He repeated it with the other nipple before running his tongue around the areola.
She squeaked in surprise as he lifted her and set her on the edge of the bed.
“Lie back, baby.”He brushed his lips across hers.“Trust me?”
Violet lay back as he languidly licked into her mouth.His lips trailed down the path his fingers had previously traveled, hot against her skin, his kisses seared a path down her body, and over the swell of her belly.Then he sank to his knees.
She raised her head to see what had happened to him.But when a hot kiss landed on the inside of her thigh, she fell back.He slid his hands up her legs slowly as he continued to place kisses on the tender flesh of her inner thighs.First one leg, trailing up to the juncture of her leg and her sex and then he pulled away only to trace the same path up the other thigh.
His hands spread her legs farther apart.Then his mouth was at her center, his hot breath right where she throbbed with desire.He licked a strip right up her core.
“Oh my God!”
He lifted his head, and his lips stretched into a gorgeous smile of satisfaction.“You taste delicious.”Then he dipped down to lick her again, and she was lost to the heat of his mouth.
His talented tongue made her feel completely untethered, lost to a sea of sensation.She grasped the covers, looking for an anchor, even as she pushed her hips up against his mouth, chasing the pleasure.“Don’t stop, please.”
He devoured her.It was almost too much.Overwhelming.Divine.Then, just when she didn’t think she could take another moment of the delicious tension coiled tight within her, she cried out as she shattered in an exquisite rush of euphoria.The pleasure he’d wrought spread through her veins like warm honey.
Rhys nuzzled her, placing soft kisses to the inside of her thigh and then one kiss on her hip before he rose to lean over her, caging her with his arms.Violet gazed up at him in wonder.“I didn’t know…that I could feel like that.”She reached up and cupped his cheek, tracing his scar with her thumb.“That was amazing.”
He kissed her slow and languid, tasting tangy and sweet all at the same time.There was none of the urgency she had always thought was what sex entailed.Only tenderness and kisses with slow swipes of his tongue against hers.“Don’t you need to find your release?”
“Don’t worry about me.I have long practiced denying myself.”
“If you have been celibate, where did you learn how to do those wicked things with your tongue?”
“You forget I grew up in a brothel.I received an education in sexual congress at a young age.The women talked candidly amongst themselves, and I paid attention.I’ve had a few lovers, but not any in the last eight years.”Rhys buried his nose in her hair.“You smell so good.”His tongue traced the shell of her ear.
“Hmmm.”It was difficult to concentrate on what she wanted to say while his hot breath grazed her ear.“Why did you come through my window this morning again?”
“Because I thought of you all night, with my hand shuttling my cock, and I needed to see you, to touch you.”He raised his head and stared down at her with such intensity that her breath caught in her throat.“I fear that I have grown quite obsessed with you, Violet.I might have let you run away before, but now that I have your taste on my tongue, I don’t think I can let you go.”
The possession laced in his voice should have scared her, but instead, it made her feel cherished, safe.Nothing bad would happen to her with this man watching over her.“I don’t want to run away.I like it exactly where I am.In your embrace.”
He groaned and stretched out next to her.His long frame shared its heat as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her head onto his shoulder.“I wondered if you want to go with me to the auction house today.Someone told me I could use some furniture for my house.”His fingers trailed gently over the swell of her belly.
Violet giggled.“I would love to see the auction house.After breakfast, though.”
“After breakfast,” he agreed.“I requested bacon and fresh bread with jam and butter.And biscuits.Did I miss anything?”
“Biscuits for breakfast?”
“We must feed that sweet tooth.And bacon is a necessity.”
“Hmmm, I heard about your affinity for bacon from Lucy.”
He shrugged.“I am not picky about food, but I admit I do love bacon.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Violet entered thebreakfast room to find Rhys sitting comfortably at the table, munching on a piece of bacon as though this was his house and he hadn’t arrived through the window that morning.He pushed back his chair, stood, and came around the table.Taking her hand, he kissed the back of her fingers.“Bacon is ready.”He led her to a chair next to his at the small round table.Ever since Stuart’s death, she had been taking all her meals at this more intimate table.Sitting alone in the large dining room had been too depressing.
A moment later, Hodgins arrived and held the door open as two footmen brought in trays laden with covered silver serving dishes.“Good morning, my lady.”
If she was meant to feel embarrassed to be sitting at the breakfast table with her lover—was Rhys her lover now?Yes, after this morning, she certainly would call him that—she refused.She was a widow.She was breaking no rules in God’s eyes.Violet straightened her shoulders.This was her household, and she could have whatever guests she chose.She picked up a piece of bacon off the tray and bit into it viciously.
As the footmen began taking the covers off the dishes, the aroma of smoked fish hit her nose, and she gagged.Her stomach roiled at the smell of kippers.Rhys reached over and grabbed the tray, shoving it into the startled footman’s hands.“Get rid of this.Fish makes her ill now.”
