His tongue angled upward, to the little knot that throbbed with her heartbeat. His lips fastened, sucking gently. Her head flung back as the crisis hit. Pulse after pulse of pure delight, like nothing she'd known before. Before she could recover, she felt a shocking stretch... his finger. He pushed gently past the initial resistance of her entrance. They both groaned as her muscles softened, then clutched the exciting penetration.
"You're so tight," he rasped. His forehead had a sheen of sweat. "Devil and damn, you're pulling me in deeper. So sweet." His chest heaved, the primal look in his eyes inciting her more, making her passage slicker. "You can take more, can't you?"
"Yes,more..."
She moaned as he began to pump with a firm, steady motion. Her pelvis lifted to greet each thrust. He went deeper and deeper with each pass, his rhythm and pressure driving her frantic with need. As his fingers played inside her, his palm slapped wetly against the sensitive peak of her mound, sending sparks across her vision. Just when she thought she could endure no more, he lowered his head once more.
"Again," he said.
She screamed as waves of shocking heat passed over her, through her.Too much, never like this…Tides of bone-melting sweetness carried her away.
* * *
Heart thundering, Ambrose wiped a damp tendril from Marianne's love-flushed cheek. She drowsed, worn out by the climaxes he'd given her. His chest inflated with pride. By God, her pleasure had been magnificent… and he had the damp smalls to prove it. Damn, that had never happened to him before, but the way her passage had squeezed his fingers, her juices raining so sweetly upon his tongue… he exhaled as his cock hardened once more.
Her passion had been mind-blowing in more ways than one. He could scarcely credit what he'd discovered. What she'd kept carefully hidden beneath that jaded facade of hers.
The infamous Baroness Draven was a relative novice to lovemaking.
Her past lovers had done a shoddy job of things. In retrospect, Ambrose didn't think there could have been all that many, given her dazed response to her own pleasure as well as the tightness of her heat around his fingers. Even as his blood thickened with arousal, his jaw tautened at the thought of other men touching Marianne. She deserved better than careless intercourse. She deserved a man who would take care of her needs, who had the patience to chip through those layers of ice to reach the hot-blooded and vulnerable woman within.
What Marianne needed was a lover she could trust.
His breath came harshly into his lungs as she mumbled in her sleep, her lips burrowing into his open collar. Lust climbed in his veins, and he couldn't keep his hand from cupping the sweet curve of her breast. Even in sleep, she responded to him, her rosy nipple puckering, her soft sigh heating his skin. The instinct to take her, to free his erection from his trousers and bury himself in her lush pussy was nearly overwhelming.
But he didn't. Because as of this moment, he wasn't deserving of her trust.
Her earlier words rang in his head.Does that make you different from any other man who has tried to manipulate me?Who had tried to hurt her? What travails had she suffered? Despite all he didn't know about her, he knew this: Marianne Draven was not the scandalous, heartless sophisticate she appeared to be. She had secrets for certain, but she was no bloody anarchist. When Ambrose had asked her about her involvement in matters of crown and country, he'd seen the honest confusion in her eyes. She hadn't been lying when she said her interest in Leach was personal.
Early on, he'd sensed her hidden pain. It had called to him, and now he could no longer deny his desire to protect her. He would help her with her troubles—which meant he must take care of another matter first.
With self-control he didn't know he possessed, he extricated himself from her silken limbs. He tucked the coverlet over her glorious form. After one last look, he gathered his things and left.
17
Marianne awakened,blinking groggily as the peach walls of her bedchamber came into focus. Lud, she must have had a deep slumber for she felt better rested than she had for years. Yawning, she stretched, and the movement elicited an unfamiliar twinge between her thighs. Memory jolted through her, her lungs emptying in a whoosh as several facts hit her at once.
Good God. Leach is dead, and I have three suspects for Rosie's kidnapping.
And last night I let Kent…
The intimacies that she'd allowed brought a rush of heat to her cheeks and her belly. She'd never done such things with Thomas. Yet Kent had a way of laying waste to her defenses, to culling forth her deepest desires. She ought to know better than to trust any man, and yet there was something so damnablytrustworthyabout him. He'd saved her twice. Took a bullet the first time and risked his neck hauling her over the rooftops the second.
Why had he protected her time and again?
Her face grew hotter as another fact struck her: after Kent had pleasured her, he hadn't… taken anything in return. She believed in even exchanges, and given the sum of what had passed between them, he'd had every right to demand some form ofquid pro quo. Yet after his heroics—not to mention the two mind-melting climaxes he'd given her—he'd disappeared... without so much as aby your leave?
What in blazes was the matter with the man?
Frowning, she tossed aside the covers and pulled on a silk wrapper. She went to examine herself in the Cheval looking glass. She looked the same as ever—perhaps better, with a new glow upon her cheekbones and her eyes bright and rested. All her adult life, she'd never questioned her physical desirability to the male sex. Surely Kent was no different from other men in this respect. Surely he hadwantedto make love to her. Surely he had found her desirable… hadn't he?
Dash it all, I'm feeling insecure overAmbrose Kent?
Ridiculous. Jaw tight, she told herself it was only because she didn't like unpredictability. Kent acted unlike any man she'd known. No male could truly be as earnest and upstanding as this one appeared to be. With a sudden shiver, she wondered if he would have acted so chivalrously if he had seen Leach's dead body. When he heard news of the solicitor's death—and she had no doubt he soon would—would he assume that she had something to do with it? Would he go to the authorities? Or would he hold his silence?
Anxiety buzzed; she calmed herself with the fact that Kent could not report his presence to the magistrates without incriminating himself. How would it look for a Principle Surveyor of the Thames River Police to be lurking at the victim's property? And then to aid the escape of two suspects… and to make love to one of them afterward?
At this point, Kent's hands would appear as dirty as her own.
