Persuasion (The Wild and Wanton Edition) by Micah Persell Page B

indifferent, if indifference could exist under such circumstances. He must be either indifferent or unwilling. Had he wished ever to see her again, he need not have waited till this time; he would have done what she could not but believe that in his place she should have done long ago, when events had been early giving him the independence which alone had been wanting.
    Anne had not known she’d dozed off in her chair until a hand was roughly shaking her awake.
    “Anne.”
    Even before she opened her eyes, she knew the man who owned that voice. His hand was warm on her shoulder, the fingers curling over her collarbone. Immediate need clenched within her belly.
    Her eyes shot open, and Anne unerringly found his face.
    The blue-green eyes were looking at her earnestly. His lips were parted.
    “Frederick?”
    His face relaxed and his hand against her shoulder softened, his fingers now feeling like a caress. “Anne, I had to see you.”
    Anne blinked sleep from her eyes, sure she was mishearing. “You are to be at dinner.”
    His lips tipped. “As were you.” His fingers trailed lightly along her collarbone to skim up her neck. “I could wait no longer to see you.”
    Anne jerked to her feet and stepped away from his touch, sure any second that his fingers upon her skin would reduce her to a wanton mess. She held her hands out in front of her, palms toward him. “Please, Frederick — ” Her speech tapered off. She was uncertain what to say — what to beg.
Go away
was probably not the correct thing to tell him, though she wished it with all of her being. She could not stand to be in the same room with him and not disgrace herself by doing something entirely untoward.
    He stalked closer, paying no regard to her supplicating position or the fact that she backed further away from him, matching every one of his broad steps with a stumbling one of her own.
    “
Anne
.” The word was a whisper and may as well have been a stroke of his hand across her stomach for how it quivered.
    A whimper fell from her lips as he backed her out of her nephew’s sick room and into the hall.
    “Anne, I have perished for you,” he said in a rumble, “every day for the last eight years.”
    Anne’s back met the wall, and still, he kept coming. The heat from his body pressed into hers just before he stopped moving. He stood toe-to-toe with her and raised a broad hand to her face where he cradled her cheek within his palm.
    Anne’s breath left her in a sound akin to a sob.
    “Shhh.” He stepped even closer, pressing them hip-to-hip and breasts to chest. “All is well now.” His thumb swept over her bottom lip. “I am here.”
    Her lips parted beneath his touch, and his thumb caressed the inside arch of her upper lip. He stared intently at her lips.
    Something within Anne broke, and her need unleashed itself. She threw caution and to-morrow’s consequences to the wind. “
Kiss me,
” she begged in a voice she barely recognised.
    Fire flashed in his ocean-coloured eyes just before he lowered his head and replaced his thumb with an open-mouthed kiss.
    Anne’s gasp sucked his sigh into her lungs, and the silky slide of his lips against hers went straight to her head, rendering her dizzy.
    He moaned harshly, and then pressed into her even further, crowding her into the wall. Every glorious inch of his body strained against hers. His flagrant arousal ground into her belly as he thrust his tongue into her mouth and wound his fingers into her hair.
    She echoed his moan and dug her fingers into his coat, pulling him impossibly closer and rotating her hips so that she moved against his length.
    “
Yes
,” he whispered into their kiss. “That’s my Anne.” He shoved a hand between the wall and her bottom and hauled her lower half so close it lay almost in between his thighs, whereupon he began thrusting against her in earnest.
    Anne realized she was making a desperate mewling sound just as she felt air caress her bottom. The back of her