“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and raw. “I would never hurt you.”
“I know. You didn’t. I swear.”
He hauled her to his chest and crushed his lips to hers.
She clung to him and opened her mouth to his. He tasted like shock, like fear, like desperation. She gripped his forearms, dug her fingers into hard muscle. His tongue swept across hers, needing, searching. She licked, bit, suckled. He growled and held her closer, tighter, as if afraid to let her go, as if afraid shewouldgo. She welcomed the passionate fury of his kisses, tried to tell him with her tongue and her mouth and her body that she could never leave him alone and hurting, that she couldn’t bear to see him in pain. She needed him, trusted him, loved him.
Her breath caught. Shelovedhim.
As if she’d spoken the thought aloud, his embrace gentled, his kiss became sweeter, less demanding. After a moment, he gave her lips a final soft kiss and rested his overly warm forehead against hers.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was…scared.”
The admission sounded as though it had been tortured from his lungs.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said, leaning her cheek against the rapid beating of his heart. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He scooped her up, reached the portrait chair in two long strides, cuddled her onto his lap. He kissed her again, hungrily, urgently, as if he couldn’t bearnotkissing her. She hoped he never stopped. His hands cradled her face, stroked her hair, nestled her closer. His shaft was hot and rigid against her thigh. Her breasts ached above her stays, the nipples chafing against the unyielding cloth.
“Touch me,” she whispered into his mouth.
For a moment, she thought he would refuse, that she’d been too forward, that he was shocked at her request.
Half a heartbeat later, he sucked in a deep shuddering breath and slid his hand from the back of her neck to her shoulder.
“Here?” he asked, his voice teasing, his eyes dark with passion. “Should I touch you here, on your shoulder?”
“No.” Her nipples tightened in anticipation. “Lower. Please.”
His palm slid downward, coasting from her shoulder, to her forearm, to the side of her ribs. His fingers splayed there, his thumb tantalizingly close to the swell of her breast.
“Here?” he asked. “Is this better?”
“You know it’s not.” It was all Evangeline could do not to rip her bodice open herself and force his hands to her chest. “I want you to touch my breast.”
“Oh, yourbreast,” he said, his rakish grin stealing her breath and quickening her pulse. “I would love to touch your breast.”
Slowly, slowly, his fingers slid from her side, the heat from his palm burning through her gown. His hand cupped her, stroked her, caressed her. He claimed her mouth with a hot, wet kiss. His fingers rolled across her nipples until she arched into him, silently demanding more. And when her aching, needing body didn’t get everything he could offer, she voiced her demands out loud.
“Touch me,” she said, “like you were going to touch me in the summerhouse.”
He arched a brow. “Do you know what I was going to do?”
She shook her head.
“But you want me to do it anyway?”
She nodded eagerly.
His eyes crinkled as his mouth curved into a slow sensual smile that left her trembling with need. “Then I would love to.”
His head bent over hers, his breath becoming her breath. She threaded her fingers through the back of his hair and kissed him back. His teasing fingers left her nipple, slid down her breast, her ribs, her waist, her hip, her thigh. Cool air tickled her skin as he lifted her gown higher, higher. His warm knuckles brushed against her ankle, the curve of her calf, the back of her knee.
She whimpered against his mouth as his warm palm coasted up her inner thigh. His fingertips brushed against the damp hair hidden beneath her chemise. She was fairly certain she was getting damper by the second. Her entire core heated, moistened, swelled. She shifted, tilting her pelvis toward his taunting fingertips, desperate to feel them against the throbbing ache between her legs.
Ah! She sucked in a breath. There.There. The curve of his finger stroked against her flesh. Her thighs tightened around his hand. He did it again, over and over, his knuckle warm and slick against her, forward, backward, rubbing, nuzzling, teasing. Her thighs tightened again as muscles she didn’t even know she had began to wake, to tense, to yearn.
She gasped when he nudged the tip of his finger inside her body and stroked her with his thumb. He slid his finger the rest of the way inside, slowly, relentlessly, the entire time making delicious circular patterns with the pad of his thumb against her burning flesh. With one finger fully inside and the other coaxing her to an ever-building pressure, he bent his head to her breast and suckled her through the thin silk of her gown, grazing his teeth across her tender nipple.
