“Now more than ever,” she replied with a dazed smile.
He growled low in his throat and took her lips again. Maddening woman. She was driving him crazy, and he couldn’t get enough of her. How dare she say he was not real? To discount him as a mere figment of her imagination? He felt more alive than ever in his life. The desire she inspired was a flame consuming him from within. He had kissed her to make a point. To show her he was real, that he was unpredictable and dangerous and she could not dismiss him as she would a fantasy.
Instead, he had become swept away in her. Her mouth was so delicious, her lips pillowy and soft. Her unabashed response was like tinder to flame. She was not coy. She kissed him back with an honest enthusiasm that set fire to his blood. He wanted more, needed more. Now.
Without conscious thought, he had already backed her up against the big library table. She half sat on it, but the dratted skirts were in the way. He couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t press his aching flesh against the sweet heaven between her legs. His fingers were already undoing the buttons in the back of her dress, making it gape at the front and exposing a bigger expanse of chest and the tops of her breasts.
More. A little tug and her nipples escaped the prison of the corset. He brought his hands to massage and cup the gentle orbs through the thin fabric of her chemise. She moaned and arched her back, pressing her breasts into his palms.
She did not retreat, in fact, she urged him on, and he couldn’t stop. For the life of him, he couldn’t stop. He kept kissing down her neck, finding pulse points of exquisite pleasure and licking and sucking while she made inarticulate sweet sounds.
The chemise came undone with a little tug of the ribbon. He pushed it open and her delicate pink areolas peaked through the fabric. Crazed with desire, his mouth descended on her breasts and took one of her nipples. Sucking it hard while his fingers pinched and rolled the other nipple until they became hard, aching points. She cried out softly, shuddering, her hands grabbing fistfuls of his hair and holding him there.
He was going to take her. Right here, right now. In the library. His hands were bunching up her skirts, grabbing fistfuls of it, trying to get underneath, while his mouth still licked and suckled. Her hands were not passive either. They roamed his body, slipping under his vest. Her fingers sneaked under the waistband of his trousers and pulled his shirt free. He felt the touch of her cool hands on the bare flesh of his back, and it was almost his undoing.
They were both wearing too many damn clothes. It was impossible to get enough. He wanted to be naked, skin to feverish skin, sinking inside her hot, wet flesh. He caressed her leg under her petticoats, moving up to her molten center. How to remove her dress?
Click.
Damn. What was that? A door closing? He snapped to attention, leaving the heated tangle of their bodies behind. Shattering the spell.
CHAPTER 30 - Her Story
HE TURNED HIS HEADto look at the door, then at her. Her dazed eyes overflowed with frustrated desire.
“I think it was Mrs Simmonds.” She said in answer to his unspoken question. “I glimpsed her just as the door closed.”
He closed his eyes, ashamed, and rested his forehead against hers. “My deepest apologies. I got so carried away that I let it go too far in a public room. I should have realized any servant could have walked in.”
“Don’t apologize. I wasn’t exactly trying to stop you.” She caressed his nape. “Shall we continue in a proper bedroom?”
Good God, she wasn’t shocked or embarrassed. She wanted to continue! The temptation was so strong that for a moment his mind clouded and he couldn’t articulate a refusal, even though he knew he must. What was he going to do about her?
“No, if we retire together to a bedroom in the middle of the day, everyone will know what we are about.”
“I hate this lack of privacy.”
