nerves he tormented.
Her thighs started to shake, and one of his large hands grabbed her hips and tugged her to his mouth. As if she could escape. To her back was the unyielding wall and at her front, his strength and devastating tongue.
“Nicolas, please!” she cried, not knowing what she demanded.
She gripped his hair, thrusting her fingers through his strands. Maryann couldn’t tell if she did this to hold him to her or to yank his head back to get an ease from the unrelenting pleasure he assaulted her senses with, and he made a guttural noise in his throat, low and approving. Then he closed his lips over her nub and sucked.
She screamed. A thin, high wail that echoed in the conservatory. A surge of agonizing pleasure tightened low in her belly, so hot and uncomfortable, desperate and straining. Her thighs trembled fiercely as that tight coil within her snapped and blossomed through her body in shuddering waves of delight.
Oh God, she was mortifyingly wet. She could feel it along the folds of her sex and thighs. Maryann thought with the release of that agonizing pleasure, his tormenting tongue would have eased. But it did not, and her throat felt raw with the effort to not scream when he once again changed the dance of his tongue.
“Nicolas! Oh God, please, Nicolas,” she gasped huskily, arching involuntary, pushing against his mouth until the devastating pleasure became a raging tempest, stripping her of shyness and uncertainty. She could feel her heart racing, the heat surging in her veins.
Maryann sobbed. She gripped his hair so tight he might own to a bald spot later on. Her head fell back against the wall as she gasped for breath with each flick of his tongue, each nibble of his teeth pushing her closer to devastation. And then it was there, and Maryann swore she went flying from her body as pleasure took her apart. She raised trembling fingers to her cheeks, shocked to find them wet with tears. The pleasure had been that excruciating.
Her leg was gently lowered, her dress, too. Then he rose in the dark, hitching that leg that had been over his shoulder at his hips, cradling his weight between her legs. Maryann wondered at the hard bulge she felt at the front of his trousers.
“I am so damn tempted,” he said roughly. “You are so soft and hot against me. So wet.”
Her face heated.
He reached between them with a hand, his knuckles brushing butterfly soft over the folds of her sex.
“Even with this wetness, I can tell that you would grip me tight,” he murmured.
To her chagrin, she felt another blush steal up her cheeks. Maryann was ever so grateful of the darkness in the conservatory.
“I am holding on by a damn thread,” he hissed, removing his hand from his obvious source of temptation. He buried his face in her throat, and she dazedly realized his body shook.
“Nicolas,” she whispered, a feeling of awe sweeping through her. “You tremble.” I made you tremble.
“So do you.”
And it was then she realized her body also quaked and her breath puffed from her fast and unsteady. She twined her hand around his neck, holding him close.
His head lifted from her throat.
“Breathe, Maryann,” he whispered at the corner of her mouth.
The air left Maryann’s lungs in a harsh rush.
“I frightened you.”
No…yes. She could not speak. I frightened myself.
The soft folds between her thighs were tender, sensitive…achy and needy. Except she had no notion what more her body could possibly be wanting. At her lingering silence, he pressed a kiss to her brow, down her nose, and then lightly across her lips.
It wasn’t a kiss, but it shattered her. His head dipped even lower, and the marquess once again buried his nose in her neck, inhaling her scent, and her heart tripped inside her chest and then squeezed.
“It is not safe to be here with me.”
“I have never felt safer,” she whispered, unerringly kissing the top of his head. “You do not kiss my mouth.” That she had not intended to say.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“If I should taste you…I won’t stop.”
“Didn’t you already just taste me?”
His raw curse had her blushing.
“Your mouth is a particular weakness of mine. If I should kiss you…feel your lips against mine, I will sheathe you on my cock right here and I will not tup you with the gentleness and consideration you deserve.”
Maryann assumed that meant ravishment. Her chest rose and fell on an unsteady breath. “And is that a bad