Page 62 of In the Prince's Bed
“Are you sure?” Still kissing her neck, he pushed her gown off her shoulder. “Or is she just hiding behind the proper Miss Merivale?”
He was kissing her shoulder, fogging her brain, making her dizzy from the sensation of his mouth caressing her bare skin in a place no man would dare to touch. “I suppose you’ve been with many…senhoras?”
“Not as many as most gentlemen. There aren’t many senhoras in a cavalry camp.” He dragged one finger down her throat, into the valley between her breasts. “And certainly none so intriguing as Senhora Encantador.”
When his finger lodged beneath her bodice, she caught her breath. “Is that who you really want—the senhora?”
“I want Miss Merivale, but she refuses to be reckless and wicked with me. Perhaps the senhora could show her how?”
The idea intrigued and excited her. Now he was kissing his way down her collarbone toward her bodice…and her breasts. Would he kiss her there? Like in the pictures from theRhetorick?Would it be even better than his caresses there the day of the reading?
A wild fever flashed over her at the thought. “Suppose you happened to be alone…with the senhora. What would you do with that wicked creature? Hypothetically, of course.”
He lifted his head, eyes gleaming in the dim lamplight. “Hypothetically?”
She nodded, unable to speak.
Taking her by surprise, he lifted her in his arms.
“What on earth are you doing?” Katherine grabbed at his neck to hold on as he carried her off between the open bureaus, past a scarf-draped dressmaker’s dummy, toward the back of the outbuilding.
He cast her a smile rampant with mischief. “I’m taking the senhora to where we can be more comfortable.”
A laugh escaped her. “This isn’t hypothetical.”
“I need the right setting for…speculating.” He laid her on a pile of discarded costumes and cloaks, then stretched out beside her. “Now, where were we? Ah, yes, determining what I would do to Senhora Encantador, that reckless female.” He grinned as he propped his head up on one arm, then laid the other over her waist. “Hypothetically, of course.”
“Of course,” she whispered.
One shoulder of her gown still hung down her arm, and now he snagged the shoulder of her chemise and tugged it down, too. “First, I’d do this,” he murmured, as her breast scandalously sprang free. “And then this…” He molded her naked breast in his hot palm.
Lord preserve her, it was every bit as wonderful as she remembered, every bit as naughty and thrilling. Which was why she ought to stop him. “Wouldn’t the senhora…protest such…liberties?”
“Not at all. She would expect it from her latest lover.”
“What if you were her first lover?”
A fierce desire leaped in his face. “Then I’d have to be more careful with her…make sure I taught her how to find her pleasure. Hypothetically, of course.”
“Of course,” she whispered, then gasped when he thumbed her nipple, sending a delicious excitement pulsing along her heightened nerves. She dug her fingers into his shirt. “The senhora is very wicked, isn’t she?”
“Curious,” he corrected her. “Adventurous. The sort of woman who will participate in an equestrian exhibition without a qualm.”
Which had whetted her appetite for more adventures. With him. And he knew it, too. Why else was he lowering his head and taking her breast in his mouth to…ohhhh, yes…like that…goodness, what a feeling…
His tongue swirled over her nipple, tightening it into a knot of aching need. She fisted her hands in the night-dark waves of his hair to hold him there, and his mouth grew ravenous, sucking hard, making her squirm and yearn to feel it in other, more outrageous places—like in that naughty picture…
Oh, she was as bad as him…and she didn’t even care. This was the most thrilling thing that had ever happened to her.
The naive country girl can provide a nice change for the jaded rake’s palate.
When those horrible words from theRake’s Rhetorickspilled into her mind, she thrust them out determinedly. Alec wasn’t a rake—he wanted to marry her. He’d made that very clear.
“You taste so damned good,” he murmured as he lifted his head. “And I’ve wanted to taste and touch you like this for so long.”
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “And when do I get to taste and touch you?” She wasnota naive country girl he wanted for his “jaded palate.” She wasnot.
Alec reacted instantly to her bold words; heat leaped in his face as he sat up. “Whenever you please, senhora.” He dragged his shirt off so quickly that his cuff buttons popped off.“Now,if you want.”
