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They found each other’s lips again and kissed feverishly as he started to move in her, hips snapping fast and hard, pinning her to the wall. After their time apart, first because of their own foolishness and then out of a need to make it look as if they were properly courting, the slick drive of him in and out of her felt like a homecoming. She was already perilously on the edge of losing control, and each bump of him against her needy pearl sent her ever nearer.
“My God, love,” he muttered against her lips. “You feel like heaven, so tight and hot around me. I’ve been dreaming of this, of you, of us.”
“Yes,” she bit out, arching into him, meeting him thrust for thrust. “Please, Apollo.”
“I love it when you beg,” he rasped. “Tell me what to do. I’m yours to command.”
“Take me,” she whispered. “Make me yours. Fill me up.”
He growled an epithet and his thrusts gained strength and speed. Faster and faster, he pounded into her, until the rough wall snagged her hair and pulled pins free, sending it partially unraveling down her back. She cried out his name, her release washing over her suddenly as she tightened on his cock. Another few pumps of his hips, and she felt the hot flood of his seed within her.
She clutched him, struggling to regain her breath, the world gradually returning to her in the form of fat raindrops that began to fall, first on the top of her head and then on her nose.
“It’s beginning to rain,” he said, his chest heaving to match her own.
He kissed her and then withdrew, tucking his spent cock back into his trousers. She hastily dropped her skirts back into place and looked around for her lost hairpins.
“We should join the children and Ro for tea before they come looking for us,” she managed. “But my hair…”
“Blast, I’m a beast, aren’t I?” He frowned as he assessed the damage. “Let me fix it for you.”
“Yes,” she agreed breathlessly. “Please.”
He set to work on her hair, somehow trapping it back into the confines of her coiffure without even locating the fallen pins.
Tenderly, he brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek. “A few weeks until you are forever mine.”
“I’m counting the days,” she said as the slightest edge of fear crept back over her.
Nothing would come between them, she vowed as they walked arm in arm back into the town house. As they crossed the threshold, the rain began to fall in earnest, coming down in the torrents the sky had promised.
“Lord Timothy Melville is awaiting you in your sitting room, my lady,” Ophelia’s butler announced when she and the children had just returned from a call to Apollo and Aphrodite.
Every part of her went cold. “Did he say why he was calling?”
She needn’t ask; she suspected that she knew.
“No, my lady,” her butler said somberly.
Reggie was looking up at her with wide eyes.
She patted his shoulder in reassurance. “You needn’t fret, my love. Run along with Catherine and Alice. I’ll see you when my visit with Uncle is over.”
“Yes, Mama,” he said dutifully.
How she wished Apollo were here, so that they might confront Lord Timothy together. But they weren’t married yet, and Lord Timothy remained her burden to bear. So, she thanked the butler and moved swiftly to her sitting room.
Her brother-in-law was waiting for her, prowling about the room and touching her things. She could see at once that her sewing had been moved, as had a book she had been reading. He held a miniature of her grandmother in his hand, which he placed back on the nearby table where it belonged when she crossed the threshold.
“Lord Timothy,” she greeted with a curtsy and a forced smile. “To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”
Her brother-in-law was grim. “The newspapers, I suppose. Common fame. Gossip. Whatever you like to call it.”
Dread settled over her, heavy as a stone. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re speaking of.”
She did, of course. The banns had been read. He was talking about her engagement to Apollo.
“When did you intend to inform me of your engagement, madam?” he asked tightly, confirming her suspicions.
