Twelfth Night with the Earl (The Sutherland Sisters #3)(35)

His head disappeared under her skirts, and in the next breath Thea felt his mouth, hot and open and wet against her stomach. She cried out—his name, she thought—but the words died on her lips when his mouth moved lower, over the gentle swell of her belly to the tops of her thighs. He murmured to her as he kissed her, soothing her, his voice soft, the words disjointed, just sounds, really, sighs and moans of pleasure, and—

Thea gasped as he wrapped his hands around the backs of her thighs and lifted her legs over his shoulders. “Ethan! What are you—?”

She got no further, because his hot mouth settled between her legs and his tongue stroked over her center, lingering on the tiny bud that throbbed with need.

Her head fell back against the door, and any protest she might have thought to utter dissolved in a breathless moan. “Oh, I—Ethan . . . oh.”

“Jesus, Thea.” He was gripping her thighs, holding her legs open. “So beautiful and sweet. You’re drenched in honey.”

He dragged his tongue over her center, one long sweep after another as if he were desperate to get more of her taste, and Thea held onto him for dear life, squirming against the door as she tried to get closer to his mouth. “Ethan, it feels . . . please.”

He spread her legs wider, pressed his mouth harder against her, and darted his tongue over that sweet spot between her legs over and over again, caressing and circling, lightly at first, pausing between each stroke to tease her until she was sobbing with need, her hips rising and falling with every tortuous caress until he seemed to go mad himself. He tightened his grip on her hips and sucked hard at her, groaning against her damp flesh, urging her on. The tension between her thighs climbed and climbed until at last Thea’s legs went stiff and her back bowed as pleasure crashed over her in one wave after another, leaving her body limp in its wake.

Ethan stayed with her as she squirmed against his mouth, his strokes becoming slower and gentler until they were just soft brushes of his lips. He kissed her thighs and stomach when she sagged against the door, then steadied her legs on the floor, came out from under her skirt and rose to his feet.

She looked into his eyes, dazed, and he smiled down at her. “You are sweetest there, just as I knew you’d be.”

“I’ve never felt . . . I didn’t think . . .”

She shook her head, unable to put into words what she wanted to say. Since their first kiss all those years ago, she’d thought about Ethan again and again, and wondered what it would be like to kiss him—not another sweet, girlish kiss, but a woman’s kiss. She’d thought about what it would be like to touch him, to lie with him in his bed, but she’d never imagined he could give her so much pleasure.

He laughed softly as he unfastened the rest of her buttons. “We’ve just begun, sweetheart.” He gathered her into his arms and carried her to his bed in her shift, leaving her gown in a heap on the floor by the door. “And I want to show you everything.”

He lay her down and stretched out beside her, but he didn’t seem in any hurry to do more than simply look at her. He pulled the pins from her hair, spread it across his pillow and ran his fingers through the long curls, his eyes following every play of the light on the dark strands. “You have red in your hair.” He grinned down at her. “I suppose it makes sense. You do have a quick temper.”

Thea smiled back and edged closer to him, expecting every moment he’d take her into his arms and show her the “everything” he’d promised, but he continued his leisurely play. He stroked a finger across her cheekbone and then down her throat to her neck, smiling a little as his touch left a flush in its wake. “Your skin has always driven me mad. Did you know that?”

“No. That is, I suspected I drove you mad, but I thought it was because of my sharp tongue, not my skin.”

“Oh, make no mistake about it—your tongue drives me mad, too.” He traced her lips, his eyes going hot and dark when she darted her tongue at his stroking fingers.

He wanted her. Thea didn’t know much about a man’s desire, but she knew enough to know the hard column of flesh straining against the front of his breeches meant he desperately needed release. And yet he made no move to take her, but seemed content to just lie with her and touch her.

He was tracing the skin at the edge of her shift when Thea decided to take matters into her own hands. “Ethan?”

“Hmmm?”

“Aren’t we going to . . . that is, I thought you wanted to . . .”

Her face heated, and a wicked half-smile crossed his lips. “Yes? Going to what?”

Thea bit her lip. How to put this? “I thought you might like to . . . well, at the very least, take off your breeches.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I know what you’re up to, Miss Sheridan.”

Well, she should hope so. “Up to? Whatever do you mean? I just want to—”

“You want to have another look at my bottom.”

She laughed, startled. “Among other things, yes. That is, it would be a start.”

His eyes widened as if he were shocked, but his lips twitched. “Are you saying, Miss Sheridan, you want to have a look at my cock?”

Thea opened her mouth, then closed it. His cock? My goodness. But wasn’t she meant to do more than look at it?

She gestured vaguely at his pelvis. “Well, isn’t it . . . that is, it’s in quite a state.”