Reggie bit her lower lip hard. Needing more. Wanting more. “I’ve never felt this way,” she rasped. “Neverrrr.” That last word came out as an endless moan as he slipped a finger inside her wet channel.
“Come for me,” he urged between each stroke of his tongue.
Reggie gripped Broderick’s head, threading her fingers through the light, luxuriant strands. Panting, she pumped her hips, frantic.
Then he sucked her.
Reggie’s body stiffened.
She came on a piercing scream. Wave after wave of pleasure crashed through her, swallowing her with its intensity, muting all sound but for the clashing harmony made by those ivory keys.
And she didn’t care if anyone heard it, didn’t care if they were discovered. She wanted nothing more than for this moment to go on forever.
Panting, Reggie went limp. She caught her elbows on the scalloped wood, the engravings biting into her skin. Tears pricked behind her lashes. “I didn’t know I could feel . . . I thought . . .” How many times after rutting painfully between her legs had Oliver called her a cold fish? He’d been wrong. So very wrong, and about so much. A single tear slid down her cheek as she reveled in this newfound power. “He said I wasn’t capable of—”
Broderick stood and cupped her gently by the nape. “Don’t let him in here. He was never worthy of you.”
Reggie pressed her cheek to his chest and breathed deep the sandalwood scent that clung to him; the steady throb of his heartbeat thumped reassuringly against her ear. She stroked her palm over the place where it beat, and his muscles jumped under that light touch.
Because of me . . . his body is responding to my touch . . .
Emboldened and empowered, she caressed her fingers over the corded muscles of his chest, lower to his taut belly.
Broderick caught her hand. “Reggie.” Agony wreathed his voice. “Don’t . . .”
She faltered, her confidence flagging. “I see,” she said dumbly, drawing away from him. Mortified heat burning her cheeks, Reggie presented her back to him and hurriedly dragged her bodice into place. A puffed cotton sleeve twisted, and she struggled to thrust her arm through the tangle.
Broderick stalked over, placing himself before her. “What do you think you see?” he murmured, staying her frenetic movements.
She fixed her gaze at the golden whorl of curls exposed at the top of his shirt. It was a state of dishabille she’d seen him in countless times, and yet there had never been this level of intimacy between them. Her mouth went dry. I’m a pathetic harlot. Lusting after a man who doesn’t want to lie with me . . .
“Reggie?” he repeated, his melodic baritone breaking across her shameful musings.
She spun away from him. “You don’t want to make love to me.”
“Is that what you think?”
“That is what I know.” She refocused on that damned lacy sleeve, fighting the fabric.
“You’re wrong.”
She stopped abruptly.
Broderick caressed his hands over her shoulders, and that butterfly-soft caress brought her lashes fluttering shut. His lips caressed her temple, and she leaned into that barely there kiss. “I want to make love to you.” Her heart stopped. “I want to lay you down, spread your legs, and join my body with yours.” His voice hoarsened. “I’ve wanted that for longer than I can admit to you.” A lightness flooded her; it filled her lungs and heart and being. “Longer than I’ve admitted to myself.” The internal battle that raged within him also ravaged his features. “You are in my employ. And you are deserving of—”
Turning in his arms, she cupped his face, the day’s growth upon his cheeks tickling her palms. “Let me decide what I want and what I deserve.” She brought her mouth close to his ear. “I want you.” His body went taut. “Make love to me,” she whispered.
“I am lost.”
And yet she’d been found.
He devoured her. All warmth and tenderness stripped away, leaving in its place a carnal hunger as he stroked past her lips and tasted every corner of her mouth.
She moaned, clinging to his shirt, and met every lash of his tongue.
“Tell me to stop,” he urged between kisses.
“If you stop I will die,” she rasped, and he swallowed those words.
Broderick filled his hands with her buttocks, and sinking his fingertips into that flesh, he drew her between his legs. His length throbbed against her belly, pulsing with his need, and the evidence of his desire for her fueled another wave of heat at her center.
Catching her about the knees, Broderick carried her through the music room and, as if she were a gift to be treasured, laid her gently down upon the sofa.
Her lids heavy, Reggie forced herself up onto her elbows. She stared on hungrily as Broderick pulled his shirt over his head and tossed the garment aside. Every movement sent a ripple through the defined muscles of his chest, his taut abdomen. All corded strength, he evinced a power those Greek sculptors had captured in stone.
Broderick discarded his boots and then paused with his hands on the waist of his trousers.
That slight hesitation clear.
“I want you.”
Passion glazed his eyes, and then hurriedly removing that last scrap of clothing, he stood before her in all his naked glory.
Her breath caught. His shaft jutted out high and proud amidst a thatch of golden curls. That enormous length jumped under her scrutiny. “You are perfection,” she whispered and stretched out her fingertips, grazing that silken length of him.
Broderick groaned and covered her with his body.
His mouth was everywhere. Worshipping every swath of skin he contacted. He kissed first one breast, then the other, suckling the tip. Flicking it with his tongue.
A long, throaty moan spilled from her throat, and Reggie spread her legs wide, arching her hips. Silently pleading.
Broderick slid a finger inside her, and she cried out, clenching around his hand and then relaxing her thighs. He added another finger, filling her. And then he was thrusting those long digits inside her. Stroking her.
“Broderick,” she panted, brushing back the locks that had fallen over his damp brow. “Please,” she begged.
He shifted, his shaft nudging the damp thatch of curls at her center.
Reggie reflexively lifted.
“Regina,” he whispered, and with a groan he pushed inside her.
He moved over her. Filling her. Stroking her slick channel over and over. Thrusting. Retreating. Thrusting. Retreating.
Reggie met every lunge, her hips arching hopelessly.
“You feel so wonderful,” he rasped against her breast. “I’ve never felt this. Not like this.”
Reggie bit his shoulder, her fingers clawing at his back in a bid to get closer. The fire he’d stoked ravaging her, burning every corner.
Their bodies moved frantically, moving together in time. “Reggie,” he gasped. Over and over. A mantra. A prayer. Her name. Falling from his lips as he drew her higher and higher, pulling her toward that precipice she’d crashed over before.
Only now with him buried deep within her. Their bodies joined as one. Joined as she’d always yearned for them to be.
Reggie stiffened, and then white light burst behind her eyes. She screamed, a throaty explosion of blissful surrender that shook the rafters.
Her muscles tightened and squeezed, and he thrust deep, touching her to the quick.
“Reggie,” he rasped once more. He squeezed his eyes shut and shouted his release, filling her.
Gasping, he collapsed.
In one fluid motion, he rolled them so she lay draped over his chest, and smiled.
Chapter 26
How I relish in the fact that everything you built was for naught.
Everything had changed, and yet all at the same time, nothing had.
Broderick’s world had been toppled. The future of his club remained in doubt.
And yet since Reggie had slid her naked frame off his and shrugged into her nightshift, he’d thought of only her.