The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(73)

Adair swallowed her words with his lips.

She stilled, and then she wrapped her arms about his neck and drew herself closer to the hard wall of his chest.

His tongue stroked between her lips over and over until she melted against him, a molten puddle of uselessness. “Are you . . . doing this to silence me?” she managed to gasp out between his bold, erotic kisses.

“Would you care if I did?” he breathed against the place where her pulse throbbed at her neck. He nipped and sucked at that sensitive flesh.

Moaning, she arched her head so he could better avail himself of her flesh. “I w-wouldn’t b-be pleased . . .” She struggled to get the words out, clutching her fingers in his lush brown hair and holding him close. “I d-don’t like to be—” He slipped free the laces at the top of her chest, and the fabric fell open, exposing her skin to the cool night air. Lowering his head, he caught a nipple between his lips. She hissed out a breath as he laved the tender bud, suckling it. “I—I confess,” she cried out softly, dropping her head back. “I—I’ve quite f-forgotten what I was . . .” He flicked his tongue back and forth over the swollen tip and then turned his attentions over to her other, neglected breast. “Adair,” she pleaded.

He caught her up, and then scooping her in his arms, he carried her over to the leather button sofa at the center of the room. Pausing, he stooped over her, his hands on the edges of his shirt. His chest moved with the force of one who’d raced across London and back. She dipped her eyes lower, to the muscular expanse of his oaklike thighs . . . and at the apex where his shaft tented the fabric of those dark garments.

“Look at me, Cleopatra.”

All the air left her.

He stared at her, his eyes hot with hungering. For me . . . he desires me. And she marveled that a man such as Adair Thorne, a model of male perfection, wanted her.

“I want to make love to you,” he said. His voice was husky and low, and it heightened the growing need to have him back in her arms.

She smiled slowly, and then never taking her gaze from his, with steady fingers Cleopatra lifted the shirt over her head and tossed it to the wood floor. The white lawn fabric landed in a noiseless heap.

Adair’s Adam’s apple worked up and down, and he stretched out a reverent hand, palming her left breast. He tweaked the sensitive tip, bringing her eyes briefly closed. She bit the inside of her cheek when he again stopped. But then, he began working her breeches down over her waist, sliding them past her hips.

Unabashed, she kicked them away and stood before him naked.

“You are so beautiful,” he breathed hoarsely.

His compliment fueled her, and going up on tiptoe, she pressed herself against his chest. Gripping his nape, she forced his head down for her kiss, mating her mouth with his. All these years she’d scoffed at the women inside the Devil’s Den who’d excitedly whispered about sex. Only now, with Adair’s strong, callused palms roving a path along her buttocks and cupping that supple flesh, did she understand what compelled so many of those women. There was no shame or regret. There was just a burning heat that seared her from the inside. Guiding her down onto the sofa, Adair came over her and laid claim to her mouth once more. They dueled with their tongues, thrusting and parrying. Their breath came melded as one in a ragged, desperate rhythm.

He slipped a hand between her legs, finding the thatch of curls there. She went taut at the intimacy of his touch, and then a shuddery gasp burst from her lips as he parted her folds to caress the slick nub there. Of their own volition, Cleopatra’s hips lifted, arching higher as yearning drove back all reservations, and she was capable of nothing else but feeling. She clamped down hard on her lower lip as he slid a finger inside and began to stroke her. In and out. Over and over until Cleopatra was reduced to incoherency. “Adair,” she keened his name, and it became a litany. A pressure continued to build at her aching center, and he slipped another long digit inside. She increased the frantic gyrating of her hips.

And then he stopped.

She cried out and stretched her arms up to drag him back to her.

But he only stood, and with stiff, frantic movements, stripped his shirt overhead, then tossed it aside. Her mouth went dry, and she roved her gaze over his heavily muscled chest, lightly matted with tight coils of dark curls and marked with jagged scars. He epitomized a warrior’s beauty.

Adair tugged free first one boot, then the other, letting them fall beside him. He moved his hands to his waist and then slowly shoved the dark breeches off.

Her whispery gasp was lost in the noisy rustle of the garment hitting the floor. She stared on in wonder. His thick, tall manhood jutted proudly toward his flat belly. It throbbed under her scrutiny. Wordlessly, she reached her hand out and lightly folded him in her fingers.

A sound better suited a wounded bear ripped from Adair’s throat, and she paused, looking up. “Oi’m sorry,” she said, instantly lightening her grip. She’d kneed, kicked, punched, and grabbed enough assailants in that very region over the years to know it was given to pain.

“No,” he rasped, guiding her back to his length.

She hesitated. “Oi didn’t hurt you?”

“Only in the best possible way,” he squeezed out between clenched teeth.

Cleopatra explored him tentatively at first, and emboldened by his groan, she deepened her strokes. He was like heated steel in her hand.