised.
She stared at him. “Come?”
“Like last night,” he whispered. “When the pleasure got so big that it couldn’t be contained. When you coated my fingers with all that slick release.”
Her cheeks darkened again with that wicked description. He was a little surprised at himself for giving it. He was a gentleman. It was left to silver-tongued rogues like Robert to burn a lady’s ears with naughty words.
But Helena inspired him.
“I was…overcome when you touched me,” she admitted softly. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“Good,” he said. “You’re about to again.”
He inched down her body, kissing her through her clothing as he did so. He pushed at her skirts, raising them until he could part the opening of her drawers. He caught his breath.
Last night he had not looked at her. Even if he had, he would have been too drunk to appreciate her fully. Today he did. She was slick with desire already, and he couldn’t help himself. He lowered his head and placed a gentle kiss to her.
“Baldwin!” she cried out, half sitting up on the blanket to stare at him.
He looked up at her from between her legs. “I’m going to kiss you here. Lick you. And if you allow me to do that, I promise you that the pleasure of last night will seem muted in comparison.”
Her lips parted and the sweetest expression of innocent shock rolled across her face. Like she couldn’t image that was true. Still, as much as he wanted to dive right into this act, he had to be mindful of what she had endured.
He never wanted to hurt her. Ever.
“Hear me, Helena,” he whispered. “You have all the control when it comes to this. When it comes to any way I touch you. The moment you say no, I will stop. I don’t care how far I’ve gone or what you’ve said yes to in the past. Your no ceases everything.” He chuckled. “Even if it kills me.”
She continued to stare at him. “You would—you would do that?”
“Of course,” he said. “You are not a toy to be used by me and thrown aside. We both know the circumstances, the blockades, the future that we cannot avoid. But I want this to give you pleasure. I want it to be something you look back on with joy. This affair is for you, Helena, as much as it is for me.”
She swallowed hard and then she nodded. “Thank you.”
“Now, may I?” he asked, tilting his head toward her sex.
Her lips parted, her uncertainty still clear. But then she swallowed hard and said, “Yes. I trust you, Baldwin.”
He recognized just how hard that trust was to give and vowed, if only to himself, to never make her regret giving it. Gently, he placed a hand on each of her thighs and pressed her open. He rested on his stomach between her legs, then stroked his fingers over her sex.
She made a garbled sound of pleasure and her legs fell open wider. He smiled as he gently parted the folds of her sex, and leaned in to lick her once more.
Helena jolted at the unexpected and powerful sensation of Baldwin’s tongue tracing her in the most intimate way possible. The idea that he would had been confusing, but now…now that he was actually doing it, she understood. This was magical.
Better still, he seemed to enjoy it just as much, for he dove into the act with great determination and gusto. He was relentless, dragging his tongue across her opening and then swirling it around the same place where he’d touched her last night. And just as she had all those hours ago, she found herself grinding against him in time to his strokes, reaching for that pleasure she had found with him before.
Talented and focused as he was, it didn’t take long to get there. They found a rhythm together, something hard and fast that made her legs shake as she pressed her heels into the blanket. He stroked and stroked with the flat of his tongue, and she couldn’t stop the little keening cries that escaped her lips and drifted away on the soft breezes coming from the lake.
The pressure built, just as it had the night before. A gathering pleasure that was so much like a storm. She wanted it. She needed it more than breath or food or water. She was desperate for it, and just as she reached the peak of that need, he sucked her and she shattered.
He continued to lick her as she thrashed against him, clenching the blanket, twisting to escape the pleasure, grinding to find more. It went on and on, far longer than the previous night. Those ripples multiplied until she was weak from it. Only then did he lift his mouth from her and grant her respite from the powerful, uncontrollable sensation.
He crawled up the length of her body and kissed her. She drank deeply of him, tasting an earthy sweet flavor on his tongue that jolted even more desire through her. It was her flavor from that secret place she’d been taught was dirty and wrong.
It didn’t taste wrong. What he’d done hadn’t felt wrong either. It had felt…wonderful. And he’d been so gentle, so giving and caring that her memories hadn’t plagued her when he touched her. In fact, nothing had troubled her at all in those sweet, sensual moments.
He smoothed her skirts down and rolled to lie beside her, gently resting his hand on her stomach. “That was much better when I am fully sober,” he said with a smile that brightened his somber face considerably.
She laughed. “Sober or drunk, you sweep me away in ways I didn’t know were possible.”
He curled his hand against her. “You deserve that pleasure, Helena. And it is very much my pleasure to give it to you.”
She frowned and looked down his body. Just as she’d seen last night, she was well aware of the swollen reminder that he had not found his pleasure with her either time he had touched her.
“What about you?” she asked.
He arched a brow. “Are you trying to tempt me, Miss Monroe?”
“I hope I do tempt you,” she said.
He caught her hand and gently dragged it down his body until she cupped the hardness of him. “You do,” he promised. “But when I resolve this, I want it to be buried in your body. And I only want to do that when I have the time to do it properly.”
“In the midst of a country party, that could be challenging.”
He shrugged as he released her hand. “I’m very good at challenges.” For a moment they lay like that and then he glanced up behind him, toward the house that was hidden over the hill. “Much as I would like to lie here with you all day, it’s getting later in the morning. Soon the others will rise.”
She moaned as she buried her head in his shoulder. “I don’t want to go back to reality.”
He laughed as he smoothed a hand over her hair. “Neither do I, I promise you. But we must.”
She nodded slowly and then lifted her head with a smile for him. “Thank you for the fantasy, though.”