Mark advanced on her. The determined set of his jaw and the heat in his eyes sent her pulse thrumming. He ripped his shirt from his shoulders and tossed it to the floor.
He backed her up to the wall behind the bed, his lips hovering a mere inch over hers, his hands pressed against the wall above both of her shoulders, caging her in with desire radiating heat from his body. He was so close to her. Could he see her heartbeat jumping beneath her breast?
“Are you certain this is what you want?” he asked, his tone even.
“I’ve never been more certain,” she breathed.
Apparently, that was all Mark needed. One hand moved down to cup her jaw, while his mouth captured hers. The second their tongues met she wrapped her arms fiercely around his neck. It felt so good, his strong, unyielding body pressed to hers, to drink in the taste of him, to let her mouth soften beneath his. The feel of his hands on her was so right. Like coming home again. She hadn’t experienced this sort of passion since she’d left England and she’d doubted she ever would again. She had to enjoy however many nights they spent together. Enjoy them and remember them forever.
He reached down and pulled up her shift to her hips in one swift, sure movement. He was as desperate as shewas as they both ripped at the fall to his breeches. The moment he was free, he pushed boldly between her legs, so caught up in his passion that he didn’t measure her readiness, but it didn’t matter because she was more than ready for him.
He slid into her to the hilt and she sobbed, while he released a shuddering sigh. They stilled for a moment in their frantic squirming to get closer, each absorbing the unbelievable fact that their bodies still fit as perfectly as they used to. Then she tilted back her head and he rained kisses down the slim column of her throat. God, the way he filled her, the grasp of his hands on her hips, holding her tight. It had been too long. She’d missed it. She’d missed him. She wrapped her arms around the solidness of his shoulders, breathing in his heady scent as he slammed into her again and again, making her cry out in ecstasy.
***
Mark clapped one hand to Nicole’s backside to keep her pressed tight. The other hand he braced on the wall behind her head—partly so her skull wouldn’t hit the wall, and partly to hold himself upright, to keep his knees from giving way. Damn. He hadn’t meant for their first time in years to happen like this. He’d planned to woo her, undress her slowly, take her to bed leisurely and make her call out his name, make her cry out for him. But here they were—she was making maddeningly seductive noises in the back of her throat, and he was pounding into her like a rutting stag. And he couldn’t stop. The moment he touched her skin, smelled the lavender essence of her hair, felt the softness of her bottom lip against his tongue, he couldn’t stop himself. Hehadn’t touched a woman this way in ten years, and the fact that he was touching the one who’d haunted his dreams since then made it all the more torturous. He couldn’t get enough. If she wanted him to go more slowly, she didn’t indicate it. Instead, her arms had a near stranglehold on his neck and she was all but eating him alive, her teeth biting at his shoulder, sweet stings of pain and pleasure that sent lust barreling through him. He clenched his jaw. God, he wanted to make this last, wanted to make her come first, but he couldn’t. He was too far gone, too mindless with passion. “Sweetheart, it’s been too long. I can’t stop,” he whispered into her ear.
***
Nicole had never heard anything more erotic than Mark declaring surrender. God help her, she didn’t want him to stop. It had been too long for her too, far too long. With every hammering thrust he made, she met him with equal force, her legs leaving the floor to encircle his lean hips, his frantic movements sliding her back against the wall until she thought her flesh might burst into flame from the agony of friction and need. Of course it would be like this between them—just as it always had. Fire and ice, pain and pleasure.
She didn’t want to hope that when he said it had been too long, that meant he hadn’t been with anyone else in all these years. No doubt he only meant it had been too long withouther… but she wasn’t about to dwell on that while he was pounding into her.
“It’s all right,” she panted into his ear. “Come.”
His hands tightened on her hips. His mouth moved back to hers, ravaging, demanding. He pumped into heronce, twice, three times more and stilled. His big body tensed and shook, then trembled in the circle of her embrace as the warmth of his seed spilled within her. His mouth gentled on her, his kiss replaced by the hard rush of his breathing. His hands slipped away from her legs and he gulped in air, pressing his forehead against hers, hard.
“Damn,” he murmured against her swollen mouth. “I did not mean for it to happen like that.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed it,” Nicole replied, her arms and legs still wrapped around him.
He picked her up and carried her to the bed, where he gently disengaged from her embrace and laid her there, her shift still wadded above her hips. He took a moment to drink in the disheveled, thoroughly ravaged sight of her. “God, I want to rip that thing off you,” he breathed.
“Do it,” she taunted. “But first, take off your breeches.”
Mark glanced down. He’d been so ravenous for her, he was still wearing his breeches. They’d merely been pushed down below his hips. Such bad form.
He sat on the bed and pulled off his breeches. By the time he turned back around, Nicole had pulled her shift over her head and was sitting up on her knees, completely nude. His eyes scoured her body, her breasts, her slightly rounded belly, her thighs. She was as beautiful as ever. More so.
He crawled toward her and plunged his hands into the thick, rich depths of her silky hair. “God, you’re gorgeous.” He captured her mouth again in a long, drugging kiss.
“I’m glad you still think so,” she murmured against his lips.
“Are you mad?” His mouth found a sensitive spot on the side of her neck and he gave it a gentle bite. “Of course I think so.”
“You’re looking quite fine yourself.” She tried to laugh, but the sound was abruptly cut short as he pulled her beneath him and covered her with his hard, nude body.
“I want you again,” he breathed into her ear, already pushing her knees apart with one strong leg.
“Yes,” she whispered, closing her eyes.
“I’m going to make you come so hard you call my name.” His lips glanced over her ear and breathed heat into its shell, making Nicole shiver in ecstasy.
“Is that a challenge?” she asked, trying to keep her wits about her and failing pleasurably as Mark’s hand slid down between her thighs to play with her most intimate spot.
“No,” he growled into her ear, “it’s a promise.”
He knew her body, knew exactly where to touch. His hand found the nub of her pleasure swiftly, as if ten years hadn’t passed. His thumb flicked across it again and again while Nicole squirmed and ran her fingers through his silky dark hair. She’d wanted to touch him this way ever since she’d seen him sitting in her drawing room in France, taunting her. And oh did the man know how to taunt. His thumb left her and she cried out in protest.
