pleasure lascivious. Was she meeting the full power of the libertine?
“I am most certainly not afraid,” she gasped, though she could not help the shiver at that sensual threat. Turn her out? How properly and ominously naughty.
Maryann tilted her neck more to his questing tongue.
“Look at me.” The command was low and sensually rough.
Startled, she glanced up into his fiery gaze. He gripped her hips, and tugged her almost violently to him, slamming her sex to press directly against the hardness behind his trousers. Heat blossomed in her loins as pleasure stabbed like lightning to that nub, and she gasped against his mouth and grabbed his shoulders to steady herself against the sensations.
Suddenly she wanted to be rid of all the clothes between them, to feel his entire naked body against hers, to touch that hard part of him to her aching folds. Maryann imagined this was how he would spear into her body should they ever lose themselves so, with carnal dominance. The notion was thrilling and also incredibly intimidating.
“Give me your mouth.”
She helplessly responded, easing her mouth to his in an open-mouthed kiss. Maryann wrapped her hands around his neck, as he took her lips with tender desperation. He arched her, trailing his lips down her neck, licking and kissing.
“Nicolas.” His name purred from her in a throaty moan.
She felt drunk on pleasure, vibrantly alive. His large hands slipped from her hips to cup her buttocks, and then he rocked her, sliding her aching sex over his hardness. When she cried out, his mouth swallowed it hungrily.
Shocked arousal blossomed through her and she grew mortifyingly wet, dampening the front of his trousers. Maryann could feel it, but somehow the awareness only heightened the primal need burning in her veins.
He did it again and again and again, never releasing her mouth from his drugging kisses. Hot, drowning pleasure gripped her and with each rock of her against him, the pleasure inside grew hotter until sweat dampened her brows.
Her breath came in gasps and pants and whimpers at the friction against that split between her thighs. Each drag back and forth ground her nub of pleasure into his hardness. That nub got harder, more sensitive, more needy. Maryann felt as if a fire had been lit from within her and she burned with reckless passion.
“Oh God, Nicolas!”
His urgings grew even rougher, and with each slide of her core over his hardened bulge, her body jerked under the burn of pleasure, eroding all rational thought until with a wild scream swallowed by his mouth, she unraveled.
The clamoring of her heartbeat seemed to drive the air from her lungs. Maryann distantly became aware of the soft soothing kisses pressed to her forehead, and that she was quaking against him. His hands were no longer at her hips but hugging her to him while he lightly moved his hands up and down her back, gentling her body, which felt languid and unfamiliar as it came down from the stunning pleasures.
His hands seemed to move without deliberate thought and his thumbs were gently massaging her taut nipples through her night rail. Her nipples seemed to grow and harden under his supple thumbs, and she felt a rush deep inside her as her body reacted once more. She was still tight against him and she could feel the pulse within that part of him that any nice girl should not be aware of. She blushed with embarrassment at her own wantonness, but both her desires and body only wanted more—far more.
She sighed gustily against his mouth, still trembling from the pleasure. “I think I might have to marry you after this.”
His lips curved. “Is that a proposal, Lady Maryann?”
She smoothed a wisp of unruly hair from his forehead. “Odd, you do not sound frightened at the prospect.”
He grunted softly and pressed a kiss to her damp temple. “The prospect of spending a lifetime with a woman of your wit, beauty, and passion is not alarming.”
Maryann was astonished. “Nicolas?”
“Yes?”
“So, you believe in love then?”
“I do not deny its existence, nor do I want to.”
“An acceptable answer,” she replied with a quick smile.
He brushed the pad of his thumb over her lower lip, which felt bruised and swollen from his kisses. “Wait on me.”
Her throat closed and she felt dispossessed of all rational thoughts. Maryann was almost afraid to ask what he meant. “Wait on you to court me?”
A fleeting smile touched his mouth. “Yes.”
Oh! “Why not now?”
“There are some words…some actions that can only remain in