“Romeo and Juliet,” he confirmed, his mouth traveling steadily over her other breast now, as if to mark every part of her skin with his kiss. “It is the east, and Virtue is the sun.”
She might have laughed at his play on words, but in the next breath, he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked hard. Virtue cried out, and this time, her knees did give way, but he caught her and guided her gently backward, down onto the window seat with its cushioned bench. He went with her, dropping to the furniture but taking care to keep his full weight from pinning her there, the sunlight streaming in through cracks in the curtains to cast them in a golden glow.
It might have been a dream, so surreal was the sight of the Duke of Ridgely looking down at her with raw desire in his expression. But then his beautiful head bent, and his tongue painted a lazy circle around her nipple, and the pulsing ache between her thighs told her no dream could ever be this delicious.
“This.” He paused and flicked the peak of her breast with his tongue. “Is.” Another pause as he sucked hard until releasing her nipple with a lusty pop. “Your.” Yet another pause, and his lips coasted over the pink tip. “Warning.” He kissed between her breasts. “Leave.”Kiss.“While.”Kiss.“You can.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she breathed, her hands roaming freely over any part of him she could touch. Shoulders, arms, the broad plane of his back, his hair. She caught handfuls, relishing the silken strands passing through her questing fingers.
Another kiss from Ridgely, and then he sucked hard on her nipple. His hand had grasped the skirt of her gown, petticoats and chemise, and now slid beneath, skimming over her stockings. Past her garters.
His warning didn’t alarm her. Not in the slightest. She wanted this. Wanted the Duke of Ridgely for herself. Wanted his touch, his kiss, his lips. Wanted him with a furor, clamoring and trembling inside her, that was stronger than the desire to return to her home.
How had he done it? How had he unmoored her with nothing but his clever hands and lips?
He kissed his way back to her mouth and his hand found her inner thighs. She parted for him as he stroked higher, unerringly discovering the center of her need. His fingers slicked through her folds, until he rubbed tantalizing circles over the place where she was most sensitive, the nub that she instinctively knew was swollen and wet.
“Anything?” he whispered against her mouth, the word dark and mysterious and sinful.
Laden with promise.
“Yes,” she whispered, for his fingers were already making her hips jerk into his touch, seeking more. Completion. “Anything you want.”
Their faces were impossibly close, their breaths mingling, lips brushing as he spoke. “I want you to come for me. Come for me the way you did in the library, only lose yourself from my touch this time.”
She wanted that. Told him so without words, kissing him hungrily instead and thrusting her tongue into his mouth. He made a low sound of approval and sucked on her tongue, increasing the pace and pressure of his fingers all the while.
They stayed that way, a tangle of limbs on the window seat, hidden away from the world in the privacy of the music room. Their kisses were ravenous and deep. Ridgely—or Trevor, as she must think of him in this moment of startling intimacy—surrounded her. The breaths she took were his. Each beat of her heart a frantic rhythm he stoked by working her into a stunning crescendo. Faster now, fingers working her, tongue licking into her mouth until everything within her tightened just before exploding.
The bliss, when it hit, was so sudden and forceful that she couldn’t contain the loud moan that escaped her. He swallowed it down, continuing to stroke her until her thighs were quivering and she was so unbearably sensitive she thought she’d burst. And only then did he break the kiss, his head lowering to lavish attention on her breasts once again.
But his fingers weren’t finished.
Instead, they dipped lower, unerringly finding another part of her that was aching. He played with her, teasing her entrance with slight pressure. It was new, this sensation. Maddening and delicious at the same time. Her body moved, instincts taking over, undulating against him.
One finger dipped inside her in a shallow thrust.
She gasped at the unfamiliar intrusion, and the feeling of it, of him.
He kissed her nipple, slanting her a heated glance. “Tell me when to stop.”
But she wouldn’t. She didn’t wish for him to.
She shook her head, which was lolling about on the cushion, half her chignon undone, hairpins pricking her scalp and she did not care. “Don’t stop.”
“I want to use my tongue,” he said. “Will you allow it?”
Use his tongue for what? She didn’t know. Couldn’t fathom. He’d already used it so very much, and she found herself much the better for it.
“Yes,” she said, for there was no other answer.
Whatever he wanted, she wanted more.
She grew confused as he appeared to withdraw, the heavy weight of his body leaving hers. Virtue reached for him in protest, but he kissed her fingers and sank to his knees on the floor, rearranging her body to his liking, so that she faced him instead of lying horizontally across the cushions as she had before. And then, he did the oddest thing yet.
He flipped her hems up with one deft motion, and with the other, he hooked each of her knees over his shoulders. Reaching beneath her to cup her bottom, he pulled her toward him.
“Tr-Trevor,” she stuttered, shocked. “What do you intend?”
