“Please,” she whispered, uncertain what it was she was asking for, but needing it more than she’d ever needed anything. Oh, she knew what she was doing was imprudent. She should step away and step back and tell him to leave.
But she didn’t want him to leave. She wanted to him erase the past, or at least dull it a fraction with his touch. So prudence be damned.
He licked his lips and she shivered at the heated focus of his stare. “I’m going to lift your skirts, Elizabeth,” he whispered. “It will be better if you’re…bared to me. I can make it so much better.”
She swallowed. This felt like another point of no return. And yet she nodded and he seemed relieved as he caught the hem of her pretty dress and pushed it up gently. His hands stroked her calves through her stitched stockings, her knee, her thigh. She writhed beneath those gentle touches, shocked by how much they moved her. He moved her.
At last he bunched her dress against her stomach. She was wearing drawers, so he untied the little ribbon at her waist and tugged them away. She was bared to him. Shockingly naked to his gaze.
And gaze he did, those dark eyes trailing over her in a way no other man’s ever had. Probably ever would, considering her criteria for a future marriage was one that didn’t include these pleasures.
“Good God, Elizabeth.” His voice shook. “You are so gorgeous.”
She blinked at the raw tone of his voice, how rough it was. Almost as if he were trying to keep himself under control, in check. But that couldn’t be, could it? Men didn’t lose themselves around her, especially men with an untamed past like Morgan Banfield.
And yet as he leaned in and brushed his fingers inside her inner thighs, he looked restrained, his expression taut. Like a coiled spring ready to pop free. She wanted to know what would happen if that occurred.
But she couldn’t ponder it long, because her mind emptied of all thought when his fingers brushed the apex of her thighs. It was gentle, hardly more than a graze, but the stroke of it had her catching her breath, arching her back, as heat arced through her.
“Morgan,” she murmured.
He nodded, as if she’d asked a question. As if he had the answer. Perhaps both were true. In this unspoken language of desire, he was the master, she the student, even if that had never been her intention this night.
He touched her again, this time settling the palm of his hand flush against her. He was warm, his touch firm. She felt a strong urge to move against him, but no ability to know how. He didn’t make her find out. He moved instead, grinding up against her with the heel of his palm.
She dipped her head back. What was that sensation? Great God, but it was intense. Like someone had jolted all the nerves between her legs to life at once and now they crackled with pleasure. He pushed against her again, murmuring encouragement as she gripped her hands into the settee cushion.
“Just a little more,” he whispered as he leaned in to kiss her.
She wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, deepening the kiss. His fingers stroked along her entrance, tracing her, then he was parting her folds and sliding inside her trembling sheath as if he were taking her.
Her eyes flew open, and she gasped out pleasure and surprise mixed. He remained still a moment, letting her grow accustomed to the feel of his thick finger inside of her, stretching her. When she squeezed around him, testing what it would feel like, he groaned and thrust gently. She arched at the thrilling increase of pleasure, rising to meet him as her head dipped back against the pillows.
He kept thrusting, gently taking, exploring, drowning her in sensation she’d never felt before. It was like what she’d experienced all those years ago, but different. More focused. More powerful. Less frightening and wrong.
This was not wrong. Or at least she couldn’t see it as wrong in that charged moment where every movement gave her such intense pleasure. She gripped hard against him, gasping out his name in the quiet.
She couldn’t believe anything could ever be better than this. Until she felt the sweep of his tongue against her. She jerked her head from the pillow and gazed down at him. His dark head was between her legs now, his soft beard stroking her sensitive thighs as his tongue traced her entrance.
Was this what people did? This magical, wicked thing? Or was this just special sorcery that Morgan knew and chose to share with her? She didn’t know.
To be honest, she didn’t care. She just wanted this. Her fingers dug into his hair and she clung to him, rising to meet him as his licks grew more forceful and focused on just one area of her sex, a hidden little nub of pleasure. His finger thrust in time to the licking, building her higher and higher, dragging her toward something she couldn’t name. Couldn’t express. Couldn’t understand.
But she wanted more. She reached for it ceaselessly, crying out softly in the dim parlor until at last the dam he’d built between her legs burst. Sensation jerked through her and she trembled helplessly against it. Her hips thrust, she had to cover her mouth to muffle her screams. The pleasure went on and on and on, seemingly endless as he licked her through it all.
Only when she panted, spent and weightless on the settee pillows, did he press one chaste kiss between her legs, withdraw his fingers and smooth her skirts back down over her. And she knew nothing in her world could ever be the same again.
Chapter 14
Lizzie’s world was still spinning when Morgan leaned up her body and nuzzled her neck with his mouth. His beard tickled, and she smiled as she lifted her heavy head, pulling him in to kiss her. She tasted herself on his slick lips. Sweet and heady. The taste of pleasure, and her body rippled with renewed need.
He was going to take her now. She knew that had to be next. Men didn’t give unless they were going to receive. That was based both on rumor and her own experience.
Except he withdrew from her. He smiled down at her and then helped her to her feet. She stared at him, wobbling a little as he stepped away. She blinked at him in surprise.
“Did I—did I do something wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head and appeared genuinely confused by the question. “Great God, no. That was quite something. I enjoyed every moment of that, I assure you.”
