Then somehow she was off his lap, facedown in the bed, and he yanked her hips up so she was on all fours. She pressed her palms down into the rough cotton sheets, and he locked his big hands around her thighs from behind, pressed them apart, and licked her, hot and wild, where she needed him most. His beard dragged along the sensitive backs of her thighs.
The world spun. One of Christian’s hands moved around to the front of her body, dragging across her still-sensitive backside and then finding her sex. His fingers were wet from touching her, his tongue parting her, and she wanted to press into his mouth behind her, his hand in front, she wanted more and more, she wantedeverything.
His other hand was still around her thigh. She could feel his fingers digging into her flesh so hard she thought he might leave a scattering of bruises.
She wanted it. She wanted to be used and marked. She wanted to feel the bright embers of his touch on her skin tomorrow and the next day and forever.
Pleasure coiled within her as he licked into her, as his fingers circled her clitoris, quick and steady and hard and relentless. She felt tight all over, in her belly and her sex, the muscles of her shoulders, the soles of her feet. It pulled her, that pleasure, hotter, darker, deeper—
Until she snapped. Her climax burst through her, a wave, a roar, an explosion. Her whole body shuddered and bucked, and Christian gripped her, pressed himself against her, held onto her until she stopped shaking and slid limply down onto the bed.
She was not quite sure what happened after that. She might have briefly lost consciousness, she thought—it was all flashes of sensation.
Christian beside her, his body pressed full length against hers, careful, grounding. His lips beneath her ear. The whisper of his breath. The bedsheet drawn up over her body, cool against her heated skin.
His hair was silky where it touched the back of her neck. He kissed her shoulder, her neck, her back, again and again, brushes of lips as soft as goose down against her skin.
“Christian,” she whispered, but he shushed her. His hand slid up her back, and she pushed back against it, relishing the firm weight of his touch. He turned her on her side, and then stroked her damp hair back off her forehead.
Sweet girl,she thought he said.
When she blinked open her eyes again—moments, some minutes perhaps—it was dark. The candle had gone out, or Christian had put it out. His body was wrapped around hers, her buttocks nestled against his groin. She could feel him—his hard length through the trousers he still wore—and the sensation roused her. She started to turn, but he pressed his mouth to the back of her neck.
“Hush,” he said. “Rest. Another time.”
His hand came to her belly, then up between her breasts. She had not known—oh, she had not known she craved this too. All this touching, this surfeit of sweetness.
Beautiful,she thought she heard.My brave girl.
But perhaps by then she was dreaming.
Chapter 12
When Matilda woke, she woke quickly. It was the habit of her lifetime—to go from sleep to consciousness in an instant, her eyes blinking open, her brain alert.
So when she woke the next morning, it was to the full awareness that she was in a very, very bad way when it came to Christian de Bord, the Marquess of Ashford.
He was holding her. His long, hard body was a trifle softer in sleep. One arm was wrapped around her breasts, and she could see the dark hairs on his forearm, limned with gold in the soft dawn light that filtered through the window’s hazed glass.
His knee was pushed between hers. He still wore his trousers. If he had moved in the night—turned in his sleep or shifted the bedclothes—he had ended up back here, exactly where he’d been when she’d fallen asleep.
And merciful heavens, she was doomed.
She wanted to turn over and kiss him awake. She wanted to spend an hour staring at the elegant planes of his face, his mobile mouth. She wanted to outline every hollow and rise of his body with her tongue. She wanted every morning for the rest of her life to begin just like this one, tangled up in Christian’s arms.
It was not only that he’d given her the most ecstatic sexual experience of her life. Her prior experiences in that area numbered exactly two: both safe, discreet, and utterly meaningless. She had been curious, yes, but restrained as well, making only the most cautious explorations into the desires that were knitted into her bones. The previous night had been a wonder beyond anything she had imagined.
But it was not just that. She admired him: his caution and his care, his quick intelligence and dry humor. She adored the way he cared for his sister—enough even to let Matilda bring along a cat that made him sneeze.
She loved the way he’d pushed her to speak her mind, to state her desires. She loved the way he’d held her, and kissed her, and made her feel precious. She loved—
No. No, no, absolutely not.
She did not love him. It was too soon. She had known him less than two months. She was only—confused, that was all. She had gotten mixed up, somehow, from arguing with Margo by the waterfall. She had had to tell Margo that they were eloping, had needed to provide an explanation that Margo could believe.
I love him,she’d said.I know him. I’m certain.
She hadn’t meant it. Or perhaps—she hadn’t known she had meant it.
