She couldn’t even think to protest as his hand drifted up her stocking-clad leg, past her garter, over her bare thigh, and then—dear God, then…
She gasped when he drew one sensitive bud into his mouth. When his tongue curled, the sensation shot deep between her thighs.
Fingers spearing into his thick hair, a low moan tore from her throat. “Don’t stop. Just... don’t stop.”
“Easy, my sweet. I’m not going anywhere.” Even his voice aroused her, the shape of his words pressed against her taut, throbbing peak. “I will never leave you wanting.”
Easing from the chaise with her in hand, he crossed the room to lay her on her bed and gently peeled every slip of clothing from her body. When her woman’s place was laid bare, her hands shot over to cover herself, but he grabbed both, pressing them to her sides.
“No hiding, my sweet. Let me see all of you.”
Her eyes shut tight, yet she acquiesced.
“Remember what I said,” he whispered, the bed dipping as he pressed a knee on the mattress. “Eyes on me.”
She would have argued, but his lips fixed onto her other nipple, her eyes flew open, and the heat inside her grew to a feverishpitch. Her skin seemed afire, wet heat blazing from her core as his hot lips trailed their way down the path between the hollow of her breasts.
With his hands caging her hips, his tongue dipped into a small divot of navel, and her hands fisted in the coverlet at the intense, unfamiliar sensation, and her lungs struggled for air. Her woman’s place was throbbing, aching, shockingly damp.
“I’m… I’m… wet,” she ended in a whisper.
The smile that curved his lips was playful but seemed to understand something she didn’t. “Yes, you are.Very. And it’s all for me.”
Through the sensation spiraling through her body, she realized something—William’s trajectory.
Surely, he could not be goingthere, could he?
“William, what are you—”
His hands fixed under her thighs.
Raising his head to look at her, he asked with a wicked grin, “What does it look like? I am honored to be the first to kiss you here.”
“Surely, you cannot—” He swiped his tongue through the very core of her and she jolted off the bed.
Holding her gaze, he wiggled his tongue from her folds to a spot that sent sensation streaking through her. As he licked and suckled, coherent speech became hopeless.
His tongue was warm and firm, expertly appeasing her growing ache. Bridget’s blood thundered in her ears as pleasure suffused her body. She writhed and bucked, breaking out in a fine sheen of sweat in spite of the chilly room.
Pleasure built inside her, a storm that pushed the very boundaries of her soul. He licked upwards, latching onto her pearl and suckling hard.
When he licked and sucked at the peak of her sensation, her desire went from a simmer to a boil. His tongue circled her opening… then thrust inside. He slipped a hand under her derrière to tilt her pelvis. The new position catapulted her back up the mountain. As his rhythm increased, so did her pleasure.
“Please, faster… I can almost… harder… I’m almost… William, please…”
She screamed as a shattering climax beset her body and endless bliss wracked through her soul, the pinnacle of pleasure a blinding light behind her eyes. Dimly, she felt William tug the sheets over her and she opened her eyes as he dropped a kiss on her cheek before he donned his cloak.
“William?” she asked. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes,” he replied, tugging an arm down and flicking the cowl over his head. “You completed your part of the bargain. Now, it is time for me to do mine.”
CHAPTER 22
The indifferent hackney William had hired dropped him in the midst of Spitalfields, specifically a tavern named the Red Lion Inn, a packed East End public house that catered to the laboring class but had cutthroats, thieves, and moneylenders sprinkled in. On a Friday night, he knew there would be a host of sources ready for the picking.
Even before he approached the tavern, the raucous pounding of an ill-tuned pianoforte and screeching singing greeted him. Two drunks stumbled out of the doorway, grabbing at each other and sloshing rank Blue Ruin from their pewter tankards.
Sidestepping them, he entered the dim room and was about to make out the patrons when he noticed a man in a lurid blue velvet jacket banging away at a popular song, while at least a dozen men and a handful of women sang along. Half of the patrons of the pub sang with them, and the mood of the place was jolly, wild, and uninhibited.
