Page 583 of From Rakes to Riches

But, oh, how her sex ached. It neededhiminside her.

He reached out and stroked her hair, weaving long, capable fingers through her curls. “Gemma, I don’t want to spend this way.”

And she understood. Just as he’d brought her to release with his mouth, she’d brought him to the brink with hers.

She shifted back and, slowly, he slipped from her mouth.

On legs trembly with desire, she came to her feet.

Over her head went her shirt, down her legs her trousers. And still he watched with his dark, inscrutable gaze as she stood bared to him, body and, perhaps, soul too.

Perhaps, in this moment, it was safe to be so.

“Gemma, you’re a beauty all the way through.”

Her gaze wanted to slide away, to elide his words—her natural response to praise. To be noticed had never been good in her world.

But she wanted to be found beautiful by this man. From his mouth it wasn’t a lie or flattery. It was the truth.

He saw her as beautiful.

He hooked a hand around her waist and tugged her forward. On instinct, she straddled his thighs and wound her arms around his neck, chest to chest, her taut nipples pressing into him, muscles unyielding.

Oh, he was all hard man, wasn’t he?

With his other hand, he positioned the crown of his shaft against her sex. Then, inch by deliberate inch, she lowered onto him, impaling herself on his thick, heavy length.

Oh, the feel of him inside her—hot…substantial…

His fingers slid around to cup her bottom, and she hooked one ankle over the other around his waist as she adjusted tothe feel ofhim. His lips on hers, she exhaled a long groan into his mouth, no doubt in her mind that she was having this man exactlyhowshe wanted him.

There was—oh—simply so much of him.

With slow intention, he began to move her on his thick length, her hips responding intuitively to the rhythm he set. A thin sheen of perspiration coated their bodies, skin flushed with it.

At the center of this act was a tenderness, but also a demand. A push and a pull. An act full of contradictions. An act so very full of all that was human—the pleasure… the pain… the want… the need… the drive… the greed—all of it in one act…

With the right person.

And as her body gave in to its very humanity—the pleasure… the pain… the want… the need… the drive… the greed—she understood this man was the right person.

A feeling began to coil in her sex—one that had been made so very familiar to her by this man. She sensed the same in him as he began to drive into her with more focused intention. Though they were two separate people with their own ideas, ambitions, and drives, in this moment, she was one with him.

She caught his gaze and held it.There. That same feeling…that connection…the vulnerability that made such connection possible.

A feeling sank deep and unfurled inside her.

One she would carry with her long after she’d left him.

A feeling that would surely break her heart in two.

But the feeling, in this moment, only amplified what their bodies were experiencing.

She felt herself begin to tense on top of him, her body making demands that felt impossible to satisfy and yet…

Greedy fingers squeezed tighter around her bottom as he drove her onto him, stroke after stroke, relentless.

“Oh, Rake,” she gasped.

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