Haunted by the Earl's Touch - By Ann Lethbridge Page 0,80

didn’t understand. His eyelids looked heavy. His mouth full and sensuous. He looked beautiful.

‘Mary,’ he whispered. ‘Sweetling.’ The word made her heart swell too large for her chest.

As he gazed at her, he gently rubbed her fingertip against the peak of her breast, inside the robe, where only the linen of her chemise protected her. The nipple hardened and furled into a tight little nub. It stood at attention. Not with cold, but with longing to be touched.

More thrills chased their way down to her belly. She felt that strange little pulse between her thighs and the jolt of pleasure it caused.

She moaned.

He pressed his lips to the place her finger had touched, kissing and nipping and laving with his tongue. The ache at her core intensified and she writhed beneath him, opening her thighs to cradle his body, seeking the pressure that would relieve the terrible unbearable need.

He unlaced the ribbon at the neck of her chemise and pulled down first one side, then the other to expose her breasts to his gaze. She could only see the top of his head, but she knew what he’d done by the feel of the air and his breath on her skin. By the tightness across her ribs. She tried to cover herself with her hands, but he grasped them in one of his and held them over her head, lifting his upper body to look down into her face.

‘Would you deny me such bounteous beauty, my dearest?’ he breathed and his expression held such a look of awe as he gazed down at her exposed flesh, at the mounds of her full bosom and at the tightly furled rosy peaks at their tips, she could deny him nothing.

She managed to shake her head and he gave a rough sort of laugh.

‘Oh, Mary. You are every bit as delicious as my imagination said you were.’

‘And wicked,’ she mumbled as her face turned scarlet.

‘How can anything so good be wicked?’ he said, but his raspy voice was full of wicked seduction and passion. But it was his eyes that gave her pause. They were alive with something more than lust. There was tenderness and...affection. A warmth she had given up hoping to see in anyone’s eyes.

She expected her girls to respect her, but she knew she could not command their affection.

But if her heart felt something stronger towards him, a deeper emotion she could not seem to freeze out of existence, there was no reason for him to know. Tonight was just about desire.

She pulled her hands free of his grip and flung her arms around his neck. She kissed his chin, his nose, his cheekbone with a rush of joy. He welcomed her kisses with a smile of such unusual sweetness it made her heart lurch. She had never felt quite so happy. And tears burned the backs of her eyes. His face wobbled out of focus.

His smile fled. ‘Crying, sweetling?’

‘Happy tears,’ she said.

His laugh sounded a little startled.

Too much emotion for a man of his iron control, no doubt. ‘It is nothing. Kiss me, Bane. Make me warm.’

His lips met hers and they sank into the heat of passion, his hands wandering her body, the silk of the robe sliding over her skin in a sensual dance. He undid the tie around her waist and it fell open, revealing her skin through her chemise, bathed in firelight.

And when he slid off the sofa to kneel beside her, this time she let him look his fill. Like a wanton woman. She watched his expression as his gaze roved over her from head to heel. A searing glance full of carnal longings. It sent her blood scorching through her veins.

Her thighs fell open at the gentle pressure of his hand. He stroked and kissed the inner bend of her knee, the delicate flesh high on the inside of her thigh and she closed her eyes and let the marvellous feelings wash away all thoughts from her mind. Thought had no place in this miracle of physical delight.

His touch left her. She forced her heavy-lidded eyes open and watched him strip off his shirt. She gaped at the magnificent breadth of him. The wide shoulders, the defined muscles of his chest with a dusting of crisp black curls around his nipples. The ridge of muscles across his abdomen.

So many muscles. So much unforgiving strength.

It would not matter how hard she fought physically, she could never overcome such power. If she wanted to win,