She assumed she was pressed against the bed. He knew it. Just as he knew he must extricate himself from this situation. He’d let matters progress too far. Settled on a direct course of action, he stood, attempting to slide out of her way before she realized her mistake. It was what a gentleman would do.
The point became moot when her spine stiffened and her body went ramrod straight, accomplishing nothing more, or less, than to press herself full-length against the front of his body. It was entirely possible that she felt the outline of his stubborn erection through her muslin skirts.
He held himself stock still and awaited her direction. But there was no question in his mind of how this would end. The medieval warlord had won the battle.
He only waited for her to realize it, too.
Chapter 15
Tiny, electric waves of shock rippled through Olivia, sudden lust licking quick at their wake.
The instant she’d set foot in these rooms, finding Lord St. Alban wrapped in nothing but a length of cotton, she’d known how this day would end. After all, wasn’tthiswhat she’d come for?
Except she hadn’t expected it to feel so immediate, so real, yet so fantastical. As if she’d been granted permission to conflate reality with this morning’s dream.
She closed her eyes and sank into his long, hard body with all the resistance of a wildflower swaying to the uncertain rhythm of a summer breeze. Her fingers reached up over her shoulder, seeking out the back of his head, drawing his lips to the crook of her neck, to the exact spot his phantom lips had touched this morning in her dream. An exhalation of his warm breath skittered across her skin, and her nipples tightened into hard buds of anticipation.
Would his lips never touch her?
A soft groan vibrated in her ear, and, at last, his lips met her neck as his hands reached around her waist, his scent intoxicating her with its hint of the exotic and unknown. She was irrevocably lost to the spell of this room.And this man.
It wasn’t enough to feel him; she would see him. Her lips longed to make contact with his. She found his hands and loosened his grip enough for her to turn in his arms. Facing him, she braved the moment, inhaled, and met his eyes.
She didn’t need confirmation of his desire.Thatwas pressed against her. She needed to know that she wasn’t the only one lost to this insanity between them.
He reached up and tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear, the gesture intimate and tender. The sort of gesture that could undo her. He was giving her time . . . time to change her mind.
Well, that wouldn’t do.
She lifted to the very tips of her toes, and still her lips didn’t reach his. A smile, knowing and sensuous, curled about his mouth. “This is madness.”
The words whispered across her lips, the promise within them raising goose flesh and emboldening her to say, “Not nearly mad enough.”
That knowing, sensuous smile firmed with intent as his head canted to the side and golden lashes lowered to brush against high, angled cheekbones. He pressed forward and touched his tongue to the upturned “O” of her lips, soft, slippery, delicious.
How she wanted to take him in. How she wanted him to let her.
At last, his lips touched hers, a fleeting, tender brush. So tender that she wondered for a wild moment if the passion she’d felt was all her own wishful thinking. Then, in the way a levee will break from too much pressure built up behind it, his kiss deepened, and his fingers tightened about her waist, drawing her body into the long length of his, crushing her into him. A heady, breathless feeling swelled within her. She felt . . .Claimed.
Instinct, sudden and animalistic, took over as her greedy fingers snaked inside his shirt and brushed across the expanse of his flat stomach. On a wave of audacity, she found the laces of his trousers and made short work of them. Hot, rigid flesh met her hand, and desire streaked through her as she slid her fingers along the velvet column of his shaft.
A wild, unfettered groan erupted from him, breaking their kiss. His lashes flickered open, and his serious gaze pierced her. “Again,” he demanded.
She tightened her fingers around him and again stroked him, up and down his length. Wordlessly, he gathered up the folds of her skirts, handful by linen handful, cool air caressing exposed calves . . . thighs . . . quim . . . A ragged rumble escaped him. “Have you any idea how exquisite is your sweet, wet slit?”
She gasped at the vulgarity of his words. At the ache they provoked along her vulgar, wet slit. He pressed forward, the hot, insistent length of him grazing her, his lips brushing against her ear. “What do you want?”
A heartbeat later, she spoke the one word that could propel them into a realm she understood only at its most rudimentary level. “This.”
He fell to his knees before her as if in worship, and she transformed into a being created purely for lust. His tongue touched her thigh, and a shudder ripped through her. “I’m not sure my legs can—”
He stroked his tongue across her skin, and she gasped, aching and hollow, wanting and needingmore. He met her gaze across the trembling expanse of her body. “Support you?”
He reached around and cupped her bottom, bracing her against the onslaught she craved, all the sensation in her body concentrated into the point where his tongue touched her skin. It was everything and not nearly enough as his mouth inched higher, closer, pushing her to the limit of her tolerance. Her body screamed for what he offered and withheld. His tongue on her, branding her with its fiery mark, was all that mattered. It was all that would ever matter.
Madness.
His tongue flicked across her quim, and the world as she knew it folded onto itself a million times over until it ceased to exist. All substance beneath her feet, at her back, above her head, became light and air and black and void all at once until it was only she and he at the center of the universe.
