“My little raven is shy,” he murmured.
Oh, Gregory. How can you be a master of desire, but not sense what is inside me?
Because he’s a rake…
“Open your eyes, love,” he coaxed with a word and a husky baritone.
Moaning, Daria bit her lip hard.
“Look at yourself. Look at your exquisite body fully alive, as it is meant to be.” His silky baritone bespelled, compelled her to see what he saw.
His long, sun-bronzed hands spread across the flat of her belly. A juxtaposition of strength and fragility.
Daria watched wide-eyed as Gregory glided his fingers in an intoxicating dance over her ribcage. He climbed them higher. Her body did not care about pride or pain. It held in taut anticipation.
Gregory palmed breasts, lightly squeezing, and she moaned. “These were made for my hands, Daria.
His voice was no longer smooth and in control. And the truth, that this strong, confident, breathtakingly beautiful man wanted her sent her hips arching.
Gregory slipped his hand between her legs and palmed Daria’s throbbing center.
Her breath caught and her gaze held.
“You are so wet for me, little raven.” He crooned like it was the prettiest praise for some accomplishment he held all credit of. “I want you, Daria. I want to seat myself inside your warmth.”
He desired her.
And yet…
His yearning did not center on Daria.Now, it did. But earlier, it hadn’t. And tomorrow, the next tomorrow, and every day thereafter he’d be in the arms of a woman who matched him in beauty and in charm.
And he is going to break your heart when he does, Daria Kearsley.
Somehow, she found the will-power to stop. “Do you refer to all your lovers as ‘little raven’?”
Chapter 15
Warning bells went off.
Big ones.
Thunderous ones.
Not the lightly lilting sort, but the grave, ominous toll of the seventeen-ton chiming bell at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
For he recognized his wife’s tone; it was one that bordered on peeved and pain and usually preceded the moment he ended it with a paramour—and just in time.
The rub of it was, a chap couldn’t just go about cutting one’s wife off. At least, not completely. At that, when one’s wife was still one’s bride. And even more so, when one was aching to get himself inside the lady’s tight channel.
Stepping with great care, he used his tongue and teeth to make tender love to her neck.
“You are my only little raven,” he said silkily, knowing what she wanted to hear. It was what all women wanted to believe—they were the only one. Let her have this for tonight.
That way, they could both get what they wanted from one another.
“Do you assign different animals befitting the lady’s appearance or temperament?”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. “Do you truly want to talk about my relationship with other women on our wedding night, Daria?” he asked impatiently. “Do you want to know what I call my lovers?”
