His hands skimmed the back of her until they rested on her rear, which he grasped with both hands, drawing her up his leg at the same time as he nibbled on her lower lip. Feeling his fingers squeeze her soft flesh, Adelia moaned. Her skin was on fire. Indeed, lightning seemed to dance through her.
The passage of time stopped. Carelessly, feeling positively fierce, she sunk her fingers into his hair and drew his mouth back until it fully covered hers. When his tongue reentered her mouth, she gave in to impulse and sucked it, causing him to groan again. At the same time, she could feel his manhood pressing against her stomach, thrilling her with the possibilities.
When she released his hair and he lifted his head again, she looked into his eyes to discover they had gone nearly black, so large were his pupils. She shivered. He didn’t resemble the civilized viscount she knew. He appeared like a predatory warrior, and she wondered if, in some way, she looked similar.
Indeed, she wanted to drag him to the sofa and pull him down on top of her. She desperately wanted to experience the weight of his muscular body and feel his manly part pressing against her feminine one.
Lowering his head again, he pressed his firm lips to her neck. “Adelia,” he murmured, his mouth against her skin. Arching her neck, she shivered again.
How far could they go in her drawing room?
There was no one to stop her taking him to her bedchamber.Not the fictional, priggish Mrs. Gundy they all made fun of!She ought to have the strength of character to stop him herself.
When Owen’s hand cupped her breast through her gown, Adelia ignored the moral voice in her head, savoring the sensation of his thumb stroking her nipple.Dear God!
“Yes,” she said, wanting his touch on her bare skin.
He froze.
“Yes?”
“Yes,” she repeated.Anything. Whatever, as long as he would touch her again and more thoroughly.
She gasped as the room tilted. When she opened her eyes, he had lifted her in his arms and was striding to the very sofa she’d been thinking of seconds earlier.
“The door,” she said. He laid her upon the cushions and rushed away to lock it.
“And the other,” she reminded him, watching him look wildly around to spy the other entryway, usually used by servants, almost hidden between two ferns. Again, he dashed away to the far side of the long drawing room. She sat up, regaining some sense.
What was she doing?She wanted Owen Burnley in the most intimate way despite knowing it was utterly wrong in every sense.
Suddenly, he was back. Instead of throwing himself atop her, he sat down on the edge of the sofa, and she scooted back to give him room.
“Probably a good thing your room is so big and the door so far away,” he pointed out.
True. It had given her time to think, to allow the passion to give way somewhat to calm reason.Blast it all!She nodded.
“I want to take you to my home,” he confessed, running a hand through his hair.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why?” he echoed. “Because I could have you all to myself, with no threat of your butler or maid intruding and later gossiping about what they saw. I suppose at my townhouse, if someone saw you entering or exiting, your reputation would be just as ruined.”
She considered his words and asked, “Your own servants would say nothing?”
“Precisely. Once you were inside, you would be invisible as air.”
“And then what?” she asked, staring at his strong neck where she’d knocked his ascot askew.
He swallowed, and she watched hispomum Adami, or Adam’s apple as she’d heard it called, rise and fall. Oddly, she longed to put her mouth there, to kiss his throat as he had hers. Her pulse started to race again.
“I would carry you upstairs to my room and lay you upon my bed as I have here.”
She coughed, her mouth suddenly dry.
“And I would begin to strip off your clothing,” he continued, leaning forward to place a heated, open-mouthed kiss on the upper swell of her breast.
“Oh,” she breathed.
