Romancing the Duke (Castles Ever After #1)(60)

“I want to make love to you, Izzy. Very, very, very badly.”

Ransom had never used those words before. She couldn’t know that, but he did.

“I . . .” Her fingers went to his hair. “I want you, too. So much.”

Her shyly voiced admission redoubled his heart rate.

It was after midnight, and he was tired. Normally, his vision would be shot at this hour. But with all these candles, and the extreme nature of their evening, he had enough sight remaining to him that he could make out the dark aura of her hair against the white linen. And most lovely of all, her wide, red smile.

“You’re so beautiful.”

He turned her onto her side and began tugging at the buttons down the back of her frock. She’d changed out of the soiled, torn red silk and into one of her everyday frocks. Even though the buttons were larger and the fabric easier to manage, his fingers didn’t work too cleverly. It took him ages just to undo the first three or four buttons.

“Undressing you was easier when you were unconscious,” he said.

She laughed. “It was probably easier when you weren’t drunk.”

Right. He supposed he could have blamed his trembling on the whisky. But in reality, Ransom knew better.

He was dashed nervous. Because this would be his first time in a long time, and it would be her first time ever.

And because this was Izzy, and he wanted it to be good.

With a curse, he gave up on buttons for the moment.

“Izzy.” He cupped and kneaded her br**sts through the linen of her frock. “I can’t be patient. Not right now. Let me pleasure you.”

He found the slit in her drawers and widened it with a swift, decisive rip of fabric. He pulled her to the edge of the mattress and knelt on the floor at her feet. Then he pushed her skirts and petticoat up, bunching them around her waist, and hooked an arm beneath one of her legs, spreading her wide.

There. Now he could touch all of her. Taste all of her.

“Ransom?” She struggled to sit up. “What are you do—?”

He laid his tongue to her core.

“Oh.” She flopped back against the bed. “Oh.”

God, she was sweet. Sweet and pink and musky and Izzy.

Izzy, Izzy. My own.

His c**k throbbed vainly in his breeches. As he licked her, he freed it with one hand and began to stroke. Shameless, lewd. Bringing himself off right there on the floor while he pleasured her? But this was what she did to him. She reduced him to a panting, needing beast with no care for civility or etiquette. And she liked him crude and profane. She’d told him so.

On the bed, she writhed and wriggled. “Ransom. Ransom, are you certain this is—”

He raised his head just long enough to say: “Yes.”

He worked his way over and around all her most sensitive places, taking time to accommodate and make adjustments.

She gasped his name and clutched at his hair, holding him fast to her core. God, he loved it when she touched his hair.

He increased his efforts, licking all along her folds, then sweeping back to the swollen bud at the crest of her sex and suckling hard, flicking his tongue back and forth.

She shuddered and moaned, arching off the bed and spasming under his tongue.

Yes. Yes.

Come for me. Me, and no other.

As her climax broke, he slid his tongue inside her, needing to be in her, in some way. To possess her. Her intimate muscles convulsed, pulling at him. Begging for more.

He hurried to rejoin her on the bed, fitting himself in the cradle of her splayed thighs. His c**k brushed against the soft, dewy heat of her sex. He could be inside her in seconds.

But once he was inside her, there would be no taking it back.

He pressed his head to her shoulder and released a heavy sigh.

“Ransom?” She pushed up on one elbow. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s for you to decide.”

Izzy stared at him, her vision hazy in the aftermath of that beautiful, beautiful pleasure. Surely he wasn’t changing his mind now. The broad, smooth head of his erection lay against her thigh—hard and hot and eager.

He said, “I’m just drunk enough to think this is my most brilliant idea in ages. But I’m not too drunk to stop if you don’t feel the same.”

She was sober, and she knew very well that this might not be the most prudent idea. But something felt right about it, all the same. This wasn’t impersonal lust. They understood each other. She was likely halfway in love with him, and he cared for her, too. He might never say it in those words, but this very room was ablaze with the proof.

Besides, a girl like Izzy didn’t have the luxury of being choosy with her nights of wild passion.

This happened tonight, or never.

“I don’t want to stop,” she said.

“Thank God.” He sounded relieved as he pulled at her buttons and laces. His fingers moved more easily now. “For a moment there, I thought the attempt at decency would come back and bite me. It usually does.”

“Decency?” She slipped one arm free of its sleeve. “I should be terribly disappointed if you were decent. I’m expecting you to be wicked indeed.”

He freed her breast and bent to suckle it. “I’ll do my damnedest. It’s been a while.”

However long it had been, he hadn’t forgotten how to make a woman twist and writhe.