A Breach of Promise (The Rules of Engagement #1)(23)

Lydia clutched his hair, cupped his nape, and roamed the broad expanse of muscled back to settle on his firm, taut buttocks, pulling him into her, seeking relief for the aching emptiness. He groaned into her mouth, buckling his knees and seeking her heat, driving his hard, full length against her pubis. He suckled her breast and lightly bit down, sending her whimpering, rubbing and wildly grinding against him.

Reaching between them, groping frantically for the placket of his breeches, she gasped out, “I want to feel you, Marcus. I want to touch and kiss you the way you touched and kissed me. I want to give you the same gift that you gave me.” Her chest heaved with ignited passion. Her eyes shone fever bright. She silently cried out the rest of the message. I want to show you I love you. I want you to love me too.



He had been acting on raw primal instinct, blind and deaf to everything but his need to sheathe himself in her tight, wet heat until her plaintive voice and urgent passion jarred into his consciousness. His mind roared her words. I want to touch and kiss you the way you touched and kissed me. I want to give you the same gift that you gave me. He drew back from her with ragged breath and hands shaking to free his cock. Bloody hell, he’d never heard a more promising invitation and here he was fumbling like a clumsy schoolboy. With a curse, he popped the last button and looked to her face as his engorged and aching member sprang free. Her eyes widened but Lydia didn’t recoil as expected. He took her hand in his and fisted it around his throbbing length.

Her voice was breathless, her words soft and sultry to his ears. “I like how it feels in my hand. Hot and hard and soft like velvet. Is this pleasurable to you?” She squeezed him lightly. He pulsed and grew harder.

“Aye, but this is still better.” Marcus slid her hand slowly up and down his shaft. She tightened her grasp on her own, increasing the friction and the length of her stroke. He shut his eyes on a moan. It was dizzying how quickly she learned to pump him.

“God yes,” Marcus groaned. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted your touch— your hands, your soft lips, your hot mouth, your slick, wet quim.”

Her hand froze. “M-my mouth?” She looked down at what more than filled her hand.

He opened his eyes and slanted his head to possess her mouth. He kissed her slowly, deeply, drawing her tongue in and sucking it. When she reflexively squeezed his sheath, he released her with a knowing smile. “The mouth can do wondrously wicked things to a man as well as to a woman. It’s an erotic delight, a male fantasy rarely indulged.”

He tightened her hand around him once more, setting her back in motion. He took one of her hard peaks between his finger, rolling and pulling it in rhythm with her strokes. He gave a small smile. Her breathless voice, her pupils dilated to pools of blackness, the hardened buds of her nipples were all signs that the talk aroused her.

“And what you did to me with your mouth, is that the normal way of it between a man and woman, or is that—”

“An erotic delight as well?” he finished with a devilish grin. “Yes, my love. Only the best of lovers kiss and tongue a woman to her release.”

Her eyes took on an impish gleam of their own. “Does protocol not dictate that the recipient of such a…gift…return the courtesy?”

His expression lost any trace of playfulness. He reached a hand between her thighs. She clamped it between them with a gasp. “You’re very wet, Lydia.” He kissed her mouth again. Harder. His fingers found her slit. She ground against his hand and moaned into his mouth. His voice was low and gravelly. “You’re highly aroused. Does all this talk of sucking my cock excite you?”

“I-I want whatever pleases you.”

He slowly circled her nub and bent his head to suckle her nipple. She arched back with a cry. “That’s not what I asked. Do you want to take my cock into your mouth?”

Her eyes flickered down the pulsing length in her hand. She ran a pink tongue over her lips. His sac contracted. He felt his control slipping. Dear God, please say yes.



Marcus looked at her with sheer, carnal want that made her belly throb and her knees weak. She knew what he wanted and though it frightened her, it exhilarated her more to have within her power to take him into throes of rapture, to grant this dark desire.

To a man, lust and love are commingled. The latter cannot exist without the former. A man doesn’t express love by spewing poetic nonsense, Lydia, but by worshipping a woman’s body.

Only hours ago, isn’t that precisely what he had done? Worshipped her most intimate places, with his mouth, teeth and tongue, forgoing his own wants only to fulfill hers?

She’d been too overcome by her emotions to realize he hadn’t taken from her at all. He’d given. Given her everything she’d dreamed of, satisfied her in ways she could never satisfy herself. She hadn’t recognized it and had rejected him. While Marcus had quickly veiled the sting of her rebuff, he’d felt it. She’d seen the evidence. Only an hour ago she had wished she could take it back and at least try to trust him. Try to make him love her. Now she had another chance.

“Yes, Marcus,” she whispered against his neck. “I want to do what you did to me—kiss you, taste you, take you in my mouth. Please tell me how, show me what to do.”

With a guttural sound, Marcus pulled her to his mouth, kissing her deeply. He released her. She feathered kisses over his face, his neck, his chest, the flat plane of his stomach. He guided her slowly downward, following the trail of coarse, dark hair to the hot, jutting member that jolted and throbbed in her hand. Trembling with apprehension and anticipation, Lydia shifted her gaze to its purplish head moistened by fluid. She darted a gaze to his face. His eyes were shut tight, the lines of his face drawn taut. “Do you get wet too?” she asked, brushing a thumb over the tip of his verge, spreading the liquid over the top.