When she’d hesitantly given him permission to kiss her.
He’d known Lydia for most of his life, and all the while, he’d expected to marry her.
Knowing what awaited the two of them had been akin to living with a wonderful promise—a promise that his future held good things.
Exciting, joyful things.
Without the promise of that future, all color had drained out of his life.
He stroked her silk-clad ankles, hidden beneath her skirts. Locating the small indents there, he traced his fingertips over them. So fragile. Feminine.
Sensual.
He then ghosted his palms over her calves, rounded her knees, and edged them up the length of her thighs.
All hidden in the billowing fabric of her skirt. Hidden treasure.
“I need you, Jeremy.” She slowly rolled her hips against him.
She could not know what she was saying—what she was doing.
“So badly.” She exhaled.
The heat of her center pressed down on the bulge in his trousers. Trouble. She was steering them headlong into trouble. And rather than drop anchor, he raised the sails, intent on traveling full speed ahead.
He’d deal with the trouble when they got there.
Jeremy tugged at her sleeves and lowered her bodice. How many times had he dreamed of doing this while courting her? Soft, creamy skin captured his gaze. A pink flush appeared, and he groaned.
The reality of Lydia in his arms, of her flesh bared beneath his gaze, surpassed any dream he could concoct on his own.
His prim and proper debutante was rocking against him. As he laved and suckled and nipped with his teeth, he realized that he had indeed been correct in the assumption he’d made before.
Because Lydia Cockfield did, in fact, taste like love.
Lostin the haze of this… wanting, Lydia knew she should stop.Ladies do not do this.
Not in the privacy of an isolated meadow, not in an earl’s Mayfair townhouse, and most definitely not with a gentleman who was not her husband.
But… this was Jeremy.
“Oh,” she gasped.
His mouth summoned hot jumpy sensations… all over. She wanted closer to him.
She was well aware of how a woman and a man came together—in the dark, in a bedchamber, the lady in her nightdress, the man wearing… Well, she wasn’t certain of that, but she knew that he’d eventually be…
Exposed.
Jeremy’s body was hard precisely where she needed him to feel hard. Caught up in the pressure building between the two of them, she imagined all manner of scenarios. Some that involved activities that would resemble the marriage act and others that were, well… unimaginable. Only she did imagine them. Even now…
Frantic, she lowered her hands to his falls but before she could begin to unfasten them, he stopped her.
He was right here. She was in his arms and yet…
He was unreachable.
“Not… like this.” His voice came out gravelly, rough.
