2
" Inside, on a bed of black velvet, lay an exquisite perfume bottle designed from rose-colored glass caged in a silver overlay that twined about the glass like living vines. In the very center of the oval shaped bottle, the silver was formed into the image of a lily in full bloom.
It was likely the most precious and expensive gift Lily had ever been given. She ran her fingertips over the delicate silver work before lifting the bottle from its velvet bed to allow the candlelight to shine through the rose-colored glass.
She noticed then a folded slip of paper still in the box. Setting the perfume bottle in the valley of her lap, she lifted the paper and broke the tiny wax seal.
In his precise, slanted script, Lord Harte had written:
I was unforgivably remiss in not having a gift for you the other night. I chose the elements for this blend myself. It made me think of you.
Lily brushed her thumb over the ink before setting the note back into the box. Then she shifted the bottle and removed the glass stopper. The scent wafting from the bottle was light, but heady. She noticed first the rich notes of clove and honey before her senses were claimed by the smooth, velvety scent of jasmine. Lily closed her eyes, allowing the aromatic infusion to settle into her awareness. There was another element hidden deep within the perfume. A layer of earthiness that warmed her blood. Sandalwood.
Lily was enthralled. It was a complex and lovely scent. Floral and exotic, light and dark. Impossibly sensual.
And it made him think of her.
Something deep and fundamental spread through her core, and she understood why young ladies were warned so often not to accept gifts from gentlemen. It was a personal and intimate thing to acknowledge how he had wanted her to have something he chose himself. "
― Amy Sandas , The Untouchable Earl (Fallen Ladies, #2)
3
" Tell me you did not spend all those nights with her and never spread her thighs to claim your prize.”
A growl of fury rumbled from his chest at the crudity in her words, but the sound did not seem to bother Pendragon one bit.
She actually laughed at his response. “Of course you did, my lord, as I knew you would. It was the final barrier you had yet to cross in your search for pleasure.”
“It signifies nothing.”
Her green eyes glittered. “It means everything.”
The woman turned away from him and strode toward the chair he had recently vacated. With a swish of her skirts, she turned and lowered herself gracefully. Tipping her head, she looked at him with a superior little half smile.
“What did you feel when you took possession of your gentle maiden?”
Her words might have been mocking if not for her expression, which had settled into one of patient nonjudgemnet. It was the same way she had looked at him the first time he had gone to her.
“Think carefully. What did you feel?”
Avenell’s gut tensed as he involuntarily recalled the sensations of being burned within Lily’s warmth and softness. He relived in his mind the way their naked bodies moved together, heard her endless gasps and moans echo, felt the overwhelming heat, the pervading pleasure. Every time they came together it was intense and consuming, obliterating everything else in existence.
That was the problem. He always felt too much with her.
And despite that, he had never been able to shake his yearning for more. "
― Amy Sandas , The Untouchable Earl (Fallen Ladies, #2)
4
" Lily Chadwick knew there was something different about the fiercely scowling gentleman the first moment she saw him.
She could feel it.
The instant their gazes met, caught, held, something skittered across her skin like a rain of white sparks. It entered her bloodstream, heating her from the inside until her breath became stilted and her knees went alarmingly weak.
He stared at her from beneath a brow drawn low in a forbidding expression. His eyes were so dark, even the light of the glittering ballroom could not be reflected there. The angles of his face were hard, his jaw sharply defined, and he held his mouth in a harsh line that attempted to harden the full curve of his lower lip but didn't quite manage it.
Lily tried to glance away demurely, but she couldn't seem to manage. She felt a flutter that became a tightening in her belly. Her heart stopped, skipped a few beats, then started up again in a frantic rhythm as he just kept watching her.
Despite his severe, aloof appearance, something about him reached out to her, touching her with an intrinsic sort of recognition. It left her feeling as though she stood in the heart of a firestorm. She sensed with a certainty beyond rational explanation that his unyielding manner was a facade, as if he were a hero in some gothic novel. There was passion in him. She felt it in every quickened, prey-like breath she took while frozen under his intent stare.
The silent interaction between them was becoming more inappropriate by the minute, yet she could not compel herself to break away. As though caught in an invisible trap, she stared back at him while her hands began to sweat and her stomach trembled. "
― Amy Sandas , The Untouchable Earl (Fallen Ladies, #2)
5
" She is better off without me.
