Page 30 of Ten Rules for Loving the Wrong Rake

"More," she whispered.

"Patience."

"I don't have any."

"I'm having enough for both of us."

He sank deeper, watching her face. Her eyes closed, mouth opened, head tipped back. He kissed the pale line of her throat and pressed farther inside her with a groan.

"You've ruined me, Audrey."

She moaned and shifted her hip, taking more of him. He grunted.

Three strokes. The heat of her closed around him, tight, slick, and the sound she made — half surprise, half wonder — went through him like a lit match dropped into oil. Three strokes, and the wave he had been holding back since his mouth was on her rose hard and fast and without mercy.

He pulled out. Dropped his forehead against her collarbone. His breathing was ragged, his jaw clenched, his whole body rigid with the effort of stopping.

"What's wrong?" Her hands were on his shoulders, alarmed.

"Nothing. I just—" He swallowed. Pressed his face harder against her skin. Heat crawled up his neck. "It's been a long time. And you feel—" Another breath, shallow, controlled. "I'm too close."

"Kit." Her voice had changed. Soft. Her fingers found the back of his neck. "We have all night."

He kept his face against her collarbone and breathed and felt her fingers stroking the nape of his neck, patient, unhurried, as though she had nowhere else to be and nothing else she wanted except to lie beneath him on a dirt mound.

He kissed her. Slower this time, then moved his mouth to behind her ear.

"Take what you want," she whispered against his ear.

The words went through him like a torch, breaking his restraint. He entered her again and the groan that left him was beyond his control. He tried to hold back, tried not to seat himself fully, tried to keep the shallow, careful rhythm that would make it last. He failed. Her heat drew him deeper and her hips rose to meet him, and his body overruled every instruction his mind was giving it.

He lasted longer than the first time. Not by much. His hips found a rhythm that was fast and frantic, and she held on, her fingers in his hair, her breath sharp against his ear, and he could feel it building, gathering, and he should slow down, should stop, should—

He came. Hard. Sudden. Buried inside her with his face in her neck and a sound in his throat that was barely human. His body shuddered against hers, his hips pressing forward in long, involuntary pulses, and she held him through it, her arms around his back, her legs tightening around his waist and pulling him steady, holding him together.

He lay against her. Breathing. His heart slamming beneath his ribs.

He was still inside her. Still hard. He could feel the heat of her around him, the slick grip that had not loosened, and his body, which had no business recovering this quickly, was already thickening again, the spent pulse giving way to something renewed and insistent.

She felt it and gasped softly.

"You're still—"

"Yes." He pressed his lips to her collarbone. Lower. He pushed the fabric of her bodice aside with his mouth and found her breast through the thin linen of her shift, and her back arched off the mound and her fingers tightened in his hair. He kissed her there, slowly, through the fabric, then pulled the linen down and took her bare skin into his mouth and she whimpered.

He was fully hard now, still inside her, and the sensation was different this time. The desperate edge was gone, burned away by the first release. What replaced it was deeper, steadier. He could think. He could feel her, truly feel her, every small contraction, every shift of her hips.

He moved. Slowly. A long, deliberate stroke that drew a gasp from her.

"Can you take more?"

"Yes." Barely a breath.

He seated himself fully. She cried out and her body gripped him and her thighs widened and he stayed there, deep, letting her feel all of him.

He moved slowly. Deeply. Each stroke unhurried, measured, the way he had wanted to the first time and couldn't. He watched her face in the lantern light. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted, her expression shifting between wonder and something that looked close to anguish. He reached between them and brushed his thumb across her cheekbone and her eyes opened and found his.

"There you are," he said.