Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels #1)(62)

“You… you didn’t know what you were doing.”

Self-mockery thickened his voice. “I knew exactly what I was doing. I just wasn’t able to do it well.” His thumb grazed the edge of her lower lip, teasing the full shape. She caught her breath as his fingers slid across her jaw, nudging the angle upward, stroking the soft skin beneath her chin. “I meant to kiss you more like… this.”

His mouth covered hers with tantalizing pressure. So hot and slow, his lips coaxing a helpless response before she could think of withholding it. So gentle, his mouth firm and teasing, sending ticklish pangs down to parts of her body that she didn’t even have names for. The kisses went on and on, a new one starting before the last had quite ended. Beneath the covers, one of his hair-roughened legs brushed against hers. Reaching around his neck, she let her fingers sink into his silky dark hair, shaping to his skull.

His hand drifted along her spine until he had molded her hips against his. Even through the layers of flannel and linen that separated them, she felt their bodies conform intimately, softness yielding to hardness. He kissed her more aggressively, his tongue probing, searching deeper, and she moaned at the pleasure of it.

Nothing existed outside of this bed. There was only the sensuous friction of tangled limbs and gently wandering hands. She whimpered as he cupped her bottom and brought her against the hard ridge of his aroused flesh. He guided her hips in a slow rhythm, rubbing her sensuously against him until she began to moan with each stroke. The soft place he teased began to swell and twitch with sensation, and she flushed with shame. She shouldn’t feel this way, she shouldn’t want… what she wanted. No matter how close she pressed to him, she needed more. She could almost have attacked him, the desire was so acute.

As she squirmed against him, Devon flinched and gasped, and she realized she had inadvertently pressed against his ribs.

“Oh… I’m sorry…” Kathleen began to roll away from him, panting.

“No harm done.” He kept her in place. “Don’t go.” He was breathing hard – it must have been hurting him – but he didn’t seem to care.

“We have to stop,” she protested. “It’s wrong, and it’s dangerous for you – and I feel —” She paused. No word in her vocabulary could account for the seething desperation that filled her, the agonizing tension coiling inside.

Devon nudged her intimately, the subtle movement drawing a deep shiver from her.

“Don’t,” she moaned. “I feel hot and ill, and I can’t think. I can’t even breathe.”

She couldn’t fathom why Devon was amused, but as he brushed his lips against her cheek, she felt the shape of his smile.

“Let me help you, love.”

“You can’t,” she said in a muffled voice.

“I can. Trust me.”

He pressed her onto her back, his parted lips dragging over her throat and chest. She didn’t realize that he’d been working at the fastenings of her clothes until he spread her gown open.

She started as cool air wafted over her bare skin. “Devon —”

“Hush.” The word blew against the tip of her breast.

She moaned as his mouth covered her, drawing in the tender flesh with a firm, warm tug.

It seemed that his notion of how to help was to heap even more torment on her. He cupped her breasts in his hands and suckled with the lightest possible pulls, until her hips stirred helplessly to relieve the merciless tension. His palm slid beneath her nightgown to clasp her bare hip.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, “your skin, your shape, every part of you.” His hand insinuated between her thighs, easing them apart. “Open for me… a little more… yes… God, how soft you are, here… and here…”

He sifted through crisp curls and stroked into the tender furrow, separating the wetly yielding layers with his fingertips until an aching peak of flesh was revealed. Skillfully he teased around it and traced the melting-soft folds down to the entrance of her body. A jolt of surprise shook her as the tip of his finger slipped inside the tightness. Her eyes flew open, and she reached down reflexively, gripping his thickly muscled wrist.

Devon went still, seeming confounded as he stared down at her scarlet face. His expression changed to a mixture of wonder and pleasure and lust. “Does it hurt, love?” he asked huskily.

Her body had clamped around the intrusion, throbbing and smarting. “A… a little.” Awkwardly she tugged at his wrist, but he resisted the wordless plea.

Gently his thumb swirled over the tight, sensitive bud. His finger slid deeper inside her, caressing, eliciting such abundant wetness that she cringed and tried to look past the tangled bunch of the nightgown around her waist.

Breathing hard, he pressed his lips to the anxious lines of her forehead. “No, don’t worry. You become wet… in here… when your body is ready for me… it’s lovely, it makes me want you even more… Ah, sweet… I can feel you holding me.”

She could feel it too, her flesh working in lubricious pulls to welcome him. The invasion withdrew briefly, and then two fingers slipped inside, stretching her uncomfortably tight. His entire hand cupped her, the heel of it pressing against the soft crest of her sex, his fingers thrusting deep, deep, and she couldn’t help arching in hot confusion. Too much sensation was rolling up to her, making her heart thump so wildly that it frightened her.