Beauty Tempts the Beast (Sins for All Seasons #6) - Lorraine Heath Page 0,80

of her own.

His fingers journeyed up her thigh, stroked up and down. He adjusted the position of her leg, spread her wider. His fingers slipped unerringly through the slit in her drawers, fluttered over her soft curls, before going deeper. Parting the folds, he stroked the length of her before pressing his thumb against the swollen nub. She whimpered, gave a little jerk.

“You’re so damned wet, so hot,” he said against her mouth. He slid a finger inside her. “So tight.”

He sounded like a man in torment, but his torment could be no worse than hers. She was on the verge of begging when he reclaimed her mouth and began stroking in earnest where she needed to be stroked, circling, applying pressure, gliding over slick wetness.

Pleasure tripped through her, wave upon wave, each expanding farther, each growing more powerful until no part of her didn’t feel the magic of his touch. Sensations of pure ecstasy burst through her, tore a scream from her throat that he silenced by pressing her mouth against the corded tendons of his neck. She bit down as the bliss continued to undulate through her, as her released wrists landed hard on his broad shoulders, as the leg upon which she stood threatened to give way, would have if he hadn’t circled one arm around her and held her tight.

When it all passed, when the tremors began to subside, when she came back into herself, she realized she was breathing as harshly as he.

Slowly, gently, he lowered the leg he’d lifted back to the floor and eased away from her until no part of her was touching any part of him.

“That’s it. That’s the lessons. We’re done.”

He hadn’t meant for it to go that far, had meant only to carry her to the brink and then send her to her room so she could finish herself off. He’d never planned to slip his hand beneath her skirt, to know her so intimately.

But he hadn’t the strength to deny her what he could give. Didn’t want her finding her surcease with her own hand rather than his.

She was flushed with pleasure, and he wanted nothing more than to take her back in his arms. But from this moment on, every aspect of her was going to be denied to him. Because with a single touch he lost all will to resist her.

He watched as she blinked, blinked, blinked. As the import of his words began to sink in.

“Lessons. Plural.” She shook her head. “This was only the first one.”

“The first, the last. We’re done,” he repeated with emphasis. “I’ll acknowledge to being rubbish as a tutor and go ahead and pay you the thousand. I’ll have the funds to you tomorrow.”

“But you’re not rubbish. You’re anything but rubbish. Why will you not give me more lessons? Is it the way I responded? You found my reaction repulsive?”

“You’re jesting, correct?”

Except no humor lit her eyes. Only worry, embarrassment, a shyness. This woman who had never been shy in his presence looked as though she wanted to retreat, and he hated himself for the doubts he caused her. “Do you know how many men would surrender their souls to the devil to have a woman respond like that in his arms?”

Of course she didn’t. She was an innocent.

She shook her head, the hurt in her eyes tearing him apart. “I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong.”

He cursed every blasted person who had ever made her question her value, herself. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Then why won’t you tutor me?”

Frustration seized him, the same frustration he’d been fighting since he met her. “Because I can’t keep my bloody mouth off you. I can’t keep my bloody hands off you. And it’s getting harder to keep my bloody cock away from you.”

The sadness in her eyes morphed into astonishment. “Oh.”

“You don’t need to be tutored, Thea. You don’t need lessons. You’re a natural temptress. You need but be yourself. For me not to acknowledge that, to continue to tutor you, would be to take advantage of you. I gave you my word I wouldn’t do that.”

“But I’m not complaining. I don’t mind.”

With a deep sigh, he shook his head. “But I do. It’s not right.”

“What about the rest of the agreement?”

“That’s entirely up to you. If what has passed between us has made you uncomfortable, we’ll visit Beckwith tomorrow, see the agreement properly terminated and you paid. I’ll honor the yearly salary and the three-month achievement. With that and what you won