He rose to his feet quickly, his brow furrowed. “Doubts now?”
“No.” She sat up and reached out to touch his face, trailing her fingers over his hard jawline and the new scar. “I just did not expect to feel so much so soon.”
He pushed her backward and bent to nuzzle between her legs again, “I always liked that quality in you. Trust me. I know what you need better than anyone ever will.”
He skimmed her opening lightly with his fingers but then shook his head and instead brushed them over her sensitive nubbin. He glanced beyond her head to the open window and the moonlit night beyond and grinned. “My Sally beneath the stars once more.”
He maneuvered to lie with his face between her legs and settled himself to kiss her lower lips fiercely. Sally grasped the bedding as he brought her back to the brink before she was ready. He teased her, loved her until she could barely remember her own name. He moaned against her sex.
Sally touched the top of his head as he lapped at her, threading her fingers into his messy hair. Her sex quivered again with a warning of imminent release that she could not control alone. His arm clamped down on her hips when she tried to move away again to delay the moment. His intent was clear. He would not allow her to put off her release a second time.
He had not changed his bedding habits very much. He had insisted her pleasure come before his own.
Sally fought against her body’s need, prolonging the moment for as long as possible. She writhed on his bed, tortured, eager, and when her release burst, her every muscle shuddered violently. She muffled her cries with the back of one hand, fighting to breathe while holding Felix’s mouth against her.
Struggling to make sense of why she had just betrayed her own plans for a proper future, she let herself slowly relax. There was no explanation, so she reached for Felix, eager to reciprocate—to have him slide inside her body and gain his own satisfaction.
“No,” he murmured and drew back to sit up far away from her on the bed. His cock full, hard, and waiting for her touch.
She fought with her lassitude to rise from the bed and follow him. He evaded her a second time. She sat back on her heels in surprise. “Why not?”
“This is not right.” He reached for his trousers. He tugged them on roughly while Sally could only watch in confusion. He turned eventually once they were fastened, but his expression was grim. “Sally, let me make one thing perfectly clear. The next time you seek me out alone, I will have the rest of you too. I will not hold back again; I will not even ask permission. If we are ever alone like this again, I will make you mine and dishonor us both. Do not come back.”
Sally scrambled to a sitting position as he stood up. “Felix, you do not und
erstand.”
“Oh, I understand all right.” He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, scowling. “You always did like the danger of meeting me in secret. An affair will not ever be enough for me, but you know I am willing so you came anyway.”
She gasped at the bitter edge to his voice. “That is not why I am here.”
“You are engaged to be married to one of the most eligible bachelors in society. It is a good match for you. For your family. This”—he gestured to the bed—“is nothing more than an adventure for you, like it must be to so many married women who flirt with naval officers with nothing but their years of service to recommend them. I know why Lady Duckworth wants me to visit her at Lofton Downs. I assume I am to be made to look a fool.”
Her eyes filled with tears at how he must perceive her intentions. “I have not changed that much. I never expected this when I sought sanctuary in your room. What happened just now was not planned, but I am not sorry.”
He seemed taken aback for a moment. “Even so, an engaged woman should not allow another man to bed her before her wedding day. Ellicott will want his own heir.”
“He does,” she agreed, although in the heat of the moment Sally had forgotten everything but satisfying her own passions. Felix had considered Ellicott far more than she had. As far as he was concerned, they were in the wrong. “And he shall have his own son thanks to your level head. You must not feel concern he will call you out for this though. Ellicott and I have an agreement to marry, but fidelity was not part of it.”
Felix growled, a dangerously loud sound that shocked her. “How could you agree to such terms?”
She shrugged. “In many ways I am the same woman you knew, but I have grown up too. I have given up the fantasy you dangled before me, then snatched away. I have given my word to marry Ellicott. He understands what I want from life.”
“Then you are not the woman I loved but a veneer of her former glory.”
Sally blinked. He had not loved her. Not really. She could not waste any more years on a dream of love and marriage too. Felix had already disappointed her once. Sally did not think she had the strength to recover from a second heartbreak. Lust without love was the only experience she wanted now.
At least with Ellicott there would be no disappointments. Their discussion had freed her from guilt and allowed her to do what she wanted with whomever pleased her as long as she remembered to be more careful next time. She jumped from the bed, pushing down her gown. “I am sorry that I disturbed your evening.”
He stalked to the window to stand in the cool breeze and said nothing at first. But then he turned around, eyes blazing. “When you were mine, I would never have shared you,” he told her bluntly.
“I was never really yours.” She rubbed the sudden chill on her arms. “You bargained with my father for my hand and command of the Selfridge. You never gave what you did to me a second thought.”
“I thought of you,” he insisted. “Too damned much.”
“Well, not enough to bother to say good-bye or write to apologize for the fool you made of me,” she snapped angrily.
“Never admit fault,” he ground out. “Is that not what you always said you admired in a man? Someone who owned his decisions?”