He filled the space between her legs with his wide, hard body, and before she could catch her breath there was a blunt, heavy pressure against the wet cove of her secret flesh. He slid inside her with a long, lithe thrust and, though Mena felt a twinge of soreness from their night of passion, she accepted the massive intrusion with a purr of welcome.
Her flesh felt swollen and soft around his hardness. Eyes glazed with dark need, he withdrew, repositioned, and took her again, this time penetrating so deep that she felt a strange and heady sensation thrill against her spine.
Lids shuttered low with passion, he pleasured her in grinding, circular motions rather than long thrusts. It was as though he couldn’t bear to withdraw, to leave her warmth for even a moment.
Feeling just as needy, just as desperate for closeness, Mena reached for his hard shoulders, wanting to pull him against her. But he resisted, pressing a gentle palm to her chest until she relaxed against the cushion of the bench.
Mena might have been wounded had he not instantly brought his thumb to her mouth and dipped it inside with a wicked sound. Drawing it against her tongue, he gathered some of the moisture there and then left her to apply it to the bud nestled in the auburn curls between her split legs.
Mena jerked as he slid the rough skin turned slick against the aching cluster of sensation. She bit down hard on her lip to keep from screaming as he circled it in time to the strong and sinuous movements of his hips.
She was stretched as wide as her legs allowed, helplessly pinned beneath his big, undulating body. She could not press back against him, or meet his rhythm. Her only option was to receive him and submit to his hedonistic onslaught.
He drove her pleasure with his teasing, torturing thumb as he surged inside of her, watching her with alert and restless eyes. He learned what pleased her and lingered there, until she clamped her own hand over her mouth and her thighs began to clench around him as the whispers of pulsating release began to threaten to overwhelm her.
His fingers left her sex, digging into the flesh of her thighs and pressing them wider as he angled deep, deeper, until a flood of bliss clenched her feminine muscles around him. Her climax found her in great, cresting waves, each one more powerful than the last until she writhed and squirmed to try to escape their unexpected intensity.
His dark sound of triumph was lost in the rush of sound through her ears, as though the universe had finally opened to her, and she could hear whatever curious song the cosmos sang as the earth hurled its way through the darkness.
The spasms of her body pulled the release Liam had been trying to hold back. He caught a raw sound in his throat, and buried his face in the front of her dress, bearing down on the fabric with his teeth. He sank into her with a few final and powerful thrusts, his large body racked with great, violent shudders.
They didn’t move for a few countless moments after, neither of them certain their body truly still belonged to them.
With an incredible sigh, Liam dropped his forehead on her shoulder and allowed himself to go lax, though he propped most of his weight with his elbows on either side of her.
Mena stroked the stubble of his two-day beard and cradled him with her body, wrapping her legs around his waist as though she could hold him inside forever. He didn’t seem to mind in the least, nuzzling her breast with his jaw through her layers of clothing. A sheen of mist blurred her vision as she realized that this was the kind of closeness she’d craved her entire life. True intimacy. Mutual regard. Give and take, instead of her merely giving until she was utterly empty. A shell of a woman.
“After this is over, I’m going to marry ye,” he announced softly, pressing a kiss to her jaw.
Mena said nothing as she pressed his head tenderly to her, resting her cheek against his forehead as a tear ran into her hair.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Euston Rail Station in Camden was considered the gateway rail line from London to the north of the empire. The grand structure consisted of four platforms, a stately great hall, and a Doric propylaeum built after the style of the Acropolis at the entrance complete with resplendent statuary. The borough of Camden perched very close to Regent’s Park, almost equidistant to the Strand in the southeast, and Mayfair to the southwest.
Stiff from a horrible night’s sleep on the train, Mena stepped down onto the arrival platform and was instantly jostled by a press of humanity in the form of late-afternoon London travelers. A burst of loud steam engulfed her, startling her so much that she hopped backward, her heel stomping down on the foot of whoever was unfortunate enough to have disembarked behind her.
“Oh, Jani,” she exclaimed, turning to help him limp to a less crowded spot on the platform. “Forgive me. Are you very badly hurt?”
“No, no, Miss Mena,” he kindly assured her through clenched teeth and eyes pinched with pain. “I am only sorry to have been in your path.”
“Dear Jani, don’t you even think of apologizing, it is entirely my fault.” She patted the soft violet silk of his shoulder as he tested his weight on the offended foot. Mena was sorry for anyone in her path, nay, her vicinity. She was a bundle of emotion and fear and elation all at once. Her mind could barely process the filigree signs pointing toward the portico, let alone navigate the crowded station.
“I will be fine, Miss Mena,” he soothed, straightening. “I feel that I am not myself today.”
“Does London make you nervous?” Mena asked.
“Not as nervous as it seems to make you,” Jani observed.
Mena would have denied it, but a hand violently seized her arm and she whirled around with a startled gasp.