“I need to think.” She struggled, weakly, not even half-heartedly, to escape his arms of iron, thebarof iron, hardening beneath her backside.
“Done with thinking,” he growled. He took her lips again, and God help her, she took his, learning quickly how to slant and open and lick, how to nibble and tease and give as good as she got.
And what she got was very good, especially when his hands began to wander. Fingertips tracing across her ribs as if he were playing an instrument, then splaying flat like his palm could shape her. His thumb hot across her pebbled nipple, stroking, teasing. His other hand venturing lower, gathering skirts so that the air coursed across her stockings. He liked those, groaning as he ran a hand up her calf, over her knee, across her inner thigh.
At the center of her legs, his other thumb did clever things, too.
“Has any man touched you like this?” The demand hot in her ear.
“No.” She’d gotten close. A fellow in Edinburgh once. He’d left her cold.
Felix left her needing distance from her clothes. Too hot.
Felix didn’t leave her at all, this hand tight on her thigh, his thumb stroking her folds, probing into her curls, and discovering that place where she pulsed—the rising star he’d brought to blazing life in her. So needy for him so quickly. And he knew it.
“Having trouble breathing, Caro?”
“Uhn.”
A chuckle. “How close are you, do you think?”
Terribly close to that bolt of pleasure she’d discovered years ago. Thank God her father and stepmother believed in education of a biological nature for young women. Certain types of books were wonderfully informative.
Now, so terribly close. He’d already stoked her need this morning, and she’d been ignoring the frustrating siren call of it since then.
No ignoring it now. He circled and stroked, and it should not take so little, but…
“Ah—” She cried out and his mouth captured hers. He held her as she fell apart.
A knock on the door.
“Not again,” he groaned.
Not right now! She wanted to sink into Felix’s chest and enjoy the liquid languor of the moment.
Another knock.
It woke her up, and even though he still held her like a miracle in the hands of a man who never expected one, she left his lap.
Are you sure?That, her body, yearning for him.
But it’s so nice.That, her lips. They still tingled.
But we can’t remember how to work.That, her legs. And her arms. And, oh yes, her brain too.
She sat next him as the door shook with yet another knock. “My lady?” Polly called from the other side.
“Give us a moment,” Caroline said.
“There’s another applicant. Just arrived.”
“Bloody hell.” Felix shifted, clearly uncomfortable as he rearranged the bulge in his trousers.
“Just a moment more, then we’ll see her,” Caroline said.
Grumbling from the other side of the door, then silence.
Felix looked ready to murder the door. “I dislike your maid.” He rolled his shoulders in big circles, stretching his neck from side to side. He’d clearly not slept well on the marble last night. “Not too late for you, though.” He grinned then, looking supremely pleased.
