Page 74 of Isabel and the Rogue

Isabel tried to rise up on her elbows to kiss him, but her long braid caught under her arm, yanking her head back. Sirius tsked under his breath, freeing her plait. With a hint of a smile on his lips, he unraveled her braid, sifting through her black curls until they fell loosely about her shoulders and across the sheets.

Wrapping a strand around his finger, Sirius watched as it sprang back when he released it. “I wish you could wear your hair loose for all to see, for it truly is magnificent. And yet…” He buried his face in her locks. “I don’t want anyone else to glimpse you this way. So free. So uninhibited. So completely enthralling. You would sink ships and start wars, I’m convinced.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Isabel murmured, her voice choked.

“I am.” Sirius nodded as he gathered her curls and pushed them back from her face. “You make me ridiculous every time I am with you. And even when you’re not, because my every thought has been consumed with you. When you’re not with me, I wonder what you’re doing. What you’re reading. Are you safe? Do you think of me, too?”

Isabel twined her arms around his neck and pulled him down until nothing but a breath separated them. “Always. I think of you always.”

And she kissed him.

Yet that one kiss was not enough. Could never be enough. Soon they moved their mouths over each other as if they’d suffocate if they weren’t tasting each other’s skin and teasing moans from each other’s lips. Isabel dragged her hands from Sirius’s hair, down his back, and around to the front of his waist.

“Off, por favor,” she begged, “I need to feel you.”

Sirius pulled himself away long enough to shuck off his trousers and smallclothes and peel his waistcoat and shirt from his torso. In the dim, warm glow of the lamp on her side table, Isabel took in the sight of him towering over her. He was so perfectly formed, from his angelic face to the broad sweep of his shoulders, to the dips and dents of his waist and abdomen. But it was his cock, surrounded by curly, dark blond hair, that held her gaze. A feeling of empowerment surged through her as she watched desire firing bright in his eyes. Isabel crawled to the edge of the bed on her knees, preening when Sirius groaned.

“May I taste you?” she dared to ask, the words nothing but a whisper.

There was no doubt Sirius heard her, however, for he clamped his eyes closed and dropped his head back. “Christ, you’re going to be the death of me.”

Somehow Isabel managed not to grin. Slowly wrapping her hand around his length, she gave it a tentative squeeze, his answering moan telling her she was on the right path.

“Will you show me what to do?” she asked, peering up at him through her lashes.

“Of course,” he said, shaking his head eagerly.

His instructions were helpful, even if she had to coax the words from him because he often communicated only through moans. Sirius instructed her on how firmly to hold him, and how to twist her hand at his tip. When she opened her mouth around the head, he stroked his cock across her tongue, mumbling broken curses. But it was when she swallowed as much of his length as she could and then hollowed her cheeks that Sirius bit down on his fist to keep from cursing.

It was a messy business, and Isabel’s jaw ached, but she reveled in having this beautiful man so completely in her thrall. Captain Sirius Dawson, the man half the women of the ton desired for themselves, trembled under her touch. And the words he spoke to her while she worked him soon had her squirming and looking for relief.

You’re so good, darling.

Fuck, you take me so well.

Do you like the way I taste, sunshine?

Isabel increased her ministrations, enraptured by his response to her, and determined to bring him to release against her tongue. But Sirius had other plans, for he gently pulled free from her lips, his chest laboring. Stroking his hand along his cock, he rolled on a condom, and then pointed at the bed behind her.

“Lie down, Isabel.”

Hastening to obey him, Isabel scrambled onto the bed, reclining back on her elbows. She bit back a moan when Sirius roughly pulled her legs apart, his gaze possessing hers as he leaned forward and stroked up her slit with every inch of his tongue.

Isabel tossed her head back as her hands twisted about in the coverlet, seeking purchase.

Sirius ruthlessly teased her until she lay quivering beneath him, hoarse supplications falling from her lips in Spanish and English. Eventually, he crawled over her, pressing his mouth to the flesh over her heart as he settled his hips between her thighs. Isabel tilted her pelvis up, shaking with desire and the need for the release he kept just out of reach, but Sirius made no move to enter her. He simply stared down at her with his midnight eyes, until he opened his mouth and recited slowly, in halted Spanish,

Acá en el alma te vía,

acá en el alma te hablaba.

A tear slid down her cheek as Sirius continued to quote “My Lady,” by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, his words punctuated by caresses and fevered kisses to her skin. When he finally thrust into her, Isabel gasped against his lips. She clung to him as he undulated his hips and shifted her farther and farther up the bed, completely overcome by his sweet words. By his greedy kisses and possessive hands. And with each poem he breathlessly quoted, whether penned by Donne or Barrett Browning or Byron, Isabel fell a little more apart. For while he didn’t say the words, Sirius showed her his love, and she endeavored to show hers in return.

When her release finally crashed down upon her, Isabel could only hold on to Sirius, and hope this moment, filled with all their unsaid love, would be enough to sustain her.

• • •

Sirius lay sprawled on top of Isabel, his face tucked into her neck. His heart raced like a runaway Thoroughbred, but the steady drum under his ear told him that Isabel’s did, too.