“Yes?”
“I’m a man of flesh and blood. Quite real, in fact.” Should he ask the question on the tip of his tongue?Yes.“Would you like to find out just how real?”
She took a step forward, then another, the tail of her blanket dragging across the floor behind her, until mere inches separated them. “For a rainy afternoon?”
He reached up and caressed the side of her face. “What is one to do on a rainy afternoon but find pleasure indoors?”
Her gaze remained steady on his. “Is that what you’re offering? Pleasure?”
“If you’ll allow me.”
She swallowed and moved closer. He spread his legs, and she stepped between, letting her blanket fall away. Her lissome, naked body bathed in golden light from the hearth, desire and permission shone in her eyes, and Lucas knew.
This wasn’t about a single afternoon’s pleasure.
This was the beginning of forever.
7
Pleasure.
Nell had been made many promises by a man, but never that.
And the intent look in this man’s eyes said he could deliver.
A shiver traced through her. Not from the chill in the air, but from a desire so strong her knees went weak with it.
He shrugged off his blanket, and the sight before her froze her in place.Golden… gorgeous… Greek god…From his broad shoulders and thick thighs to the trail of blond hair that led down his muscled chest and ridged stomach to his—oh—manhood, long and rigid and—oh—ready. A pulsing sensation shot straight through her.
His hand slid around to cup the nape of her neck and draw her forward, toward his upturned mouth, and she understood something elemental… something that made what she was about to doright.
This was on her own terms.
This—what existed between him and her—wasn’t about empty promises of a future.
It was honest.
It was about the here and now.
And, here and now, she wanted this man.
Just before her lips met his, she took a sip of air.Sandalwood… Man.“Mmm,” she moaned. This man smelled so good.
Then his mouth claimed hers, and he palmed the small of her back, bringing her forward so she pressed up against him, his body hot against hers. His tongue slipped between her lips and met hers in a tangle, and of a sudden, she was ravenous for him—her hands sliding through his tousled hair, across his shoulders, down arms hard with muscle. He plucked the pins from her hair, allowing it to fall in a curtain to her waist. “Why do you hide this glorious mane from the world?” he muttered against her mouth.
Nell couldn’t clearly think why at the moment, but was mostly certain it had something to do with propriety. Then his hands found her bottom and pressed her so close only a thin sheen of sweat separated them. The feel of his skin on hers… the wild beat of his heart mirroring hers… the ragged in and out of his breath… She’d never felt this intensity, thisintimacy, with another.
Pulled along by instinct, she placed her hands on his shoulders, and lifted one leg, then the other, coming to straddle him on the chair, her mouth never releasing his, her quim slick against the hard, heavy press of his manhood. Without conscious thought, she moved against him, luxuriating in his thick rigidity against her softness.
Oh, how she wanted—needed—him inside her.
He shifted back, breaking the kiss, eliciting a displeased moan from her. His serious blue gaze met hers. “Are you certain?”
“Oh, yes,” she said without a moment’s hesitation, wrapping her legs around his waist to make her intentions unquestionably clear, in the event they weren’t already.
She slid along the length of his manhood, pulling a long, rumbly, “Oh,” from him. “Do that again,” he said against her mouth.
She swiveled her hips, and sensation rippled through her unlike any she’d ever experienced. What she’d done with Tommy Trumble, in haylofts and once in the back of a wagon, was nothing tothis.
