First…
Her fingers brushed over the fall of his trousers. Hesitant initially, just the merest brush. He stiffened, stilling. The ability to think, to complete his thoughts, had been vanquished by her touch.
Her wicked mouth continued its exploration, all the way to his jaw. She nipped him, the minx!
And he liked that, too.
His hips surged into her questing touch. He knew he should not, but his body was beyond his control. He was primal. Desperate. Searching, seeking. Her touch grew bolder. Firmer. Her fingers rubbed over his straining length. On a hiss, he jerked away, positioning his body lower, pressing his cockstand into the mattress so he did not embarrass himself by spending in his smalls.
“Have I displeased you?” she asked, sounding confused.
“The opposite,” he ground out, attempting to reassure her. “You have pleased me too well. I do not dare go too far.”
Although, the moment the words emerged from him, he realized how hypocritical they were. He was in her bed, Charity clad in nothing but a dressing gown with possibly a chemise beneath. They were not married. Not even betrothed yet. And moments ago, her hand had been on hiscock. Stroking. This was sinful and wrong and decidedly not the proper order of things.
So why did it feel so good, so right? And why could he not seem to stop himself, regardless of all the rules clamoring to be heard in his head?
He clenched his jaw, attempting to stave off a new wave of desire.
“What if I want you to?” she asked.
He struggled to make sense of her query. “What if you want me to what?”
“Go too far.” She rolled her hips against his, the wanton gesture filling him with more fire. “What if I want you to take me?”
Chapter 7
Charity held her breath as the big, masculine body atop hers stiffened. As Neville’s green gaze burned into hers.Neville.So personal, so intimate. She liked thinking of him that way. No more Wilty. Not now, not ever. What a misnomer she had mistakenly bestowed upon him. How had she ever thought him too proper, a bore?
There wasnothingwilted about the man whose strong, delicious body was atop hers. And there most assuredly had been nothing wilted about the thick length of him she had inadvertently discovered in his trousers.
Her curiosity had made her bold.
It was making her bolder now as she awaited his response. The taste of him—shaving soap and salty male flesh—was still in her mouth from when she had nibbled on his whisker-stubbled flesh.
“You do not know what you are asking, Charity,” he said, his voice strained.
The tenseness in his jaw could not be denied. She wanted to kiss it away. So she did. She put her lips on that harsh angle.Kiss, kiss, kiss.All the way to his mouth. And she kissed him there, too. Their lips communicated more smoothly in a silent manner, she had discovered.
And she did know what she was asking. She had spent the entirety of the day thinking about him. Thinking about the way she felt about him. Thinking about what her friends had told her the day before. Trying to distract herself by reading a book.
The book had gone mostly unread, though she could not deny thatConfessions of a Sinful Earlwas as wicked as it was intriguing. Her heart, however, had not been in the prose. Thenhehad come.
As if she had wished him here.
She had never imagined a man like him would come to her in her own chamber. But he had, at once handsome and proper and uncertain of himself, his shoulders and bearing stiff, his emerald gaze vibrant, his mouth a wicked promise that had delivered.
Their tongues tangled. She kissed him with everything she had, aware of the barrier of her dressing gown, trapped between their bodies, keeping her from what she wanted most. Dropping her head against the counterpane—who knew what manner they were situated in upon the bed, for there was nary a pillow within reach, but she hardly cared—she looked up at him, meeting his gaze.
“I do know what I am asking,” she told him. “I want you.”
That much was true. Shedidwant him. She wanted him desperately. As she had been agonizing over her future and what she wanted, Charity had settled upon a new course of action. She would experience passion with Wilton—Neville. Why not? She wanted him. If he proved amenable, she would experience lovemaking for the first time. She did not need to marry him.
Her friends may be in love, but that did not mean she was.
No, indeed.
She was inlust.
