Cora (Virtue & Vice #4)

Chapter 35

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CORA

O utside, they found Titi cuddled inside the driver’s coat for warmth. Once they were on their way, the dog fell asleep in Gideon’s lap, snoring lightly. Cora stroked her ears.

Gideon broke the silence by saying, “You don’t have to drop your friendship with Countess Oreste.” He cleared his throat. “Victoria is difficult at times, but she knows better than to die on the hill of censuring someone she dislikes, no matter how intensely.”

“The countess has been kind to me, and to Eryx.”

“I understand. I will find a way to smooth things over with the Queen if maintaining that friendship is important to you.”

“It is,” Cora said quickly. “But I don’t want to cause problems for your relationship with her. I know now how intertwined the personal and the financial are. If you lose her trust, you will lose most of your major clients, too. I know I haven’t been the ideal Society wife you wanted me to become. What I did at the concert was dreadfully wicked. I lashed out at you publicly?—”

“The prospect of losing the bank is nowhere near as catastrophic as the prospect of losing you, Cora.” He held her gaze. “I can live without a connection to the crown. I can live with my parents’ anger and Reggie’s disappointment. My family’s fury would be nothing compared to the devastation I would feel if I lost you.”

His throat worked.

“I overheard what you said to your brother. Not about the child. About you filing for divorce.”

Cora fell silent.

“I understand why you might wish to do so. I know that I have earned that, should you wish to leave me.” He gave a shuddering sigh. “I have given you every reason to despise me.”

“Yet I don’t.” She slipped her hand into his. “Far from it. I love you, Gideon. I spoke in anger, and acted out of pain, and I am so very sorry. Tonight, you stood by me before the Queen. That means so much to me.” She brought her hand to his face. “Let me show you that all is forgiven.”

Gently, slowly, she brushed her lips over his. They parted with a needy gasp. He cupped the back of her head and shifted, pressing her back and covering her body with his as much as one could on a narrow carriage seat.

“I didn’t know how much I needed to hear that,” Gideon said. “My family was always torn between duty and the truth of our hearts. I don’t wish the same fate for us.”

He pinned her against his side. There was no way to make love comfortably, so Cora shoved him back, hiked up her skirts, and straddled his lap. Surprised, he sprawled against the squabs, looking every inch like an indolent aristocrat.

She unpinned her hat and dropped it on Titi’s sleeping form. “Don’t watch,” she told the dog. For once, she obeyed, emitting a contented snore.

Pins clattered to the floor as she removed them, letting her thick hair fall around her shoulders. Gideon’s hungry gaze followed her motions. His rigid cock pressed against her core. Cora would have liked to drop to her knees and take him out to pleasure him with her mouth, but that must wait for later. Right now, she wanted connection. Intimacy of a kind they had both been shying away from.

She shrugged out of her mantle, jacket, and shirt, dropping them in a pile on her pet. Titi burrowed into the clothing until only her tail was sticking out. Good. It felt wrong to do this with an audience, even if it was only a dog.

“Eyes on me,” Gideon ordered in a rasping voice. Tingles erupted on Cora’s skin. Her breasts felt heavy and tight, and her core clenched. In her corset and skirt, she raised her arms and shook her hair free.

“You are a goddess,” he declared reverently. “I intend to worship at your altar for the rest of my life.”

There was a dark gleam in his eye as he worked his hands beneath the frothing layers of skirts. The narrower style currently in fashion meant no crinoline to cage her legs, only a small bustle at her backside. He got to her thin cotton drawers and stroked up her thighs to her center. The barest contact with the tight bead at the apex of her thighs caused her to shift instinctively, seeking more, but the devilish man didn’t repeat the gesture.

Instead, he hooked both hands behind her knees and yanked her forward. Cora yelped as her silk-clad knees slid on the butter-soft leather. Gideon arched upward, bringing her into rough contact with his hard length. She braced one hand on his shoulder and said breathily, “Show me.”

His pupils, already dilated, swallowed the iris until his eyes were two inky pools of desire. He bent forward and pressed a hot kiss to the rise of her breasts. With his teeth, he dragged down the lacy cup and tongued her tightly beaded nipple over the top. Freed from its silk prison, he applied his teeth, tugging it before sucking her deep into the hot cavern of his mouth.

Cora threaded her hands through his hair, clutching him to her as she rocked against his cock. She could come from this alone, but she didn’t want to lose control around emptiness.

“Please, Gideon,” she demanded breathlessly. She didn’t need to be specific. He would take her however he chose, and she would love every moment. He growled against her chest, a thrilling vibration that undid her insides. Cora had never felt so wild, so free, yet so grounded by his touch. She rose up on her knees to give him space to unfasten his trousers. She had to tip her head so as to not bump her head against the pleated leather ceiling.

Gideon’s heated length bobbed against her thigh. He delved into her folds with a grunt of satisfaction.

“I said eyes on me, Cora. I want to see every emotion in your gorgeous eyes as you take me inside you.”

He slicked his cock along her center, found her drenched slit, and slammed upward as she crashed down onto his cock. His fullness stretched her to the edges of her soul. Blinding. Her mouth fell open in a raw gasp, and her eyes fluttered closed.

He pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger with dark heat in his eyes. “Don’t look away.”

All she could do was stare into his eyes of smoke and whisky.

Gideon dug his fingers into her arse, guiding her in a frantic motion. He thrust deep and hard, smacking her bottom from time to time. Overcome, all Cora could manage was to keep up with the furious pace he set.

She clutched his shoulder and held his gaze, letting him see all the parts of her that she had been hiding. Her uncertainty was burned away by the fire she found there. She read his pain, his longing, and when she was close to cresting, she bent forward to capture his lips in a frantic kiss.

“I love you,” she murmured against his lips. “I adore you, Gideon Wentworth.”

He locked her hips against his body and held her there. Hot liquid flooded her as she pulsed around him, squeezing every last drop from his cock.

When her body uncoiled, she slumped against him.

“I love you, Cora. I always have. I always will. What do you say to me taking the day off, and we spend it simply being together?” He smoothed her hair away from her face and planted a kiss near her temple.

“I’d like that.” She yawned. “If we haven’t already made a baby, we can try to make that a reality.”

Saying it let her admit something she had been too proud and too afraid to acknowledge before now. She wanted children. She wanted the kind of family she hadn’t believed she deserved. The kind Gideon had been raised in. Flawed, but loving. Whole, instead of fractured.

Leaning into his embrace, Cora felt secure for the first time in her life.