Such is for the lady to decide, I would think.
Details of the woman herself began to penetrate his thoughts. The generosity in her smile. Her gentle, open gaze. The way she had told him her secrets with trust and honesty, her compassion, and her quiet, understated courage.
And before he so effectively and willfully crushed it, he recalled the glimmer of hope she had inspired in him. The hope he had stripped away before it could settle too deeply in his being.
So many times, he had sensed in her a desire to push their intimacy further. He had seen the yearning in her eyes and ignored it. He had witnessed the countless times she reached for him and then held back. He had been grateful for her restraint. He had been a coward.
He understood that she had known better all along. She had understood what was missing between them.
Rather than having the courage to explore those feelings- instead of trusting in her and her love- he had forced her away.
The truth was so clear.
From the very beginning, she had belonged to him, but not as a mistress belonged to her protector.
Lily was his as his soul was his. Just as he was hers.
She was a part of him. He was a part of her. He could not exist without her. And if he loved her, he had to trust that she had spoken the truth when she had said she wanted him, flaws and all.
He did. He did trust her. "
― Amy Sandas , The Untouchable Earl (Fallen Ladies, #2)
7
" Entering the room, Lily was struck by the changes that had been wrought since she had last been there on the night of her abduction. Though his massive four-poster bed remained, the coverings were now a mixture of midnight blue and a mysterious smoky gray. In fact, various shades of gray had been added throughout the room. The two heavy leather chairs had been beautifully reupholstered in a dove-gray damask, a plush rug in a light and misty color was laid before the fireplace, and on a delicate table between them stood a large vase of lilies, infusing the room with their delicate scent.
"Do you see?" the earl asked from behind her.
Once they entered the bedroom, he had released her hand to close the door, ensconcing them together in the private space. Lily turned to watch him walk toward one of the new chairs. He ran his fingers over the fabric.
"The color of your eyes when you are quiet and content," he stated in a low voice, then he crossed to the bed where he smoothed his palm over a velvet coverlet. "This is the darker shade your eyes become when you are aroused- with emotion or desire."
He looked at her, and Lily's world expanded on a sudden breath at what she saw in the depth of his gaze.
They both seemed rooted in place, standing in the center of his bedroom, staring at each other with their breaths coming fast and their focus locked upon each other, as though they were equally afraid the other might disappear.
"You exist in everything. You have become a part of me," he murmured thickly. "I cannot breathe without you. "
― Amy Sandas , The Untouchable Earl (Fallen Ladies, #2)
14
" From the moment Lord Harte had entered the bedroom, she had begun to experience everything differently. Her thoughts, feelings, and reactions originated from a deeper source. Her fear and confusion had made way for other, more urgent sensations. The longer she sat under the earl's harsh and heady regard, the further she slipped into a state of expectancy.
She felt on the verge of something, but she had no idea what.
As the weakness in her mind and limbs continued to dissipate, she acknowledged that she could not blame her odd reactions on the aftereffects of the drug.
He was the cause of her heightened responses.
It was more than the wealth of secrets and mystery contained behind his midnight eyes. It was how he made her feel. Intrinsically. Viscerally. When he looked at her with his hooded gaze, she experienced something in the marrow of her bones, in the blood flowing through her veins, in the ether of her mind. "
― Amy Sandas , The Untouchable Earl (Fallen Ladies, #2)
15
" He couldn't resist her. He didn't want to.
In torturously slow degrees, he lowered his head toward hers. Every sense, every nerve in his body was focused on the next few moments. He knew he would want to savor the memory of this, the first time he had kissed Lily.
He pressed his lips to hers gently at first, not knowing what to expect. But even such a light touch sent a swift rush of sensation through him. It was unlike anything he had ever known. Delicate and passionate at once. The silken texture of her lips, her pliant softness, the little moan that caught in her throat.
It stunned him. Stopped his breath and jolted his heart.
Intent upon exploring this new experience, he shifted the pressure of his mouth, brushing his lips across hers before he flicked his tongue out to touch just the center of her bottom lip. Her lips parted on a sudden exhale. Her warm breath mingled with his. Something more than desire coursed through his blood.
He lifted his hands to grasp her shoulders, and with a groan, he crushed her mouth with his.
