Page 35 of Wedded to the Forbidden Duke
They were still kissing as they entered the room.
Cecilia’s head was all in a daze. She was heated all over, burning up beneath the laces of her corset, and yet all she could truly focus on was the feeling of Ian kissing her. Ian’s lips against hers. Ian’s hands running across her body.
It was as though the passion from their encounter the week prior had multiplied tenfold, turning into an all-consuming lust that was almost more than she knew what to do with. Shedidn’tknow what to do with it.
All she knew was that she wantedmore. Every fight she had had with Ian, every heated exchange, every glare…all of that had been transformed into fiery passion.
When he lowered her back to her feet, she could not bring herself to stop kissing him even for a moment. Her hands moved as if on instinct, fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. All she knew was that she wanted—needed—to be closer to him.
He dropped his lips to her jaw, kissing his way down her neck, nipping at the delicate point where neck met shoulder and collarbone, and she sighed with pleasure. He seemed to leave sparks everywhere he kissed and touched her, the heat of his lips and hands conjuring up a deeper shock beneath her skin.
“You are impossible,” he said between kisses, his voice low and rough and wanting. It made her ache just to hear the longing in his voice. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is, to be in a room with you and not have you like this? What torture it is, to look at you across a table and not have a stream of the most ungentlemanly thoughts running through my head?”
“Thoughts of me?” Cecilia asked.
It was almost unimaginable to think of, that this man—this infuriating, impossibly handsome man, with all of his wit and fire and experience—would want her in the same desperate way she craved him.
“Of course, thoughts of you,” he growled, kissing her fiercely once more. “Thoughts of all the things I want to do to you. Thoughts of what it would be like to bring you here, to my bedroom, and ravish every delightful inch of this ridiculously tempting body.”
“Tell me what you want to do to me,” she said breathlessly. “Show me. Everything. Anything.”
As he kissed her again, his hands ran down her shoulders, pushing her sleeves down to expose the delicate skin there. “I dream of kissing my way down your neck, like this,” he said, demonstrating, his lips once more setting the skin of her neck aflame so that she could not help but gasp again and tilt back her head to give him better access. “And lower, too.”
His lips reached the swell of her bosom, as did his hand. With the neckline of her dress so newly lowered, one could almost see the dusky pink of her nipples peering over the top of her corset. He reached in with one hand and cupped one, running a thumb over the peak, which sent a new jolt of pleasure through her.
“I want to hear every sound that comes from those sweetly parted lips,” he said, showering her breasts in kisses. “I want to have you begging for me before I even have you unclothed.”
“Yes,” she said, half through a moan. “Yes, Ian. Please.”
His lips curved into a smile against her skin. “I love it when you say my name like that.” He kissed her again, tasting the delicate skin. “I want to make you say my name like that again, and again. And I am going to,” he promised, “in every way I know how. And perhaps a few new ways we shall invent together. You have the kind of tempting beauty that drives a man to inspiration.”
One hand started at her ankle and ran upwards, pushing up underneath her skirt and her shift, and she could not help but let her legs fall apart, as if by instinct. His fingers trailed upwards, caressing her calf, drifting across the sensitive skin under her knee.
She shuddered when his hands reached her thighs.
“Is this all right?” he whispered into her ear, before nipping at her earlobe.
She nodded. “More,” she murmured. “I want more, Ian. Please.”
“I want to take my time with you, Cecilia.” As he kissed her neck again, so lightly as to be tormenting, his fingers brushed up against her at that most sensitive place at the apex of her thighs. “I want to make you fall apart for me the way you have made my self-control nearly fall apart.”
“That is unfair,” she breathed, her hips slightly bucking up to meet his fingers, maddeningly light against her. “It is you who has made me lose all self-control. You are the one who has made me lose my head. I was so sensible before we met—oh.”
Having apparently decided he had teased her enough, he suddenly pressed forth with slightly more pressure, precisely where she needed it.
“Oh?” he asked.
Good God, she could practicallyhearthe smirk in his voice, and all without even needing to look at him. And yet, in place of the annoyance that seeing such an expression would usually bring to her, now it only stoked the fires of her lust higher still.
“What is it you were saying, wife? I do not believe I heard you.”
Arrogant rake, she thought, though there was no real bite to the words; she was too busy focused on the dizzying pleasure his fingers were bringing her.
It was as though he knew exactly what she felt. He touched her with such dexterity, as though he knew her body almost as well as she did.
When he stopped kissing her neck and began to move down her body, she could have wept in frustration.
“Why are you stopping?” she cried out.
