Page 62 of The Lady Tempts an Heir
He couldn’t stop smiling as he peeked inside to see that it was dark and completely enclosed. “I’ve never seen a real secret passageway.”
“Then follow me.”
He felt like a freshman sneaking out of his dormitory again as he stepped into the passageway behind her. The corridor was large enough that he could walk through unimpeded, but not so wide that he could walk beside her. She took his hand, and he put his other one on her hip, unable to keep himself from touching her. The silk glided smoothly over her skin as he moved his hand up to her breast to test his theory. Only a thin layer of silk kept him from her. Her breath hitched at the touch.
“Did you tell your maid that you wanted to sleep nude tonight?”
She giggled even as she shushed him. “No, I took off my nightdress after she left,” she whispered, her breath ending on a quick exhale as he toyed with the tender bit of swollen flesh.
When she stopped a moment later, he bumped into the back of her. “Here,” she whispered, pushing open the panel that led to her room. It was far closer than he thought it would be.
“My room is only on the next corridor over, but you access it from a different set of stairs.”
He followed her inside. It was lit by a single lamp burning on the bedside table and the fire in the hearth. The room was decorated tastefully in frilly white and pale blue, clearly the selections of a young woman. “Is this your childhood bedroom?”
She nodded.
“It’s conveniently close to my bedroom.”
She flushed. “I might have had you placed in one of the eastern-facing rooms on the bachelor’s hall for a reason.”
He laughed. Her room wouldn’t have had access to the western-facing ones. “You planned this?” he asked, walking closer to her.
She had placed the extinguished candle on the table next to the lamp, so she stood there looking uncertain and alone, her hands knotting in the folds of her dressing gown. “Not precisely. I think I wanted you close to me without really understanding why. But now that I think about it, I believe this was inevitable.”
“Helena.” The very act of saying her name soothed him somehow. Her eyes widened slightly as he approached her and took her face between his palms. Her pupils were dilated, making her eyes seem so deep and bottomless he wanted to dive into her and never come up for air. He kissed her with reverence, hoping to make up for his ruthlessness earlier. Yet the moment their mouths touched it lit a torch to the heat that constantly smoldered between them, until soon the kiss burned out of control and he was all but devouring her against the wall.
She pushed at his chest, and he pulled back thinking she had changed her mind, but she was trying to push his dressing gown off his shoulders. He helped her, untying the belt to let it drop to the floor in a heap.
“I want to see all of you tonight,” she said.
Her words burned through him like a wildfire.
“All right.” His hands went to the waist of the drawers he wore as she slipped out of her own dressing gown and crawled into the curtained bed, each lush curve put on display as the light flickered over them lovingly. He was still in that position when she turned back to him, having been rendered immobile by the sight of her. Her pink-tipped breasts rose and fell with each of her breaths. “My God, you’re beautiful.”
She smiled, not looking nearly as lost now as she slipped her legs beneath the covers, hiding the glimpse he’d had of dark gold curls between her legs, and settled back against the pillows. Stepping out of his slippers, he pushed his drawers down and watched as her gaze greedily soaked in the sight of him. Her eyes widened as he took his erection in hand and squeezed slightly to alleviate the pressure. He’d wanted her too long.
She didn’t protest when he pulled the blanket down so he could see her.
“You’re even more beautiful than I remembered.” That night in her drawing room had been hasty and impulsive. Tonight he planned to take his time with her.
She watched with parted lips as he climbed up from the foot of the bed, letting his tongue and his lips taste her on the way up. He had one goal in mind as he moved up her body and pressed a kiss to the nest of curls at the apex of her thighs. He’d bet anything that her husband had never kissed her there. He paused, breathing in the scent of her desire for him. “I said I wanted to taste every inch of you.”
Her eyes widened even more if that was possible. “There?” she whispered, too shocked to say anything else.
“Has no one ever kissed you between your pretty thighs, Helena?”
“No.” She visibly swallowed, but then a smile hovered around the corners of her mouth. “Max, no.” She bit her lip as she contemplated what he wanted, as if she’d never before considered it.
He grinned at how scandalized and intrigued she looked, the threads of her ladylike demeanor fraying. He pressed a soft kiss to her left thigh and then her right, nipping her softly in encouragement. In response she spread her legs a little. He ran the tip of his index finger down the slit that was revealed to him, playing in the slick heat of her need, and drawing it up to ease his way as he circled her clitoris. “I want to lick you and suck you until you come, but you have to tell me that’s what you want first.”
Her eyes widened as did the space between her thighs. Half in shock, half out of her mind with need, she nodded. “Yes, please, yes.”
He groaned in satisfaction as he settled between her thighs and licked at her with the tip of his tongue. He’d been prepared to go home never having this closeness with her again, but here she was making his every wish come true. She cried out, her fingers tightening almost painfully in his hair to hold him to her as he sucked her swollen clitoris into his mouth. Satisfaction crashed over him in waves at the way she writhed beneath him, drunk on the combined power of tasting her desire for him and knowing that no man had ever had her this way.
When her hips moved of their own accord to the rhythm of his tongue, he tenderly pushed a finger inside her. Her body grasped at him, and he pressed a second one in to join the first, curling them upward to find that rough bit of flesh that made her body jolt when he rubbed it.
The sound of his name on her lips filled his ears, and he didn’t care if anyone heard her. She was his and he was hers and he wanted everyone to know it. It wasn’t long before her cries reached a more frantic pitch, and then she was coming, her sweet passage clasping at his fingers as she trembled.
