Page 72 of The General's Gift
Hawk set his mouth to the tender skin of her inner thigh, laying damp kisses up its length.
“She moaned as her fingers circled the bud of pleasure—”
Celeste’s cheeks reddened. “This does not seem right. A heroine does not make such sounds.”
Moaning was too tame. Hawk wanted to make her scream. He smiled against her thigh, drunk on her voice, and pushed aside the last slip of silk. A crown of red curls flamed against her pale skin. He lowered his lips, reverent, letting the ringlets tickle his mouth. Her inhale fractured, her hips surging between retreat and plea.
“Little Tulle,” he murmured against her.
His hands climbed higher, spreading her. His chest seized, and he dipped lower, tongue sweeping her sex. The taste hit, salt and honey and woman. His woman.
Her gasp shivered through him. He tasted her again, slower, his hands keeping her open as he savored the wetness pooling for him.
“Soft sighs escaped as pleasure unfurled slowly—”
He mapped every ridge, every trembling hollow, catching each gasp she tried to smother. Her voice faltered, but she clung to the words as if they were rope in a storm. He clamped her knees, opening them wider, needing her bared, surrendered. Patience had been his armor, now it shattered. He feasted, tongue relentless, until she was wet against his jaw.
The book thudded to the floor, forgotten.
“Please,” she whispered.
He drove harder, tongue plunging deep, mimicking what he ached to do with his cock. Her gasp broke into a sob, her hips surging helplessly against his face. He thrust deeper still, filled her with his tongue, drank the heat pouring for him alone.
He pulled back, rough with urgency, and slid his tongue up until he found the tight bud at her apex. He circled once, savoring the tremor that jolted her body—then sealed his mouth over it and drew hard. She arched off the desk, her body bowingas though strung on wires. Her release crashed over her, hot and flooding against him, her cries spilling into the dark while he drank her rapture like a man starved.
Hawk raised his head at last, breath tearing through him, her taste still burning on his tongue. He braced for the recoil, for the horror in her eyes when she understood what he had done.
Her soft moans had drained into soft breathing. The fire judged him with its slow creep.
She did not shrink. She slid from the desk into his lap, arms winding around his neck as if she belonged there. He caught her without thinking, stunned by her heat against him.
“Do you realize now?” His voice rasped. “I’m not what you want—I—”
She brushed her cheek against his heart and yawned. “I love you.”
The words hit harder than any cannonade. He buried his mouth in her hair and drew her in. He had meant to show her he was no gentle prince, no soft refuge. Instead, his arms closed of their own accord. He was unmade—kneeling in every way that mattered, undone by her taste, conquered by her confession. No campaign had ever taken him so completely.
Hawk ran a finger down the spine ofThe Merchant of Venus, abandoned on his desk as if she’d idly skimmed it and cast it aside. As if it were a trifle, not the most erotic campaign in the life of a man who had fought too many. What else had she read? What else did she want to learn?
He flattened his palm over the cover, trying to shut the thing, a carnal Pandora’s box he had no business opening when the sun still burned high and duty waited. It was useless. Images stormed him anyway—the curve of Celeste’s smile, the light in her eyes when she laughed, the remembered silk of her skin beneath his hands.
A single whisper from those lips—play with me, protect me… love me—and she carried his restraint by storm.
The door swung open, and Graves admitted Leighton.
His former lieutenant, stripped of uniform but not of habit, saluted as if he still served in the 13th. “Sorry to barge in unannounced, sir.”
When Graves shut the door, Leighton started pacing, hands shoved in his pockets.
Hawk’s pulse kicked hard, a snarl rising in his throat like a wolf guarding its ground. “What is the matter, Leighton?”
The younger man gazed at him with earnest blue eyes. “I’m in love with your ward.”
Hawk’s entire body tightened, the muscles in his neck cording painfully. Leighton must have mistaken Hawk’s thunderous expression for doubt about his intentions, because he lifted his hands.
“I want your blessing to marry her.”
“Of all my officers, I never knew you to make hasty decisions.”
