The Rose's Bloom Read Free Page A

had not been able to resist her, either.
    Her moans and mews of pleasure still echoed in his tired mind, still called to the primal man within him who wanted to take her, pleasure her with more than his hands and mouth. Oh, how much passion he knew resided in that lush body! Her heat and arousal still lingered on his tongue. He feared the memory would remain with him forever.
    His soft sigh filled the quiet chamber. How could one woman leave such an impression?
    Damon was not a man who neglected his needs, but it had been some time since he had settled between a woman’s lush thighs as he had yesterday. In truth, his desire to partake in any sort of dalliance had been nonexistent since last spring, when curiosity had taken the better of him and his desires, in turn, leaving a bad taste in his mouth. Yet as he rolled his tongue over his lips, a new taste lingered there and he was very glad of its overwhelming potency.
    A good friend had encouraged him to attend Goodrich Hall, a society event only open to a privileged few, a place where lust and fornication wandered the corridors without judgement or care. It was a place where he had let a neglected fantasy crawl to the surface, a fantasy that had since dwindled from his mind—until yesterday.
    In his youth, he had taken up with a woman who had loved to take his passion with vigour, not minding his forceful thrusts or heavy touch. That relationship had been short-lived, like so many of his past, and he had found himself pining for that type of partnership again. He wanted neither restraint nor judgement in a tryst—a chance to truly be himself.
    He sighed loudly into the stillness of his chamber. That possibility felt so distant.
    That night, when he had attended Goodrich Hall, groups of his peers had openly fornicated, sharing their husbands or wives and holding no regard for society or its rules. Damon had been pleased to meet a woman who had sought a heavy hand, or so she had thought. In truth, it had not been what she’d desired at all. He shook off the memory; it did nothing to arouse him. The pain she had inflicted in return had soon turned his mind from any thoughts of desire for another. Except the woman by the river—nothing could turn his mind from her.
    Reaching between the cool covers over him, Damon found his cock rising at the thought of the woman. His lips again parted and allowed his tongue to sweep out for a taste. Where a moment ago he had been as flaccid as a wet cloth, he now grew, thickening with lust for the maiden woman.
    As he stroked the heat of his cock, his mind drifted back to the image of her flushed features, her shattering calls and her potent climax that had almost claimed his own. How her hungry cunt had milked his fingers as he’d worked her from the inside, while his mouth had suckled, absorbing as much of her essence as he’d been able to. He felt the tingling at the base of his spine, the clenching of his balls while they pulled close to his body and the rush of pleasure that surged though him as his seed shot forth, his mind on the rose by the river.
     
    * * * *
     
    The night before, he had slept but a wink. She, as he’d expected, had haunted his thoughts and dreams. Never had a woman affected him so. It irritated him that his mind could not move away from the memory of the woman by the river. His mother’s voice snapped him out of his wandering thoughts.
    “Darling, I know you do not wish to attend and do not care for such events, but spare a thought for your mother, yes?”
    He looked at his sprightly and cunning mother, a woman whom he cared for more than any other. He saw she did not jest with him—in truth, he knew she missed the ton and its events, but wanted to be close to him, and while he remained at his country estate, so would she.
    “What is it that you require, Mother?” he asked, feeling somewhat guilty he had not been paying attention to the conversation moments earlier. His thoughts had been nowhere near