He caressed the seam between her thighs, where they were still pressed tightly together in an effort to subdue the ache at her center. “Relax for me, Elysande.”
There was something so very erotic about the command when issued in his low voice. She allowed him to urge her legs apart, and his hands swept over the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs, then caressed a path of fire over her hips.
He was seeing her. Every part of her. And she did not care. She knew no shame. All she felt was the mad beating of her own heart and the pulse of desire threatening to be her undoing.
“So beautiful,” he rasped, his head lowering.
His mouth followed his hands. Kisses rained everywhere. Her ankles. Up, up, up her calves. Her shin bones. The insides of her knees. The hollows behind, one by one. Places she had never imagined would prove so susceptible to his lips and touch. The tops of her thighs.
All the while, his hands were on her, kneading and caressing, smoothing over her flesh. Setting her further aflame. Her breasts were aching, the peaks still painfully stiff. Without thought, she cupped them in her own hands, squeezing. But nothing could quell the hunger. She only wanted more.
Somehow, he knew what she was doing. Perhaps he had stolen a look when she had been too preoccupied to take note.
“Yes,” he said, “touch yourself. Feel how lovely you are.”
There was no shame when he gave her his approval. He made her astonishingly aware of a part of herself she had kept sternly locked away for so many years. Desire had been something she could control. Longing after handsome gentlemen had never been for her. But this man…
This man was different.
This man was hers.
Impossible to believe until his lips set fire to the skin of her inner thighs. Then higher still. His mouth settled over her most sensitive place. A gentle kiss first. Just the brush of his lips against her eager bud. And then his skillful tongue, lapping at her slowly, then faster. And then he sucked.
Hard.
Oh God, oh Lord in heaven.She was going to die. She planted her boots in the terra firma and surged into his face, seeking more as stars exploded behind her eyelids.
It was…beyond exquisite. In fact, therewereno words.
What is a word?
Who am I?
What has he done to me?
He hummed his appreciation and licked down her seam, his tongue wet and hot and so wicked and so wonderful and soeverything. So everything she could have ever imagined, plus one hundredfold more. He licked into her, and the precipice she had been occupying disappeared. Elysande toppled from the mercurial cliff.
She lost control, bliss crashing over her, stealing her breath. She was helpless to do anything save undulate against him, give herself to the crescendo, ride it until she was limp and sated and boneless.
Chapter 5
The single, most deliriously delicious moment of his life had been followed by a furtive dash for clothing and a hasty return to his chamber.
And ultimately, a subsequent hand frigging as well.
From himself, not from his wife.
Therein lay the disappointment.
Hudson was in the privacy of his chamber, sunk deep in the bath that had been awaiting him on his return from the lake, along with his correspondence. Greene, the sedulous manservant who had been catering to his needs, would be getting an increase in salary commensurate with the change in funds Elysande’s massive dowry had brought.
Elysande.
Hiswife.
He could still taste her on his lips. Musky and delicate and mysterious, just like she was. On a groan, he wrapped his hand around his aching cockstand. The untimely interruption of Saunders and the prospective new head gardener at Brinton Manor had left Hudson in a state of cruel frustration. It could have been worse, he reminded himself.
Fortunately, their voices had carried in the morning’s peaceful silence, piercing the sensual haze that had enveloped Hudson and Elysande as they dallied in the grass by the lake. He still was not entirely certain that the unusually efficient Saunders had not suspected what was afoot and made certain his voice carried, thus giving them enough time to frantically spring apart, right their clothing, and attempt to play the proper role of duke and duchess on a harmless morning walk about the lake.
