Page 52 of The Pleasures of Passion
“What do you think you’re doing?” she drew back to whisper.
His eyes smoldered like wood about to erupt into flames. “Reminding us both of what we’ve tried and failed to forget.”
“Perhaps I don’t want to be reminded,” she said desperately.
He merely gave her that devilish smile that always ignited her blood, then sealed his mouth to hers once more. He didn’t have to call her a liar or point out her weakness. Her heedless responses to his persistent kisses did that for him.
No matter how much her mind cautioned her against giving in, her heart wantedsobadly to remember, and it was her heart that had her rising to meet the wild, ravening caress of his mouth, which took hers so thoroughly that she felt the impact to her soul.
With darkness falling softly around them, she rose up on tiptoe to loop her arms about his neck. He moaned deep in his throat before dragging her to him. His hands flattened her against his body possessively, and she felt every inch of his hard muscle—and his hard arousal—through his clothing.
Heat roared up from her belly, searing away her objections and fears. Oh, unfair. He knew precisely how to make her remember.
Except that now he was making new memories, sweeping her body with his fingers as if to memorize her curves . . . or perhaps just mark them for his own. And the hunger of those hands made her want to touch him, too, to slide her fingers inside his tailcoat and up beneath his waistcoat to where only a thin linen shirt separated his flesh from hers.
“Damn it, Bree,” he whispered, “you don’t know how I’ve missed this—being with you, touching you, kissing you.”
Next thing she knew, he was walking her backward until she bumped up against a plane tree. Then his mouth was on hers again and his hands fumbling with her shawl, and she was reveling in every moment. His body covered hers as he drank of her mouth and she drank of his.
Niall’s eyes gleamed in the dark. “I want to touch you.” He removed her fichu, then tugged her clothing down to expose one breast. “Here.”
“Yes . . . please . . .” she breathed, hardly conscious of what she said.
Need flaring in his face, he covered her breast with his large hand, and started caressing it, kneading it, thumbing the nipple to a fine point that shot sensation down to her toes.
Goodness gracious, that feltamazing. She must be out of her mind. Anyone could happen into this corner of the garden, evening or no. And if they found her and Niall doing this . . .
What kind of wanton creature was she, to allow such madness?
The kind who’d once dreamed of doing this with him in their marital bed.
“Do you like my hands on you, my beautiful rose?” he asked.
“Mmm,” she managed. “Delicious.”
He brushed kisses over her cheeks, her eyelids, her temples. “I love how you blossom beneath my touch.”
She’d never guessed this could feel so wonderful. It had never been like this with Reynold, her rather formal, correct husband, who’d made love to her in the dark with furtive efficiency.
There was nothing furtive about Niall’s caresses, and certainly nothing efficient. They were luxuriously blatant, driving her into more of a frenzy by the moment.
“I’ve waited years for this,” he said hoarsely. He kissed his way down her breast. “I want to taste you.”
“Oh yes,” she breathed, and buried her hands in his hair to urge him down to her bosom.
That was all it took to have him seizing her breast in his mouth, laving and sucking and turning her mind to mush. Every part of her felt liquid and hot, boiling beneath his avid attentions.
As he teased her nipple with teeth and tongue, she moaned and pressed against him, wanting more and more. With a triumphant groan, he dragged up her skirts so he could reach beneath them and between her legs to the part of her aching for him, already drenched for him.
Part of her was shocked by that sudden intimacy. Part of her was fascinated.
And the latter part was winning. “We probably . . . shouldn’t do this,” she said feebly. “Someone might . . . stumble across us.”
“No one’s coming in here, Bree,” he choked out against her breast. “Pip is standing guard outside the gate.”
That really did shock her. “Niall!” She pulled his head back from her breast. “Did you plan this?”
His eyes glittered at her. “I planned a private discussion with you. This is an . . . unexpected reward for managing it.”
