He smiled at her, brushing his thumb over her lips, stroking the seam. She’d licked him yesterday morning, the minx. And he’d liked it far too much. Testing the boundaries between them, he pressed inward with the lightest of pressure, awaiting her reaction.
She took his thumb into her mouth and sucked. Ah, Christ. He felt that suction in his throbbing cock. Felt it as an ache in his ballocks. A driving, almost blinding need. She was perfect.
“Do you want another lesson?” he asked softly, already knowing the answer.
They may ordinarily be enemies on the battlefield, but here in the library, they’d struck a temporary pax, driven by their mutual shock over the events which had unfolded the night before. Her body responded to his in ways he’d never experienced. And his to hers.
She released his thumb. “Yes.”
Ah, the effect her acquiescence—simple and unabashed—had on him. His tip was leaking, leaving a wet smear of mettle on the fall of his smallclothes, as if he were an eager virgin about to bed his first woman. But that couldn’t be helped now. He’d come this far, and he couldn’t stop until he pleasured her. He wanted to be the first man to bring her to release, just as he’d been the first to kiss her. Even if he couldn’t have her completely, he could have this. He could show her, teach her. A lesson in restraint for him, a lesson in desire for her.
He caught her waist in his hands and rolled neatly to his back—no easy feat on the Grecian divan—pulling her atop him as he went, so that she was astride him as if they were coupling. Trevor held her there, cradled between his thighs, his rigid cock burrowing into her softness. The weight of her atop him, her curves molded deliciously to his body, nearly undid him. There was nothing more erotic than being at this bold Siren’s mercy as she discovered her innate sensuality.
Her hands were splayed on his chest, hair mussed and beginning to come undone, and she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld. She gazed down at him as if in wonder, her kiss-bruised lips parted. “What are we doing?”
What, indeed?
They were being reckless. Foolish. Courting scandal and ruin. What could be better?
He caressed her waist. “Whatever you want to do. You’re in control.”
She frowned down at him, and he swore he could almost hear her clever mind churning. “But I thought this was a lesson.”
“It is.” He smiled up at her, thinking there was a possibility she would unman him with record haste. “It’s a lesson in taking what you want. In claiming your power over a man.”
“I have power over you?”
If only she knew. More than he ever cared to acknowledge. In this moment, he’d crawl to her over broken glass just for the chance to please her.
“God, yes,” he admitted, his hands sweeping up her back.
Now that he had her where he’d wanted her—well, one of the places he’d wanted her, for his fantasies were rather copious—he wasn’t about to waste the chance to touch her freely. He smoothed his touch over her shoulder blades and higher, to her nape. His fingers found their way into her chignon and began removing pins. Heavy tendrils of silken, mahogany hair began to fall.
The expression on her face was a potent aphrodisiac. The knowledge that she had power over him excited her.
“Power enough to make you return my books?” she asked.
The minx.
He laughed, and then she kissed him, and his mirth instantly died, because it was apparent that he wasn’t the one teaching this bloody lesson. It was her. And the lesson was how quickly Lady Virtue Walcot could bring him to his knees.
CHAPTER9
Virtue was certain Ridgely had cast some manner of spell over her. It was a spell that rendered her aching and throbbing in wicked places and made her want to hold him tight and never let go. It was also a spell that made her forget all the reasons she did not like him and instead told her to claim his smiling, sinner’s lips with her own.
And so she had.
Because his body was big and strong and hot beneath hers, and his manhood was insistent and thick prodding her, and he’d told her she had power over him, and she believed him. Because she felt it now, in their kiss. She had always taken to any task quickly; it was her great pride to excel at every skill she tried. And it was no different with kissing. She’d followed his lead, her lips moving with his, until she found the rhythm of it, until she knew what made him groan low in his throat.
He held her more tightly to him, pulling her hair from its careful chignon until his fingers were sifting through the strands, and then he grabbed a handful, mooring her to him as she feasted on his lips. Ridgely matched her kiss for kiss, his mouth ravenous, and soon, she was breathless again.
Some small part of her mind that maintained a foothold in ration told her she would never have this opportunity again. That she would never be so free and bold with the Duke of Ridgely’s delightfully muscled person. She ought to take advantage whilst she could. And so she did.
Her lips left his mouth and traveled over his angular jaw, the prickle of his shadowy whiskers a thrill to her senses. His scent wrapped around her like an embrace, musky and so very Ridgely. She explored him as he had her, kissing to his ear, then down his throat until his neatly tied cravat proved an impediment. Her fingers tangled in the knot, undoing it, and pulling it out of her way so that she could continue on, her mouth grazing over his skin in new, previously unexplored places.
He had told her he’d liked it when she had bitten him, so she nibbled lightly on his neck, delighted when he made a deep sound of approval. But all too soon, the flesh she’d revealed was not enough. She wanted him as he had been in his chamber the day she’d watched him from under his bed. Wanted him bare and magnificent, his chest and back and arms hers to touch and kiss.
She was aching for him, the need building between her legs an exquisite agony which could not be soothed. Virtue rubbed herself over him, seeking more contact, searching for relief it seemed could only be had from him. A moan tore from her, part frustration, part desire. His hands were everywhere, caressing Virtue with a tenderness that surprised her.
