“Oh,” Sophia said. She forgot what she’d been talking about for all of at least a minute.
The growth of his beard grazed her skin while the heated moisture of his mouth stoked a fire within her. Sophia felt helpless to such sensations as he kissed and then tasted the skin at her nape. A hunger to pull his head lower, toward her breasts, fought with another to urge his mouth higher, so that she could kiss him properly.
“Dev, please, please, kiss me?”
“I would kiss every inch of you, Sophia,” he whispered, and his lips trailed lower. His hands at her back, loosening her gown. “I would touch every inch of you, taste every inch of you.” Understanding dawned as to her mother’s insistence that she dab perfume in all manner of places about her body. Dev had untied her gown and was edging it off her shoulders.
Sophia squirmed, and, perhaps sensing her hesitancy, Dev took possession of her mouth again. Ah, but she could kiss him for hours. “Every inch?” she barely managed to get the words out as his tongue danced with hers.
He quite stole her breath away.
Sophia gasped when cool air hit her skin. But with him kissing her thusly, his tongue exploring her teeth, his mouth nipping at her lips, she no longer felt any modesty. One warm hand covered her breast, and all she could think was that she wanted him to pull her into him, into his hands, into his mouth.
“Every God-given inch of you, Sophia,” he whispered in the midst of this perfect assault.
But it was not an assault. He lay siege at her insistence, at her longing, at her willing.
Up until that point, she’d tucked her hands innocently against his abdomen and chest. But his words exploded a need within her, a similar curiosity to explore and know all of Devlin Brookes. She tugged at the bottom of his shirt to no avail. When it refused to slide out of his breeches, she pulled at it harder. What in tarnation? The shirt refused to budge.
Without any warning, Dev sat up and in one fluid motion pulled the damn thing out of his breeches and over his head.
Moonlight cast rippling shadows over well-toned muscles. Unlike Harold’s and Stewart’s, Dev’s skin was golden and smooth with a smattering of black hair disappearing into his breaches. His eyes burned back at her as she trailed curious fingers down his sternum, not quite stopping at his navel. Impatient and demanding, he brushed her hand away and covered her with his body once again.
“Sophia,” he growled. His mouth latched onto one of her breasts, while a warm hand molded the other.
This feeling, this hunger, was what he’d awakened that day behind the lion’s cage. It was aroused by him and him alone and had changed the entire course of her life.
She would have him pull harder with his mouth; she would have him squeeze and pinch tighter with his hands. And he did, as though her thinking commanded it. But just enough. Just the perfect amount.
Her hands gripped his shoulders. She wrapped a leg around his waist. She would be closer.
No longer two, but one.
Another growl against her breast caused a moan to roll through her. Was that her? It must have been.
“Sophia.” He stilled his mouth, but not his hands. “I would have that I’d said those vows to you today. I would want you to have no regrets or doubts when you give yourself to me.” He kissed the cleft between her breasts. “And this is going to kill me.”
“Oh, Dev.” She suddenly knew what he was about.
He was going to stop. He was going to respect her, of all things!
He lay thusly, one hand cradling her breast, the other gripping her bottom, for all of a minute before pushing himself away.
He was far more handsome than Harold’s valet.
He was hers. He would live in her heart forever. Whether she and Harold untangled their marriage or not, Devlin Brookes would always be her one true love.
With his hair mussed and his lips swollen from desire, he made her ache. This most likely was what if felt like to die.
She did not want him to stop!
She would be a temptress. She stretched her hands lazily above her head, found the end of her braid, and slid the ribbon off. As though she did so without thought, she absentmindedly unwound the braid easily and played with the long, soft strands.
“Andyouare going to killme, Devlin Brookes.” Her voice came out lower than normal. That was want. That tone in her voice was her own desire.
* * *
As Dev didhis damnedest to tamp down his need, Sophia lay before him like a fantasy, the belle of the ball, sent from heaven to tempt him. She was so goddamned perfect in every way.
