“Do you trust your maid and cook? They will tell no one?” He knew his own men wouldn’t dare breathe a word.
She nodded. “They will keep my secrets.”
He licked his lips, his heart thundering. “Even so, you must try to be silent.”
“I understand.” And when he still didn’t move, she huffed out a breath. “Do you intend to talk about it all night long? Or shall we—”
She spoke no more because he was already kissing her.
Chapter Twenty
Diana loved hiskisses. She loved the way he looked at her—all brooding intensity—but when she finally broke his reserve enough to let the passion free? Well, then every caress, every taste, every second, was filled with his hunger for her.Her!She fought daily for every scrap of respect from her world. His complete adoration was intoxicating. She didn’t have to gauge her words with him. She didn’t have to moderate her emotions or calculate her actions. She simply felt and responded without consequence, and in that freedom, she found her own bliss.
It started with a kiss. Quick and sure, he caught her body and her mouth in the exact same instant. She tensed in surprise, but that didn’t last long. As he thrust into her mouth, she arched into his arms. Then he explored her lips, her tongue, and her teeth with the thoroughness of a man intent on leaving no part of her untouched.
She allowed it. She gloried in it. And then she grew bold enough to touch him back. She gripped his back muscles that bulged with strength and stroked her fingers across the curve of his bottom. She had no fear of hurting him no matter how wild her passions. More, she trusted him to keep her safe within the confines of his shelter.
His clothes frustrated her, so she pushed at them, worming her hands between buttons and beneath fabric. He let her strip away his shirt, but he demanded more as he pushed her dressing gown off her shoulders, then gripped the bottom of her nightrail. He drew it off her in a single sweeping movement. She emerged from the volume of fabric with a gasp, then shook her hair away from her face. It was already wild, and she pulled out the tie so that not even her braid would restrain her.
He helped her, running his hands through her hair to loosen the plait. His gaze was rapt, and she smiled as she watched him. No one had ever looked at her as he did. No one thought even her wild curls worthy of anything more than a passing glance.
And while he stroked his hands through her hair, she let her fingers explore his broad shoulders and chest. She saw scars there. A small c-shaped cut near his collarbone, another jagged rip below his right nipple. The more she looked, the more she saw other signs of damage. And she touched every one, including the most obvious one along his face near his ear.
“So many hurts,” she whispered.
He turned his head enough to press a kiss into her palm. “I was hurt badly at Waterloo. Most of these are from there.”
His words didn’t come close to describing the damage suggested by every single mark on his body. She’d known about his hand, of course, and the scar on his face. But all of this? There was no part of his body untouched. “I can’t believe you survived all this.”
“Cuts heal,” he said as he lifted her face until they locked gazes. “I don’t even notice the scars anymore.”
She grabbed his maimed hand and pulled it to her mouth. “I see only you,” she said and pressed her lips into his palm. “And every part of you is glorious.”
She meant it, but he didn’t seem to hear it. Instead, he trailed his mouth along the curve of her neck. He nipped at her shoulders as he stroked his free hand down her back. She arched, letting him support her as she stretched herself along his body.
“It’s the fever that saved me,” he said.
She was so absorbed in how easily he held her that she didn’t at first hear his words. And when she did, they didn’t make sense. “That cannot be,” she said as he gently set her down on the bed. He came with her because she would not release him. And as he pressed his forearm into the mattress beside her head, she took his mouth, tasting him as he had her.
He let her, he opened for her, but only for a little bit. All too soon, he broke from her hold to look at her as he stroked her face, her hair, and even the curve of her ear.
“I had fever dreams of you just like this. So beautiful in my arms. Your hair spread out around you.” His gaze followed the curls that he coiled around his fingers. “I dreamed about your face and about your body.” He smiled. “Such things we did in France.”
She stroked across his jaw. “I am no imaginary woman,” she said. And to prove it, she pulled him down for another kiss. She tempted him as much as she knew how. She thrust into his mouth, she dug her fingers into his shoulders, and she did all the things she’d never dared before. She took what she wanted and demanded his response.
He was more than up to the challenge. While she possessed his mouth, his hands began to stroke her breasts. He began gently, but as she reacted, pushing herself against him, he grew bolder. He kneaded her flesh and pinched her nipples. And when their mouths separated to breathe, he moved lower on her body until he could take her nipple into his mouth. Soon sensation overwhelmed her, and she moaned with need.
He took his time while she writhed. He was stronger, heavier, and very sure of himself as he played with her breasts. And it was playing for him, she abruptly realized, because when he lifted up to look at her, his face was pulled into a wolfish grin. He loved it when she had so little control of her body.
She wanted to say something. She wanted to ask, “What happens now?” Because already, this was so much more than anything she had ever experienced. But she had no breath, and she doubted he would answer anyway. Instead, he reached above her head and grabbed a pillow. When she frowned at him, he gently pressed it into her hand.
“Use this when it becomes too much.”
“What?” she asked, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he moved down her body, pressing kisses onto the underside of her breast, her belly, and then to the junction between thigh and hip. She felt his hands stroke down her sides to cup her bottom. And then he slid lower—down the backs of her thighs—until he gripped just above the backs of her knees.
His mouth was already at an intimate place, and she was more than willing to accept his cock. Indeed, she wanted to feel the fullness of him stretch her. There would be such strength in his thrust.
He pulled her legs wide, but it wasn’t his cock that found her entrance. It was his mouth and tongue. This was no blunt object ramming into her, but a dance that probed into her, stroked her, then teased and sucked while he shredded her composure. Never had she felt such things. Never had she realized how electric her body could feel. How sensations could pile one on top of the other while her belly coiled and her breath caught.