A voice in his head demanded he slow down, relish the sensations. But he was too desperate to know more. He tilted his head, craving the taste of her as though it could save his soul. He swept his tongue past her teeth, sliding it into the recesses of her mouth. She tasted of innocence and shadows, and he was ravenous for her.
It shocked him- that desperate, obsessive need to consume her, to take all that she was into himself. To make what was hers, his. Her breath, her taste, her softness, and her need. "
― Amy Sandas , The Untouchable Earl (Fallen Ladies, #2)
16
" There was so much heat. So much tenderness in the way her body accepted his. Encompassing, consuming, drawing on his final reserves. It was a sensation unlike anything he could have imagined.
Finally, he could take no more. Tensing his buttocks, he gave one long thrust and drove deeply into her core. His jaw clenched, and a guttural moan caught in his throat. He nearly closed his eyes in an instinctive urge to contain the fierce rush of pleasure, but he could not look away from Lily's face.
The tip of her tongue pressed delicately against the top row of her parted teeth as she gasped for breath.
It was the only reaction she gave to the rending of her maidenhead.
While he felt as though he had trespassed into nirvana. Being inside her, fully encased in her warmth, was more powerful a feeling than he had ever expected. It was possession and surrender at once.
Each ragged breath he drew as he remained still and focused on managing the overwhelming stimulation only made his body crave more. As stunning and intimate as it was to feel so connected with Lily, there was an undeniable force within him, demanding he take them both to the limit of what they could endure.
He knew he should wait, allow her body to adjust to his intrusion, but he couldn't. He had been reduced to nothing but a primitive urge to finally, finally explore the bone-deep pleasure of being joined with this woman.
And it was pleasure, he realized in awe. Full, encompassing, undeniable pleasure.
The flashes of pain across his affected nerves were not nearly enough to distract from the beauty of everything else he felt. "
― Amy Sandas , The Untouchable Earl (Fallen Ladies, #2)
19
" He had done all he could to avoid her over the last couple of weeks, though the effort was more challenging than he had expected, especially when thoughts of her never left his consciousness. Then came the night they collided outside the Mawbry's town house. For a brief and painful moment, he had held her warm body against him, and the elemental shift she had caused in his core had spread like a shock wave through his system.
Now, here she was, dressed again in modest white, her brunette hair falling in loose waves, the red glow of the fire behind her casting her figure into a decadent display of shadow and light.
As his hungry gaze soaked up every detail of the woman who had been haunting his thoughts, he noticed something odd in her manner.
Her lovely gray eyes were lowered, and with her hair shielding much of her face, she presented a perfect example of shy modesty. The posture struck Avenell as wrong. Despite Miss Chadwick's innocence and quiet manner, she was not one to avert her gaze. He had observed her enough in the preceding weeks to know she had an unnerving tendency to view her surroundings with direct, consuming attention. "
― Amy Sandas , The Untouchable Earl (Fallen Ladies, #2)
20
" Where am I?"
He did not answer immediately.
Since entering the room, he had kept his focus locked on her face. But Lily watched as the direction of his gaze slid down her body. His perusal was slow and comprehensive, sliding over her breasts and continuing past the curve of her hips and down her bare legs beyond the short hem of her shift.
Though he revealed nothing in his stony expression, there was something in the gleam of his blue-black eyes that brought a delicate quiver to Lily's belly.
She glanced at his hands where they fell at his sides. He held them tensely extended, his long fingers spreading wide, before he clenched them into tight fists as he finished his slow review of her body. By the time the path of his perusal made its way back to her face, Lily was breathless and hot with a different kind of fear and... something else.
"You are in my bedroom."
The intimate depth of his voice struck Lily with an acute force. Her head spun, and her legs collapsed. As she tensed for a collision with the floor, she was swept up in strong arms.
The fire raging beneath her skin flared with bright intensity as Lord Harte scooped his arms beneath her legs and around her back to lift her high against his chest. It took only a few short moments for him to set her back on the bed.
He released her abruptly to flip the bedcovers over her, then turned and strode away.
Lily was left with the striking impressions of his body's warmth, the strength of his arms around her, the woodsy scent of his skin, the brush of his embroidered waistcoat felt through the muslin of her shift, and then the sight of his broad back as he walked away, putting the entire distance of the room between them. "
― Amy Sandas , The Untouchable Earl (Fallen Ladies, #2)
