No Earls Allowed (The Survivors #2)(61)

One hand swept into the valley of her breasts and tugged at the knot keeping her stays tightly laced. Since she had no one to help her dress, she had to lace them in front, and now he loosened them easily and pushed them down and out of his way.

“You are exquisite,” he said, his gaze going to her face and then back to her all-but-translucent chemise. She looked down and could see the pink of her aureoles and nipples through the fine fabric. He bent his head, pressing his warm mouth against one breast. His breath was hot, and the shot of pleasure went straight to her core. Wet heat dampened her sex as his tongue darted out to dampen the linen on her shift. He took her nipple through the fabric, sucking it and rubbing it with his tongue. The feel of the fabric scraping against her already-turgid flesh was more than she could resist. She moaned softly, and he stilled.

She opened her eyes—belatedly realizing she’d closed them—and looked at him to find his lovely eyes focused on her face. “I want to hear you do that again. Before we’re through here, you’ll moan my name, Juliana.”

His mouth took her other nipple, and she closed her eyes. “Wraxall,” she moaned.

“Neil,” he said, his mouth still on her. And then she felt the knot of her chemise loosen and the cool air on wet skin. He parted the fabric, and his bare hands touched her bare flesh. She trembled, and the hard points of her nipples seemed to grow even fuller. She needed his mouth on her there, though she knew it would not give her the relief she sought.

This was what he had meant by exquisite pain. She wanted more, burned for more, and when he gave it to her, her need simply grew.

His mouth pressed on the slope of one breast while his hand cupped the other. When he ran a thumb over that nipple, the rough pad of his finger on that tender bud, she moaned without restraint. His mouth moved lower, heat making a fiery path to the place she wanted him. “Please,” she whispered. “Yes,” she said when his mouth brushed over the stiff, throbbing point. His hand plucked at her flesh as his mouth teased her, and then he closed his hot lips over her, and she bucked at the pleasure. Her back arched, and she knew she had surrendered to him completely.

One hand wrapped around her, holding her steady, holding her sex against the hard length of him, while his mouth teased and tantalized. The more his mouth worshipped her, the more she wanted. She could not stop her moans and pants of pleasure, and if that behavior was not indignity enough, her hands fisted in his hair and all but pushed him into her chest.

And then his hands grasped her hips, and he groaned her name. “I shall embarrass myself if you keep this up.”

For a long moment she did not know what he meant. The panting? The hands in his hair? And then she realized he held her hips—hips that wanted desperately to move. Good Lord, she had been grinding against him. She was little better than a dog in heat.

“No,” he said, his hand cupping her chin and forcing her to look at him. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Your movements are perfectly natural. Let me give you what you want.”

She nodded because she wanted so much, and he—he seemed to know exactly what it was her body yearned for. He lifted her, hands under her bottom, then laid her on the bed gently, on the side away from the pins. She looked up at him, feeling suddenly more exposed as she lay on the bed with her bodice open. Which was ridiculous. She had been just as exposed on his lap.

He sat on the bed beside her and one warm hand came to rest between her breasts. She might have turned into that touch if she hadn’t felt his other hand on her ankle. That hand moved upward inch by provocative inch, exposing her ankle. She opened her mouth to protest, and his large hand closed over one breast. And then he bent over her, his mouth on the other. Her hands gripped the bedclothes as his hot breath made her quiver and his hand on her calf made her itch to move, to squirm, to…something.

And then his hand was on her knee, and she knew she must stop him. He sucked her nipple into his mouth, the pressure harder than before and that much more exquisite. At the same time, he pushed her knees open.

And she allowed it. She did not want him to stop. She wanted his hand on her thigh and higher—in that private place only she had ever touched. His hand slid upward, tickling the inside of her thigh. He raised his head, his eyes as blue as the sea when he looked at her.

“Are you wet for me?”

“Yes,” she said, too aroused to be embarrassed.

“Will you let me touch you? I want to feel how wet you are.”

“I can’t,” she said, the words so filled with regret she all but cried them. “I cannot risk a child, a pregnancy.”

He shook his head. “You misunderstand. I won’t take you—not like that. I won’t touch you with anything but fingers.” His fingers moved higher, and she widened her legs, despite knowing she should end this. The children could be through with their lessons. She had lost control. There was a midday meal to consider.

“And hands.” He shifted on the bed, his hands pushing her skirts up until she was exposed to him. She almost grabbed them, to lower them again, but his hands slid over her pelvis and across her sex until they rested between her legs, those skilled fingers teasing her by inching higher and retreating over and again.

“You see? Only fingers.” His finger brushed against her and she gasped. “And hands.” He cupped her, and God help her, she pressed against his hand. “And perhaps my mouth.”