“I fear I cannot wait, Amalie,” Hawk said, so tense that it was almost pain.
“You can see to my pleasure later,” Amalie said, and shifted her body to receive him. She closed her eyes when he thrust deeply into her. “Ah, yes,” she said, arching her hips upward.
Hawk felt her thighs close about his flanks, felt her hands grasp his buttocks, and he was gone in the next instant, his head thrown back, gasps of pleasure erupting from his throat.
He fell against her, his head beside hers on the pillow.
She smiled as she gently stroked his head. “I give you thirty minutes, my Hawk. Then you must become my lover again.”
“And not your husband,” he muttered, aware of that damned niggling guilt.
“I do not understand,” Amalie said.
“Later,” Hawk said.
“Your father?”
“Healthy as you, my dear, more so in fact.”
“Ah, good.”
Hawk fell asleep sprawled atop his mistress’s body. Amalie stroked his back very lightly, her brow furrowed in thought. How to tell this beautiful man that she wished to return to Grenoble, that she had a marriage proposal from a man she’d known for years, now a prosperous farmer. She had sufficient funds to buy all the books she craved, and she wanted to settle down. She wanted Robert and she wanted children. Ah, but it was a difficult thing to decide.
There would be no more luxury, not like this. Robert would make vigorous love to her, of that she was quite certain, but he wouldn’t be a lover, not like Hawk.
But there would be respectability, and Amalie’s French soul wanted respectability more than anything. And Robert Gravinier need never know that she had been any man’s mistress.
Hawk awoke with a start some two hours later. “Oh my God,” he said, realizing that he was crushing Amalie beneath him. “I’m sorry, you should have awakened me.”
“Ah no,” Amalie said, kissing his chin, “I fell asleep also.” It wasn’t true, she’d finished readying the next chapter in Diderot’s Encyclopedie, and her body was quite numb.
Hawk rolled off her and rose. She watched him stretch, and immediate yearnings for the respectable Robert faded. “You are magnificent,” she said. “It has been too long.”
“Allow me to bathe myself, Amalie, then I will pleasure you until you scream.”
“I should like that,” she said, her dark eyes twinkling at him in anticipation.
Hawk loved a woman’s pleasure. It made him feel immense satisfaction when a woman made those breathy little cries and her body tensed and convulsed. A woman, not a wife, he thought to himself as he spread kisses down Amalie’s soft belly. When his mouth found her, she lurched up, reaching her pleasure very quickly.
He raised his head and gave her a lazy smile. He slid into her warm body and felt her close tightly around him. He stretched over her, kissing her deeply, his tongue foraging in her mouth just as his manhood thrust deep in her belly.
It was near to two o‘clock in the morning. They were eating sweet rolls and drinking tea, seated naked on Amalie’s bed.
“I’m married,” Hawk said abruptly.
Amalie’s sweet roll fell onto the bed between her crossed legs. She stared at him, certain she’d misunderstood. Her English was good, but ...
“I’m married,” Hawk said again, and sighed deeply.
“I do not understand,” said Amalie slowly, her dark eyes fastened intently on his face. “It is most curious ... yet so fascinating.”
Because she was serious, and not a gossipmonger, because her voice was soft, her eyes wide with concern, he found himself pouring out everything that had occurred, from his race to his father to his race to Scotland. When he completed his recital, he felt drained and exhausted.
“You have left your lady wife in Yorkshire?”
He nodded.
“She will fall in love with you, mon faucon. No woman could resist you for very long.”