Page 545 of From Rakes to Riches

He grabbed the shirt and lifted it over her head, her ivory body made golden by flickering candlelight. And her nipples…

As he’d imagined them.Rosy.

He couldn’t resist a lick and a suckle, and a little nip too.

How well she’d hidden her true self away, he couldn’t help marveling. For this woman was nothing less than a beauty without flaw.

How had he not seen her?

Sometimes with a person, we only see what we expect to see, and not what’s really there…

And he was tupping this beauty on a table.

Which was no way to conduct himself the first time.

Firsttime?

That implied anexttime…

He was getting ahead of himself.

There was only now—thistime.

He would make it count.

Perhaps, then, she would beg him for a second time.

Or, suggested a small voice, would it behimbeggingher?

He wasn’t sure he was above it.

His mouth met her ear. “Hold on tight.”

Her long legs tightened around his waist and her arms twined about his neck, bringing him deeper into her, her nipples tight buds against his chest. He lifted her off the table—but not offhim—as he carried her to the bed, laying her onto the ivory silk coverlet, her red-gold curls tossed about her. Lust-glazed eyes stared into his as he planted one hand to the side of her head and hovered just above her. She gave a little thrust of her hips, then another, taking him in and out of her. His mouth found her neck and his hand cupped her breast as he thrust and joined the rhythm.

“You feel so—oh—so good,” she groaned, her head arched back as she spread her legs wider to receive more of him.

If she wanted more, he could give it.

His strokes became more focused—demanding. “That other climax was only prelude,” he promised as he pushed into her—hard—her hips meeting his stroke for stroke in a give and take.

Her moans and groans turned into sharp, little cries, bodies, hot and sweaty, focused on the receiving of pleasure—and the giving of it. Her gaze began to turn inward, and she strained against him, mindless. She was close—and getting closer—her cunny begging him to deliver on his promise, as she bucked wildly beneath him. He took a hip in hand and slowed her rhythm, stroking in and out of her with measured deliberation.

She wanted release—and he wanted to give it to her.

But this was no cold, calculated tup, and his body had ideas of its own—like its release, which had begun to build. He’d wanted her, but somehow the abstract wanting hadn’t accounted for the reality of her. He’d had his share of women, but none had prepared him forthiswoman. The sight of her…the feel of her…the way her sighs of pleasure compelled him to give her more—to give her everything he had.

And so, he did—driving into her with a lack of restraint that her abandon demanded. Then she was on the precipice, and he met her there, gazes locked, poised on the edge until, together, they broke as one and tumbled headlong into that promised oblivion, her quim pulsing around his length. She cried out into his neck, and he shouted into her hair, the scent of lavender mingling with the musk of bodies coupling.

Explosive—that was one word for it.

Exquisite—that was another.

Unexpected—that was the best word for it.

The satiety flowing through his veins, he’d expected that.

But another feeling raced beside it—one that tapped deeper than satiated flesh.

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