Page 20 of Too Wicked for Heaven

Suddenly, she felt him shove her gown and petticoats down over her hips, leaving her wearing only her corset and shift. And feeling strangely naked.

With a shyness she couldn’t help, she stepped backward, out of her clothes and away from him. He kicked them aside, then halted, his eyes hot on her, as if he waited for her to back farther away and prove that all her passionate words were lies.

As she met his uncertain gaze, she forced herself to speak boldly and move back to him. “Shouldn’t you take off your clothes, too? I-I want to see you in the flesh.”

Surprise flickered over his face before he relaxed and gave a low, wicked chuckle. “Do you now? And which part of me do you wish to see first?”

With trembling hands, she took hold of his shirt, undoing the ties. At first, she could barely manage them, but as she bared more and more of his chest, a hunger built in her to see the body she’d only envisioned in her dreams. His breathing grew heavy as she pulled the shirt off of him, exposing him from his wide shoulders to his waist. Then she trailed her hands over his naked chest with its sprigs of dark hair sprinkled generously over an expanse of taut, well-knit sinews, and her heart pounded with anticipation.

She’d never seen a man’s nude body before. And all her half-formed, innocent imaginings hadn’t prepared her for the pleasures of it. She’d never dreamed it could be so thrilling to touch the skin raspy with hair or to feel every tightening and undulation of muscle beneath it. But when she reached the waistband of his breeches, she paused, her throat going dry as a sudden embarrassment assailed her.

“Don’t stop there,” he said hoarsely as he took her hands and pressed them to his buttons. “Don’t you want to see for yourself if the old wives’ tale is true?”

It took her a moment to remember what he meant. Then she blushed furiously. But she couldn’t deny that she’d wondered about that part of him even before he’d told her the ridiculous tale about a man’s size. Even before she’d noticed how long his fingers were.

The very thought made her tremble. With shaky hands, she worked the first buttons loose, but it took her so long that he brushed her hands aside before undoing the rest and yanking his breeches and his drawers down, then stepping out of them.

To her utter mortification, all she could do was gawk at him, her curiosity getting the better of her. He seemed to grow before her eyes, the sleek member thickening in a way that fascinated her.

She reached out to touch him, but he caught her hand. “If you touch me there, I fear you’ll find yourself still a virgin in the morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind. Turn around.”

She did as he asked, thinking he was embarrassed to be seen by her. Then she felt his hands at her corset, loosening her laces, and she knew that wasn’t it at all.

He dragged the corset off with a new urgency, burying his face in her neck with a groan. Slowly he swept his hands up from behind to clasp her muslin-covered breasts, to rub them with the heels of his palms, making a pleasurable ache erupt in her belly and radiate outward in ever warmer circles.

“You’re not like any other woman I’ve ever known,” he whispered in her ear. “Did you know that?”

“Is that good? Would you rather I was more . . . sophisticated or⁠—”

“God, no.” He swept her hair aside to plant kisses over the place where her neck joined her shoulders. “You’re perfect as you are.” He lifted his hands to draw her shift off her shoulders, dropping soft kisses on every inch of skin he bared as he slid her shift down with a sensuous stealth that had her blood racing.

When he’d moved her shift past her hips, he let it slither to the floor in a whisper. She could feel his breath move down her body, and when he turned her to face him, she found him on one knee, looking up at her with that crooked dimple as he added, “Absolutely perfect.”

With a shy smile, she rested her hands on his shoulders. Swiftly he untied her garter and slid the stocking down. It unnerved her, having him kneel at her feet, his face so close to a part of her no man had ever seen. And when he drew her stocking off, only to plant a warm kiss on her inner thigh, she dug her fingers reflexively into his shoulder.

“Nev?”

“Yes, darling?” he whispered as he removed the other stocking.

“This is . . . very embarrassing.”

He kissed her other thigh, much higher up and closer to the thatch of hair between her legs. “Is it?” Then his fingers actually parted the hair down there.

Her ability to breathe seemed to have disappeared entirely. “V-Very much s-so,” she stammered, but anything further she might have said was cut off by her gasp when his tongue darted out to caress her in the most intimate way she could imagine.

“Neville!” she exclaimed, meaning it for a protest. Instead it came out like an enticement to go further.

And he took it as such. He buried his face between her legs, kissing the delicate folds that his fingers had unveiled. His hands gripped her hips and held her against his hot mouth as his kisses grew bolder.

She melted. If he hadn’t been clasping her so tightly, she would have collapsed right there. His tongue found the little bud nestled in her petals of skin and flicked over it like the licking flames of the hearth fire. With a cry, she squirmed against him, wanting more, wanting less, wanting it all and not knowing how to get it. The longer his mouth caressed her, the more heat pulsed through her, sparking wanton fires.

She could feel the heat everywhere, in her breasts, her belly, even her throat. The heat drove out the chill of the night air until she felt like coals being stoked higher and higher, coming nearer to bursting into flames with each moment. And when he suddenly drove his tongue inside her, she clutched his head tight as the urge to be engulfed by the blaze grew stronger.

“Oh, Nev . . . yes . . . yes . . .”