To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)(85)

“No,” she choked. “Never think that.” And she pulled his head down to her own.

She kissed him, trying to instill all her conflicting thoughts and hopes into that simple gesture. Mouth to mouth, lips moving together. A kiss was such a basic thing, a thing easily given, but she wanted this kiss to be more. She wanted Samuel to know that she’d never thought him a coward.

She wanted him to know that she loved him.

Yes, love. No matter who she married, no matter if she never again saw him, she would always love this man. Loving him was beyond her control. Even though Samuel was the wrong man to marry, the wrong man to spend the rest of her life with, she couldn’t help loving him.

So she kissed him softly, her lips as gentle as she could make them. She moved over his mouth, murmuring incoherent endearments, finally licking so that she could taste him. She would need to remember this moment later, his taste, his lips, what kissing Samuel felt like. She would have to hold the memory in her heart forever. This memory would be the only thing she had of him.

He moved suddenly, grasping her upper arms, and she didn’t know whether he sought to push her away or draw her closer. She panicked then. He couldn’t leave her before she’d shown him that she loved him.

“Please,” she murmured against his lips.

His fingers tightened on her arms.

She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “Please. Let me.”

His brows drew together over his beautiful coffee-brown eyes as if he were puzzled. She pressed her palms against his chest. She’d never be able to move him against his will, but he let her. He stepped back, and when she pressed again, he backed again, until his legs hit the side of her bed.

He glanced at the bed behind him and then at her. “Emeline—”

“Shhh.” She placed her fingers against his lips. “Please.”

He searched her eyes a moment and then must have understood her incoherent plea. He nodded.

She smiled tremblingly at him. For this night, she would put away all thoughts of the future and what would come. Her anxieties, her fears, all the burdens she carried, all the people who depended on her. She would forget them for a few precious hours. Gently she drew his coat from his shoulders, taking care not to jostle his injuries. She folded the garment carefully and placed it on a table; then she began unbuttoning his plain brown waistcoat. She was conscious of her breathing, shallow and quick with nervousness, and his as well, deep and even. He watched her undress him, making no move to either help or hinder, his hands idle by his side.

She glanced up and met his eyes and felt a wash of heat in her cheeks. What an intimate act this was, to undress a man.

He smiled faintly as he shrugged off his waistcoat. She took a deep breath and started on his shirt. His hands came up to rest on her hips, lightly, but she felt the heat of his fingers even through the layers of cloth. Her hands shook, fumbling with a button. He leaned over her and kissed the top of her head. His body surrounded her, and she inhaled his scent: wool and linen, leather and parsley. She pulled apart the edges of his shirt, looking at his bare chest. His skin was so beautiful; she ran her fingertips over his collarbone and pressed her palm onto his chest. She could feel the wiry hair beneath, and under that the slow beat of his heart. He was here with her, so real. How would she be able to bear it when he wasn’t? When he was across a wide, wide ocean?

She pushed that thought away as she urged him onto the bed. He sat and watched her under hooded eyes, waiting for her next move.

She dropped to her knees and began to unlace his moccasins. He made to lift her up.

She looked at him. “Please.”

His hands dropped.

The laces were made of some type of leather, and she bent over them, concentrating on discovering how they worked. She was aware, though, of his legs before her and her supplicant position. The pose was humble and at the same time erotic.

The first moccasin came off, and she started on the next. He stroked her hair as she worked, silent, never commenting, and she wondered what he thought of this. Yesterday he’d been so angry. She looked up and saw only need in his eyes.

He bent and kissed her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, holding her head now with both hands, and she was lost, forgetting her purpose, forgetting what she wanted. She swayed and placed her hands on his thighs to steady herself as he arched her head back, feeding on her mouth. Oh, Lord, she wanted this man. He brought her forward, and she was enclosed, still kneeling between his thighs, hard and strong, on either side of her. And in front...She smoothed her palms up the leather covering his thighs until they inevitably met where the leather stopped and there was only fabric at the juncture of his legs. She gasped, her inhale lost in his kiss, for he was hard and straining already against his breeches. She cradled his length, tracing him through the cloth.

He caught her hands.

She broke the kiss and glanced up at him. “Let me.”

His face was dark, flushed from passion, and he looked in no mood to concede her anything.

“Please,” she whispered.

He opened his hands, spreading them palms up on his thighs in a gesture of acquiescence. She squeezed him gently through the fabric and then let go to work on opening the flap of his breeches. She peeled back the cloth and fumbled with his smallclothes until she found him, ruddy and proud underneath. The hair surrounding his cock was almost black, a shockingly private sight. This should only be for her, she knew on a primitive level. This man, this sight, this penis was hers.