Page 41 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
“Thattinything?”
“Christ.” With one hand, he scrubbed at his eyes, his shoulders shaking with a gust of laughter. “No man wants to heartinyin reference to his cock. We’re rather proud of them, if you must know.”
“What an absurd thing to be proud of.”
“Not in the least.” The words faded into a groan as she gave another wiggle—exploratory, testing. A tingle of pleasure zipped up his spine, and he found himself reaching for her hand. “You don’t know what that does to me,” he said, cradling her hand in his own as he pulled it between them. “Yes,” he murmured against her ear as her fingertips brushed his cock through the soft velvet. “Like that—just like that. Touch me, darling.”
He kissed the dazed surprise from her lips, coaxing her tongue to tangle with his. Obligingly, she tilted her head, her body going soft and submissive in his arms as she gave a small whimper into his mouth.
Her delicate fingers shaped him, sliding gently up and down the length of his cock. She lacked finesse, experience—it was a cautious touch, learning the strange contours of his body, but not a deliberately arousing one. And still he was harder than he had ever been in his life. He was going to spend the moment her bare fingers touched his flesh.
It was a phenomenal effort to gently tug those curious fingers away from his swollen flesh, to soothe the soft, confused murmur she gave with a kiss as he pulled her hand around his neck instead. A mistake—her blunt nails scraped through the hair at the nape of his neck, and he shuddered.
She made a muted sound of surprise as he slid his arm beneath her knees, lifting her legs over the arm of the chair until she was splayed across his lap like a pagan sacrifice to an ancient king. His arm at her back supported her, and her lungs filled with an unsteady breath.
“Luke?” She chewed her lower lip uneasily.
Because he’d been staring. Like a callow youth with his first woman—just toappreciateher. He’d thought herpretty enoughat their first meeting, though no one would ever call her a great beauty. But just now shewasbeautiful, in a way he could not possibly have explained. Probably in a way that only made sense to him. In a way that made his heart shudder against the cage of his ribs, and his body ache with need.
His fingers—his!—trembled as he caught the frayed bit of ribbon tying the collar of her nightdress. She shivered as his warm fingers hooked beneath the edge of the fabric, with just a few light tugs to loosen the cinch of it, and peeled it away from her breasts. Let him look upon the lovely, soft flesh revealed beneath—the pale globes and taut coral peaks. Let his fingertips glide between the valley of her breasts and stroke that satin-smooth skin.
This was agift. Something precious and rare, and he found himself humbled by her trust. And so he made himself a compromise and her a promise.
“You’re going to leave this room a virgin,” he said in a hoarse rasp. “But not by much.”
“I don’t—I don’t know what that means.”
“Youwill.” He skimmed his fingers across the soft flesh of her breast, dragged his thumb over her nipple. “You’re so pretty here. Will you let me kiss you?”
She hesitated, squirming as he rubbed his thumb over the point. Her nails sifted rhythmically over the nape of his neck; a reflexive action she could not control. Her white teeth tugged her lower lip. “No,” she said on a whimper.
“No?” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth; he caught her nipple between his fingers, pinched lightly, and relished the low moan that squeezed itself from between her lips. A sound she had tried, and failed, to contain.
“I—I don’t know.” Her thighs tensed, tightened; her fingers clutched his neck. A flush spread across her skin, painting her cheeks, her throat, her breasts in a rosy glow. “Maybe.”
“Hmm.” He injected a speculative tone to the sound, scraped the nail of his thumb across her nipple. “Just here,” he said, in a croon. “With my lips. My tongue.”
Her eyes slammed shut, dark lashes velvet fans across her pink cheeks. “Yes,” she said at last. “Manipulative arse.”
The laugh that collected in his chest surprised him. “Mouthy wench,” he murmured without heat as he bent to her breasts. A shudder started at her shoulders and slid down her spine as he let the scant stubble shading his jaw abrade her sensitive skin.
Her head fell back, drooping over his arm, and her shaking hands drifted to his head, raking through his hair at the first brush of his lips. “This is wrong,” she said, in a drugged tone. “I’m certain of it.” A gasp, light and airy, as his tongue curled around her nipple. Her fingers clenched in his hair, and the minor bite of pain was in itself strangely pleasurable. “Anything that feels like thismustbe wicked.”
He splayed his palm over her stomach, felt the pitch and fall of her lungs with each fitful breath, the contraction of muscles beneath his fingers as she fought the impulse to move. She would not be a placid lover, lying motionless beneath him—a fact which made him regret his promise, given on impulse from whatever tiny reserve of honor remained buried deep inside him. To feel those little shivers, the rake of her nails across his skin…her thighs would hold him so tightly, forming a perfect cradle for the thrust of his hips.
For the first time in better than a decade, he panted through the sudden, unexpected urge to spend, his face buried in the hollow of her throat, tasting the salt of her skin and the heat of the vivid passion flush that spread across her breasts. He was sweating; he’d misted her with his own perspiration with only the stroke of his cheek.
A soothing stroke down the length of her leg ended with the hem of her nightdress, and this time his hand swept up beneath it, and she made a mortified squeak, nipping her legs together.
“Coward,” he accused, laughing softly at the brief flash of anger that tripped across her face—until he sucked the tip of her breast into his mouth again, and for just a moment the tight clench of her knees eased. He traced the seam she’d made of her legs with just the tips of his fingers. “Open for me, darling,” he whispered against the swell of her breast.
He’d never seen anyone blush so wildly, so vibrantly. She burned with it, hot enough to singe. “Oh, I can’t.” It was a helpless little sound, half-buried beneath the riotous tousle of her hair, disheveled by the rake of his fingers.
“You can. Be brave, Lizzie.” He pressed a kiss to the curve of her shoulder, caressed the warm skin of her thigh. “I only want to touch you. As you touched me.”
Her eyes flew open. “That’s not possible. I don’t have…thatpart.”
“No,” he said, and again there was the oddest compulsion to laugh despite himself. “My God, Lizzie, are you torturing me apurpose?” He breathed the accusation into the hollow of her throat. “I’m inches away from heaven. Let me please you, darling.” It was the closest he’d ever come to begging a woman for her favors. “You would be so hot, so wet—”
