Why, then, should he utterly lose control now? It made no sense, the power this woman had over him. The power to change him, to make him want to take every risk just to keep her here in his arms, in his bed, her lips and body beneath his just a bit longer…
It was dangerous, to be sure. She was temptation incarnate.
Her body beneath his was supple and welcoming, her thighs bracketing his. She was learning his bare chest, setting him aflame. Her small hands, her delicate fingers, the tentative yet sure manner in which she touched him…Christ, it was enough to make him lose himself.
His ballocks were already drawn tight, his cock rigid against the fall of his breeches from their encounter in the hall. The way she had moved on his thigh, coating his breeches with her dew.
He groaned into her mouth as he kissed her.Bloody hell, he would never forget the night he had met Miss Eugie Winter in a darkened hall and had nearly taken her then and there.
He wanted to take her now.
God, how he wanted.
But he knew he must not.
He would stop this madness.
Except his hands seemed to have a mind of their own. They wanted what they wanted. Eugie’s skin. They fisted in her night rail, and then pulled it up. She writhed beneath him, helping him to draw the diaphanous fabric over her head. And then she was naked in his bed.
Her breasts were even larger than they had looked, trapped in the confines of her bodice. Pale and round. Her nipples were hard little buds prodding the air like offerings. He lowered his head, drew one between his lips, and sucked. The moan that left her sent another arrow of need to his cock.
He flicked his tongue over her, swirled it around the peak of her breast, as if he had all night to savor her. Which he did not. And this was wrong. He must put an end to it. The Earl of Hertford did not dally with unwed females. He bedded seasoned courtesans. He avoided scandal.
His hand craved the velvet softness of Eugie’s curves. He found her other nipple, nipping it with his teeth, as his fingers dipped into her folds. She was wetter than she had been in the hall, her essence coating him, taunting him. He teased her pearl, petting it in light strokes until she jerked against his hand, straining for more.
He whispered her name as he kissed a path down her belly, worshiping her body. “Eugie.” A sigh, a plea.
Desperation and need mingled.
Wrong. This was so very wrong. But he had lost control. And now, he was between the smooth curves of her hips. He could see her—all of her—glistening pink flesh beneath a smattering of curls. The pouty plumpness of her clitoris. The cove he wanted to claim as his own.
He settled his mouth upon her there, suckling her as he had done to her nipple. The taste of her blossomed on his tongue, the sweetness of the most exotic fruit mingled with the spicy musk of woman. Her gasp told him she liked what he was doing, so he sucked harder, then ran his tongue down her seam. He licked into her cunny, gratified when she moaned and thrust against him.
All the blood in his body was roaring to his cock. He had never wanted anything so badly in his life. Now that he had her beneath him, he could not get enough. Sensation and need overwhelmed him. The taste of her on his tongue, the tiny quivers of her body beneath his, the breathy sounds of contentment she made, almost kittenish. It was so much.
Too much.
More than he had bargained for.
He could not stop now until he was inside her. Until he had claimed her. Until she was his. Just for the night. For this night. He made love to her with his mouth, inhaling deeply of her scent, finding a place with his tongue that seemed particularly sensitive and abrading it lightly with the whiskers of his jaw. When he sucked on her pearl again, she went rigid beneath him, crying out as she spent.
He should have been concerned about the loudness of her voice in the night, coming from his chamber. But he was past the point of caring about anything other than her pleasure. As she came on his tongue, he glanced up her body, over the gentle swell of her belly, past the mounds of her breasts, to her face. Her head was thrown back in ecstasy, eyes closed tight, lips open, back arched.
His desire for her was like a beast, overtaking him. Clouding his mind. Drowning out the part of him that had lived a life dedicated to always doing the right thing. He was going to do the wrong thing now. Just once.
He was going to take her.
He had to.
Cam rose between her legs, on his knees, fingers fumbling to tear open the fall of his breeches. In his haste to flee his chamber earlier, he had foregone his smalls. His cock sprang free, swelled, thick, and ready. He felt, at once, as if he had been waiting a lifetime for this moment. Which was strange, since he scarcely knew her but a few days.
“Eugie.” Her name was torn from him again, and the longing in his own voice cut him like the blade of a dagger.
He dragged his cock through her slippery folds, asking a question he had no right to pose. He told himself she was experienced. No innocent miss would kiss as she had. No innocent miss would be so eager for assignations. She had done this before. With Cunningham, and though the thought made him want to smash his fist into the baron’s thin blade of a nose, he banished it from his mind.
There was no place for others here between them. There was only passion.
“Do you want this?” He held himself still, waiting for her answer.
