CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
Leowanted Beth with a ferocity that should scare him. After Harriet, he’d vowed to never allow another woman to make him vulnerable, but somehow this one had slipped under his guard and done just that.
“I want you, Beth. Very much.” He bent to kiss the full flesh above her bodice; her answer was to shiver. “You must promise to tell me if anything I do scares you.”
“I will.”
There would be no going back from this point, Leo realized as he brushed his lips over hers. She was his now, as he was hers. Surprisingly, these thoughts gave him only pleasure.
Easing her bodice lower, he touched his lips to the sweet-smelling slope of one breast. Her fingers went to his nape, and just that small contact had his body tightening. Tugging the bodice lower, Leo bared her lush breasts.
“Are you all right?” He made himself drag his eyes from what he had exposed to look at her.
“Oh yes,” she whispered. “Don’t stop, Leo.”
He licked his way down one slope and up the other, until he felt her arch again; only then did he take her nipple into his mouth.
“Leo.” Just one deep, throaty word. The name he’d used since birth, but the sensual tone Beth used made his head spin.
He continued to torment her breasts until her breathing grew rapid; only then did Leo slide a hand under her skirts. Stroking her leg through her stocking, he raised the hem as his fingers climbed higher.
“Do you want more, Beth?”
“Yessss!”
The word was a demand, her eyes clear of fear, but filled with sensual heat.
He circled her thigh and moved inward to touch the soft curls between her legs. Stroking them, he moved down, and caressed the soft, damp petals.
“Kiss me, Beth.”
She did. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she took everything he gave her and more. Their kisses grew heated as he felt her body tense. Pushing a finger slowly inside her wet heat, he was rewarded with another shudder. He continued to thrust in and out, then used his thumb to rub the small, hard bud between her thighs, and she came apart in his arms.
Leo kissed her until the last shudder had eased, and then simply held her against him while she recovered.
“Leo?”
“Sssh, it’s all right, Beth.” He kissed her softly.
“I-I have never wanted to touch a man before you.” Her finger stroked his cheek, and began to map his features. “But now, I dearly wish to touch you.”
His body reacted to her words, but he did not follow through with the urge.
“Now is not the time for that. Now was for you.”
She sat upright on his thighs, her lovely bottom pressing into his groin and causing him a great deal of discomfort. Her hair had come down, and her exquisite breasts were exposed, nipples hard from his touch. She looked like a bloody siren, and nothing like the uptight society woman he had once believed he knew.
“But what about you? Surely you need release? Even one as inexperienced as I knows that.”
“No, that can’t happen.” He pulled up her bodice, then lifted her off him and attempted to lower her onto the opposite seat. She, however, had other ideas, and lifted her skirts, and climbed right back on, making his eyes cross, as now she was straddling his thighs. “I have experienced it before,” he added. Of course he knew right then and there that with Beth it would be different.
“I understand you are concerned for me, Leo, and that after what I told you, you believe me fragile. For so long I was, but lately, with you, I’ve realized I am different now. I allowed him to instill fear in me for too long. Allowed him to force me into hiding. But no more. What we just did was beyond words. Is it wrong to want more, and for you to experience that also?”
She touched his lips with a finger, tracing the tight line he had them pressed into.
“Surely you can see I am all right. In fact, I believe I am better than all right.” She gave him a small smile, which to his mind was just a touch wicked. “I wish to experience it all.”
“No!”Hell no.He tried to remove her, but she simply wrapped her arms around his neck and held on. “Beth, let go, this... we can’t do that.”
