“Crispin, you must not.” Her fingers found his, squeezing gently. “This is too wicked.”
“I assure you, love, this is not wicked at all.” He kissed her left hand, nibbled on the right. “Wicked has yet to begin.”
“Your Grace.” She had reverted to formality again, but her thumbs rubbed circles atop his hands, and her tone lacked firmness.
“Crispin,” he reminded her, taking one of her fingers into his mouth and sucking as he longed to do on her pearl before releasing it. “The time for talking is over. Lift your nightrail and show yourself to me.”
“I…” a breathy exhalation left her. “I cannot.”
He nipped her knuckle. “Yes.” Then he laved the lines there with his tongue. “You can. You are brave and kind and good, Jacinda. Too good for me. But for tonight, you are mine, and I wish to see all of you. I want your bravery and your kindness and your goodness. I want you on my tongue so I will always remember what you taste like long after tonight. So, when next we see each other, you will think of the pleasures of my tongue between your thighs, and I will recall how exquisite it was to fill you with my tongue before I filled you with my cock.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. She licked her lips.
He had her attention now, and it was not without a great deal of satisfaction he realized his prim little governessenjoyedhis crudeness. She liked hearing of all the naughty things he wished to do, the myriad ways in which he would so thoroughly debauch her. Had it made her wet?Damn, but he hoped he would find her slit soaked with her juices, slick with need for him. He would lick up every drop.
“Remove your nightrail.” His tone was guttural with need. This prelude to lovemaking had affected him in ways he could not control. And if he didn’t have her on his lips and tongue soon, and if he did not sink home inside her flesh, he was going to spend on his stomach like a callow youth.
She released her grip on his hands, caught the fabric of her nightrail in her fists, and hauled it upward, not stopping until it was over her head, and she tossed it in a seamless arc to the floor. It landed on the Aubusson in a soft thud, and that quickly, Jacinda was bared to his ravenous gaze.
Her hips were wide and full, mouthwateringly curved. Her mound was a decadent temptation so near to his lips, glistening and pink and made for him. Her belly was lush, her waist nipped inward for a figure as womanly and perfect as he had imagined, leading to breasts that were even fuller than he had imagined. They would spill over his palms in their abundance, topped with erect nipples the blush-pink of a rose.
And then her elegant neck, her face. My God, she was a diamond of the first water. The loveliest creature. A study in innocence and wanton desire.
His.
Holding her stare, he nudged her thighs open even more before dipping his head to suck her pearl into his mouth. Her eyes went wide, mouth opening to form a soundless exclamation. Keeping their gazes locked, he used his tongue on the sensitive bundle of flesh, licking lightly and then with long, intentional sweeps. She tasted sweet yet complex, the salt of the ocean mixed with the sweetness of Portuguese strawberries and a tinge of exotic musk.
Her hips undulated against him, rocking, seeking more, and he knew he had won. He had her precisely where he wanted her, trapped in the maws of a pleasure so divine that nothing could tear her away save complete release. He licked her, harder, faster and then slow and gentle. He used his teeth until she shuddered against him, crying out with her first spend, his name on her lips.
And then he ran his tongue along her slit, delving inside her. She bucked, jerked, her fingers finding his hair and twining themselves in it. For a time, he gave himself up to the intoxicating joy of giving her pleasure. She was all he smelled, tasted, and saw, his hands digging into her hips, guiding her against his mouth as her sated cries split the air.
He pleasured her until he could not bear to continue lest he embarrass himself. With a final kiss to her quivering mound, he made his way up her siren’s body, over her rounded belly to her generous breasts. He sucked a nipple until she moaned, those frenzied fingers of hers raking his shoulders.
She was wild, his Miss Governess, and he could not be more delighted at the discovery. She could gladly tear him apart, claw him up, bite him, suck him, lick him, ride him, and he would forever be her willing slave.
But they did not have forever. They had one night, and dawn had already begun to arrive with its unwanted early light pricking his chamber and with its reminder he could not keep Jacinda in his bed for the next decade as every part of his inner savage wished.
He kissed higher still, over her throat, all the way to her chin. There, he stopped, suspending his weight over her body with his forearms, her lovely face framed in his hands. “Tell me what you want, love.”
His rigid cock was between them, nestled against her slick cove. She had him so ready that one false twitch of her hips, and he would come all over her mound as if he had never before seen a cunny. But more than anything, he wanted to be sure. He did not want her regrets or her bitterness. He wanted her to know precisely what devil’s bargain she was entering. To decide that it—he—was worth it.
“I want you,” she said then.
The brazen acknowledgment of her desire undid him. As did her simple acceptance of him, for he knew what it cost her. Knew that Miss Jacinda Turnbow was not the sort of woman who would lie with just any man.
He dipped his head, fusing their mouths. She opened instantly, her tongue dueling with his. What she lacked in skill, she possessed in enthusiasm. She kissed him with a wild abandon that brought him to his knees. Desperation snarled through him. He kissed her harder, deeper. Shifting his weight to his left forearm, he reached between them with the right, his fingers dipping into her sex to tease her engorged nub. She moaned into his mouth, and he swallowed her cries, her need, wished he could tuck it so deep inside himself that he would carry it with him always.
She was so wet, so ready, and he could not wait another breath. Guiding himself to her entrance, he sheathed himself in one swift thrust. Nothing could have prepared him for the welcoming heat of her. She was so tight. So incredibly bloody tight. And right, so very, very damnright.
He tore his mouth from hers, his breath coming in harsh pants as he sought to hold himself back. He was keenly aware she was not experienced, and he had never before bedded a woman of her ilk. “How does it feel, love?”
She blinked at him, her sherry eyes glowing into his. “Wonderful.Youfeel wonderful.” She looked as if she was about to say more but swallowed instead, either too self-conscious or too afraid to give further voice to her desires.
He did not mind her shyness, even as they were joined in the most intimate way a man and woman could be united. If anything, it made him want her more, for he knew her. He knew all too well how much her honesty and uninhibited behavior would cost her by full morning light.
He kissed her long and slow, reassuring her as best he knew how before retreating to drop kisses on her jaw. “I will go slowly, love. Tell me what you want. What you like.”
“Everything.” She cupped his face and kissed him so sweetly and tenderly it undid him. No one had never touched him thus, as if he were important. As if he were essential. “I like everything you do to me.”
