Page 38 of The Secret Love of a Gentleman
Desire lanced through his groin. Lust. An emotion Harry spoke about, that Rob had never felt until tonight. Now he understood why it was easy to reject the flirting barmaids.
‘Caro?’
He rose, half expecting her to be a figure of his imagination. He had drunk more than usual tonight.
‘Rob.’ She came closer. ‘I could not sleep and I heard you tell the footman you would be here. Thank you.’ She gave him a smile that lifted her features beyond beauty.
A few weeks ago, he had pondered on how a smile might lift her beauty. Now she had laughed and danced, and he knew.
‘That is what I wanted to say. Thank you for helping me.’
‘It is yourself you must thank. You found the courage.’
‘But I would not have done so without your persuasion.’
Her jet-black pupils were wide, and the hazel rims glittered in the candlelight.
He stepped forward, he could not help himself. His hand lifted and self-discipline deserted him. ‘Caro.’
She stepped forward, the cotton and silk drifting about her, then his hands were at her waist and hers on his shoulders, and their lips touched. The kiss began as a spark and progressed to a fire, whisky burning in his blood and lust clasping at his groin.
He broke the kiss. ‘You should go back to your room. I am in my cups, I do not trust myself.’
‘Why? I trust you.’
He shook his head. ‘Caro, go back upstairs, please. I am feeling weak tonight.’ His words urged her to go and yet his whisky-guided hands drew her closer, so her body pressed against his.
‘I trust you,’ she said again in a quieter voice.
This time, undoubtedly, the lead came from him. His tongue pressed into her mouth in a firm bold stroke as his hand slipped to the curve of her lower back, where it had rested when they danced for the first time.
Her mouth opened wider and her hands told him she was willing as they combed into his hair, and her body pressed against him.
His blood pulsed, heavy in his veins and hard in his groin.
The hunger of lust begged him to be as close to her as he could be.
She broke the kiss. ‘Rob.’ Her fingers combed his fringe from his forehead.
He did not understand this, and his conscience cried out, but when she pulled his lips back to hers he did not heed the thoughts that screamed,stop!
His palms cupped her bottom, his fingertips sinking into soft flesh through the thin fabrics of her robe and nightdress, and he held her stomach and pelvis against his erection.
‘Caro?’ He breathed her name into her mouth, perhaps asking permission, he hardly knew; he had never done this. His breathing became more rapid as his hand came to her breast. It filled his palm from heel to fingertips, the weight of it resting heavily. Giddy from lust and the whisky in his blood, his fingers tightened and kneaded her flesh. Her nipple firmed, pressing into his palm.
Damn it. Damn conscience and morality.
He broke the kiss to look at what he was doing, his gaze settling on the hollow in her clavicle, where her pulse flickered. He had watched that flicker numerous times tonight. The amber cross hung a couple of inches below, it lifted and lowered with her breaths. His thumb touched where her pulse flickered. Thepace increased. He slid her robe off her shoulders, and she relaxed her arms so it slithered to the floor. Next, he released the small buttons at the front of her nightdress, while she stood still, allowing the intimacy. Then his fingertips slid beneath the cotton and touched her flesh.
She was warm, soft, and the peak of her firm nipple was like velvet. She shivered when his thumb brushed across it.
God help me.With other women his honour was as strong as iron, not with Caro.
She is my vice.
Her fingers pressed at the back of his head, urging him to bend.
Temptation flared through his blood as though she had knocked over the lantern that carried the fire burning in their kiss, and now the flaming oil flowed beneath his skin.
