Page 25 of A Scandal Before Christmas
A storm had come.
And Theodore was the lightning.
* * *
Lauren drifted down in a pleasant,hazy fog of awareness.
Theodore still knelt between her thighs, nuzzling her skin, kissing the mound of her womanhood with tender attentiveness. His fingers no longer gripped her so harshly but now coasted over her. Skimming the soft, white flesh of her belly, tracing the lines of her flanks and the quivering expanse of her outer thighs. Sliding his hands to the inside of her legs, he pushed them to spread even wider.
At the stretch of her muscles, Lauren lifted her head, meeting his eyes over the plane of her flat stomach. While his glittered with a mixture of desire and regret, she did not see any indication he would go further than he already had. Disappointment edged away her satisfaction at the realization.
“You should stop me now, Lauren.”
The words whispered across her skin where his mouth pressed. Each breath was a little spark from a bigger fire. Each caress a flame waiting to be reignited. Each kiss a promise he could burn her alive again and again, and she would beg him not to stop.
“Why?”
Lust flashed in the blue depths of his gaze at her question. He did not look away as he nipped her hipbone before answering.
“Because soon, I won’t be able to stop. Push me away, Lauren, before I do something irrevocable. I don’t have the willpower, you see. Not with you.” His smile was sad. Lopsided. “I never do with you.”
“You haven’t any mistletoe,” she said. “No justification.”
“It doesn’t matter. I won’t need it. Now, push me away.” Even as he harshly instructed her, his fingers were spreading her open again, preparing her for the lush sinfulness of his mouth.
“I—I cannot,” Lauren groaned as he thrust two fingers inside her. Hot and probing, his tongue darted out, lapping up the evidence of her arousal. “Theodore, please. Don’t stop.”
Oh, what was wrong with her that she was eagerly accepting of this? So hungry for him? So desperate for his touch? He had turned her world upside down. Everything was topsy-turvy. To the point she would give him every shilling of her obscenely massive inheritance. “I cannot deny you.”
“Lauren, I’m begging you…” His words were frantic, muttered between licks of her flesh. “Send me away!”
Still fully dressed in afternoon attire, although minus his coat, Lauren dazedly supposed Theodore resembled some sort of ravaging beast hovering over his prey. How pale she must appear in comparison, her nudity in stark contrast to his dark clothing. She couldn’t send him away. Not when he was so hungry for her and she for him.
With customary stubbornness, Lauren shook her head, clutching handfuls of his hair so she could hold him harder against her. Theodore cursed something unintelligible, the heat of his breath searing her flesh.
“Then I will take what is mine, and before I make love to you, I will taste your sweetness once more on my lips.” He suckled the sensitive bud between his teeth and gently bit down while thrusting his fingers upward in a curling motion.
Ecstasy, sharp and sweetly exquisite, loomed on the horizon. But this was different from before. This robbed Lauren of breath. Of sanity. Of any resistance.
When Theodore did it again, she quivered in obedient response.
Captured and held prisoner on the precipice of something dangerously, wondrously addictive.
“Theo…” His name escaped her in a helpless, keening cry of pleasure. An answering low growl of satisfaction emanated from Theodore.
BOOM!
It’s my heart. Exploding. Can Theodore hear it? He must, for it’s so loud… like thunder.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“Lady Lauren? Are you there? I must speak with you at once. It is imperative.”
A man’s voice penetrated Lauren’s haze of desire, punctuated by someone’s fists pounding the door to her rooms. The swelling inside her caught and held, trembling, waiting to be pushed over the edge or allowed to recede. It only needed another thrust of Theodore’s fingers, a bite from his sharp teeth, and she’d be flung over the stars and back. Flying without wings.
“What the bloody hell…” Theodore hissed. Lifting his head, he glared in the direction of the door then back to Lauren. His fingers remained curled inside her but had gone motionless now. “Goddamn Sanderson. I will murder the fool before all is said and done.”
“Sanderson?” Lauren repeated, blinking rather stupidly.
