When Strangers Marry (Vallerands #1)(45)

He stopped as he saw Lysette, dressed in a loose nightgown, her heavy braid falling over her shoulder and down to her waist. Her pale face and white gown almost glowed in the darkness.

“You look like a little ghost,” he said, taking a step closer to her, then stopping as if encountering an invisible wall.

“I heard you come in. You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?” She came forward and touched his arm. “Let me help you to your room.”

“I don’t need help.”

“I’ll reserve opinion on that,” she said, and took his arm firmly. “Please, Max.”

He complied with a surly grunt, shivering in his cold, wet clothes. They went into his bedroom and Lysette fumbled to light a bedside lamp.

“Don’t bother,” Max muttered. “I’ll be asleep soon. Just need… to get out of these clothes.” He sat on a chair and removed his muddy boots, while Lysette brought some folded towels. Reaching for his cravat to untie it, Max discovered the damn thing was already loose, hanging limply on either side of his neck. He threw it to the floor and fought his way out of his clammy coat and waistcoat. His dripping shirt was discarded next, and he stood clad only in his breeches as Lysette toweled off his chest and back. She was clean and dainty and dry, whereas he was a clumsy, drunken mess.

“Lysette, you have to leave now,” he said irritably.

She paused in her ministrations. “Why?”

“Because I’m too drunk to do anything except the one thing you don’t want. So you’d better go to your own bed, or you’re going to find yourself heels-up in mine.”

A crack of lightning lit the room with blue-white brilliance. During the split second of illumination, Lysette’s gaze had fastened on Max with an intensity that caused the hairs on the back of his neck to prickle. He remained motionless, his liquor-dulled brain struggling to understand what that expression had meant.

He felt her small hands slide over his breeches, her fingers prying at the buttons on the front flap. His breath was knocked from his throat, and his c**k jerked to life, hardening and swelling irrepressibly. “Lysette…” His lungs worked like leaky bellows. “No, don’t. Don’t. If you touch me, I can’t—” He broke off with a sharp gasp as the flap fell open and her warm hand slid over the length of his shaft, up and down. He throbbed violently in response to the deliberate stroking. The other hand cupped his testicles, fondling gently, her palm supporting their weight. “I can’t…” he managed again, his trembling hands coming to grasp her narrow shoulders.

“You can’t what?” Lysette asked, her breath puffing against his nipple. The tip of her tongue flicked at the tiny point. His chest was filled with fire, and the blood roared in his ears until he could barely hear her. “Can’t make love to me?” she asked.

He wound her braid around his fist and urged her head back. “Can’t stop,” he answered raggedly, and seized her mouth with his.

Chapter 8

After removing Lysette’s nightgown and his own breeches, Max carried her to the bed. “I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you,” he said hoarsely. “Even dirty and scratched and with your br**sts bound flat, I thought you were beautiful. You were so exhausted you could barely stay on your feet, but you defied me as no one else ever had.”

“And you wanted me,” she said in pleasure, arching upward as he kissed her throat.

He answered between kisses, each one a slow burst of fire. “So much that I promised myself… I would do whatever was necessary to keep you.” His breathing turned choppy as he glanced down at her na**d body. “Lysette… don’t change your mind tonight. I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop—”

Lysette interrupted him with her mouth, and pulled his hand to her bare breast. “I won’t change my mind,” she said throatily. “Do anything you want. Do everything.”

“No, not everything,” he said thickly, while his fingertips moved over the small curve of her breast. “You’re too innocent for that, ma petite.”

A delicious shiver coursed down her spine. “Then do as much as you think I can bear.”

Max needed no further invitation. His body lowered, and he allowed some of his weight to settle between her thighs, pinning her in place. The length of his sex pressed into the furrow hidden in the triangle of silky-rough curls. Lysette relaxed beneath him, her eyes closing as she felt him take her nipple between his fingers, gently shaping it into a hard peak. His head bent, the soft, wet warmth of his mouth closing around her. He suckled and flicked the delicate tip with his tongue, until she could no longer prevent the helpless moans that surged from her throat. His mouth dragged across her chest, dipping sweetly into the shallow valley in the center, lazily ascending the second gentle curve. His tongue touched her breast in a velvety stroke that made it throb unbearably. She pulled harder at his head, urging him to take her deeper into his mouth, and he complied with a slowness that nearly made her scream. Dimly she began to understand the sensuous game he was playing, that he intended to prolong her torturous desire, and his own, until they could bear it no longer.

With each soft tug of his mouth, Lysette squirmed upward, her h*ps lifting against the underside of his shaft. The feel of him was so incendiary that she began to concentrate on the motion, her legs spreading, her body rubbing his in a quickening rhythm.