Page 46 of The Truth About Lord Stoneville
“Oliver . . .” she protested, turning toward him.
That proved a mistake, for he caught her head in his hands and kissed her. Boldly. Deeply.
And she couldn’t even bring herself to stop him. Mercy, how fiercely he kissed! He scarcely allowed her breath as his mouth plundered hers over and over, startling her pulse into a wild gallop. She curled her fingers into his shirt, notsure whether she was trying to hold him closer or push him away.
It didn’t matter. He had full command of her, and he knew it. His large hands held her still as his tongue tangled with hers, and his thumbs slid down to caress her throat with a tenderness at odds with the wild abandon of his kisses.
He reached back to close the other curtain, then tugged her onto his lap.
She tore her mouth free. “Oliver, you really shouldn’t—”
“Shh,” he murmured against her lips, then dragged his mouth along her jaw, kissing a path down to her neck. “Let me do this. I swear I won’t hurt you.”
Maybe not physically, but he had the capacity to hurt her far worse in other ways. Before she’d known the horrible scandal plaguing his family, she could dismiss him as a scoundrel. But now she saw the angry boy inside the man, railing at the world for taking his parents from him, daring people to gossip about him.
It broke her heart. It made her ache for him as she hadn’t ached before. And that was dangerous with a man who knew women only as vessels for his desire.
Yet even as he untied the ribbons of her redingote, she didn’t stop him. He did it with a reverence she wouldn’t have expected, his breath sweetly unsteady and his eyes haunted.
“It’s not as if I’m entirely ignorant of . . . what happens between a man and a woman,” she whispered to cover her embarrassment. “I do know a few things.”
“Do you?” he said as he finished unfastening her redingote. His features sharpened. “Things that Hyatt taught you?”
“No.” She spoke the word so quickly that Oliver’s eyes locked with hers, a curious triumph shining in them. “My aunt . . . told me a bit.”
“Ah.” Flashing her a faint smile, he pushed her redingote off her shoulders, then dispensed with the pelerine, baring her low-cut gown to his dark gaze. “And what did she tell you?”
“She told me that . . .” She trailed off as he bent his head to press a kiss to the upper swell of one breast. Her heart seemed to leap beneath his mouth, beating more furiously with every caress of his lips. “She said . . . men would want to . . . touch me in . . . places they shouldn’t.”
“Like this?” Raising his hand, he covered one of her breasts.
Great heavens. A blush heated her cheeks as he kneaded her breast, slowly, sensually. When he thumbed the nipple through her gown, she thought she might die if he stopped.
“Yes,” she breathed. “L-Like that.” She shouldn’t be letting him do this. But she yearned to know the things he meant to teach her. Besides, he’d promised not to take her innocence, and she trusted him. How odd was that?
His mouth moved lower now, down the slope of her other breast. “Did she tell you that a man might want to do more than touch?” he asked in a husky voice. He dragged down her bodice, then her corset cups.
She caught her breath as he untied her chemise.
“That he might want to do this?” he growled as he bared her breast. Then his mouth was covering her nipple, sucking it, teasing it.
Pure, unadulterated pleasure shot through her. Anything that felt this good had to be naughty. Yet when she closed her hands in his thick black hair to pull him away, she found herself holding him there instead, so his tongue could lick and flick over her nipple, and his teeth could tug at it in a most astonishing fashion.
No wonder women were always falling at rakehells’ feet. Heavens alive, his mouth was teasing her in ways she’d never even dreamed of.
“Oliver, are you sure you should be—”
“Do you like it?” he murmured against her breast.
“It’s . . . oh, mercy . . .”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He laid her back in his arms until she was sprawled shamelessly across his lap, her breasts lifted for his devilish hands, her throat bared to his questing lips. “I’ve never done this with a virgin, did you know that?” he whispered against her throat. “I’ve never wanted to until now.”
The words lodged in her heart, no matter how much she tried to block them. She drew his head back so she could stare into his eyes. They were slumberous, the lids heavy. He looked like a man just awakening from a deep sleep.
So why did it feel as ifshewere the one awakening?
“Why now?” she asked. “Why with me?”
