Page 14 of The Secret of My Seduction
She blushed. “I didn’t know…”
“That it would be the same for a man as for a woman?” His knowing little smile was back. “It is.”
Annoyed, she pressed her lips to his skin, pulling the hard little nub tight against her teeth. His breath hissed, and when she peeked at his face, his eyes had grown dark and focused on her. Her hands wandered freely, exploring the firmness of his muscles, marveling at how warm he was, how large, how male. Boldly she undid the buttons on his trousers, and pushed the fabric down. Without a word he kicked off his slippers and stepped out of the garment, and let her strip down his drawers.
For the rest of her days, Bathsheba would remember the moment. Tall, dark, unspeakably handsome, he stood before her completely unabashed by his nudity or rampant arousal. His arms flexed slightly as she stared, gorging her eyes on the sight. His hair fell around his face, lending him a rather savage air as he gazed at her.
“May I?” Her question came out husky with desire. She gestured toward his erection, jutting thick and long from his groin.
“As you wish,” he said in a deep growl, and she felt a surge of elation at the hunger in his voice.
She ran her fingers down his stomach, feeling a small thrill at the way it contracted, and into the thatch of dark hair. His body was so much harder than hers, everywhere. She explored the lean lines of his hips, and wrapped her hands around his bottom, remembering how he had handled her body so boldly and possessively. But she didn’t touch his erection; she was trying to tease him as he had teased her. Every covert glance she stole at his face, though, revealed nothing about her success. His expression was dark and fixed as he watched her with scorching intensity. Finally she gave in and stroked her palm down the length of his member.
His chest expanded. At last—a reaction. She did it again, then circled him with both hands at once. So smooth, so vital. She could almost see the blood throbbing beneath the delicate skin. She had touched a man before, but never so brazenly, never so deliberately.
Perhaps this was what he had felt last time, when he seemed to be bent on torturing her by touching her slowly and lightly when she wanted more. Feeling a little drunk, she went down on her knees and touched her tongue to him.
“Bloody—” He cut off the curse and flung out one hand to grip the mantel. His head fell back and he seemed to be struggling to breathe. A delighted smile crossed her face. She had read about this act, though had certainly never tried it, and the one invariable part of the stories was how much a man enjoyed it. According toFifty Ways to Sin, it made a man absolutely delirious with pleasure. She took him between her lips and sucked as he had sucked on her skin.
“Bathsheba,” he gasped. “What—?”
She paused. “You said I could touch you as I wished, and put my mouth on you.”
The muscles in his arms bulged. His knuckles grew white where he held the mantel. “Yes,” he said after a moment, his voice tight. “Yes, I—I did say that. I simply didn’t expect…” His words choked off as she repeated her earlier action.
Unfortunately the description she’d read had been a little lacking in specifics. Driven by the greedy rapture in Liam’s face, she played at it for a few minutes, but soon ran out of ideas. Suck more? Her jaw was beginning to cramp. Lick more? He reacted less to that. And the deepest darkest secret in her breast was that she wanted to induce a reaction from him. A reaction that would leave him dazed with wonder and filled with growing joy that she was not merely Bathsheba, the woman who wrote the naughty stories that made money for him, but Bathsheba, a woman whose passionate hopes and dreams matched his own. It would take so little for her to fall helplessly in love with him, and for a moment the longing for any sign at all that he might look fondly on her was overpowering.
Sense resurfaced quickly, thank heaven. He was not going to fall in love with her, and therefore she must do everything in her power to guard against falling in love with him. She rose from her knees and resumed touching him everywhere but there, where he was still glistening wet from her mouth.
Some of the tension drained from his body as well. His breathing grew deep and even again, although he didn’t release the mantel until she asked, “What now?”
A feral smile. “Explored to your satisfaction?”
I could never get enough of you.“For now,” she said.
“Good.” He led her to the chaise, and told her to sit. Bathsheba perched on the edge, but he knelt, picked up her foot, and spread her legs until she was straddling the chaise. “Lie back,” he said, holding her knees in place.
She eased backward onto the pile of pillows, feeling more exposed than ever even though she still wore her stays and chemise, which she tried to push discreetly down to cover herself. But Liam brushed her hands aside and folded the chemise back until she was naked to the waist.
And then he sat back and stared at her nether regions. Even though he’d touched her there last time, Bathsheba blushed fiery red.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he murmured. “You’re very pretty here.” His knuckles brushed the springy curls.
“Like all your other lovers?” She stared at the ceiling, trying not to feel like an idiot.
“You keep mentioning them. Stop.”
“This is all new to me,” she flared out, “but not to you!”
He paused. “It is new,” he said. “Youare new.”
She realized what he was going to do a moment before he lowered his head. Her stomach seized, almost cramping with excitement and anxiety as he kissed the inside of her thigh. Lady Constance wrote of this—oral pleasure—in rhapsodic terms. Bathsheba squeezed her eyes shut, hardly breathing as he licked his way up her thigh, nibbling once or twice. He laid his palm on her mound, making her jump, and then he pushed back the curls and laid his lips right against the center of pulsing want.
Bathsheba’s back arched; her mouth fell open. Liam’s hand on her pelvis pushed her back down, wide open to his questing tongue. Softer, wetter, hotter than his fingers, he explored as if he meant to take all night. Shaking from the raw intimacy of it, desperate for him to do more, she writhed and rocked on the chaise.
He raised his head and waited until she managed to open her eyes and look at him. “You like this,” he whispered. She gave a tiny nod. “So do I.” He grinned. “You taste sweet.” He hooked both hands over her thighs, pushing them even wider apart, and lowered his mouth—teasing no longer, but insistent and demanding.
Later Bathsheba thought she might have clawed rents in the upholstery of the chaise. Liam suckled on her, refusing to let her retreat from his most wicked kiss. When she thought she would faint from the intensity of it, he would relent, his tongue turning soft and gentle, but only for a moment. It seemed as if her every muscle was drawn up tight and hard, and then he plunged his fingers inside her, as thick and hard as last time. Bathsheba screamed as the pleasure crested, swamping her.
