Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,54

over one small male nipple, she heard him inhale.

“It’s the same for me as for you,” he said, moving his hand to cover one breast. “There’s sensitivity in certain places. Marvelous sensitivity.”

Marvelous, indeed. Through the fabric of her nightgown, the weight of his hand covering her breast spread a lovely warmth through her middle. Her back arched into the contact without Sophie’s volition, and when he closed his fingers gently over her nipple, her breath caught in her throat.

“The same, you see.” Vim stroked her breast through the fabric then lowered his head and used his teeth to apply the same gentle, arousing pressure.

She had to do something, lest his attentions destroy her reason, so she found his nipple and emulated his caress.

“Like that,” he said, barely lifting his mouth from her. He’d wet the fabric of her nightgown with his mouth, a maddening, frustrating, altogether pleasurable sensation that had heat coursing out through Sophie’s body.

Did he want her mouth on him in the same way?

“Stop trying to think, Sophie.” He lifted his head from her breast and shifted to fuse his mouth to hers.

Marvelous, lovely, spectacular… She winnowed her hand through his hair and gave herself up to the sheer glory of being kissed by a man who knew exactly what he was about. His onslaught was delicate and voracious at once, tasting her, enticing her tongue with his own, and inspiring Sophie to hike her leg over his hips in a bid to draw him closer.

Ah, God, she wanted this to go on forever. She wanted him to show her all there was to know and then forge new ground with her, ground unique to the two of them. And God bless the man, while he was storming her very reason with his kisses, his hand, his wonderful, warm hand, settled back over her breast.

“Vim…”

“Tell me if you like it.” He closed his hand around her breast, drawing a little on her nipple. “I like it. I like the feel of you in my arms, Sophie. I like the way you taste, I like how your hands feel on my naked body.”

“Naked.” Naked was wonderful too. She slid her hand down over his flank to grab him by his derriere and try to pull him closer. “I like that you’re naked. I like it a lot.”

He closed his mouth over hers, and Sophie just barely registered the sensation of her nightgown being slowly, slowly eased up her thigh.

Naked was wonderful, and she wanted to be naked too. This burning, searing closeness was another part of what she’d wished for, lighting bonfires in all the places her mind and body had been growing steadily colder for years. She put her hand over his where it was stealing up her leg.

“Let me take this off.” She said the words right against his mouth and was thus able to feel him smile. He shifted back just a few inches.

“Be quick about it, lest I aid you and shred the thing to bits.”

And that had her smiling too, to think of him literally tearing her clothes off. She wrestled the nightgown over her head and tossed it to the foot of the bed.

“I’m naked.” It didn’t seem like a foolish thing to say; it seemed like the most brave, delightful sentence ever uttered. She was naked, he was naked in the same bed, and her body was humming and tapping its figurative toe to the tune of some lovely new music.

“And now what shall I do with you in your naked state?” he mused. “What shall you do with me?”

He settled on his back, leaving Sophie momentarily puzzled.

“You were doing quite nicely a moment ago,” she said, drawing the covers up around her.

“And I could kiss and pet you forever, love, but we must indulge your desires if I’m to consider myself properly acquitted in this bed.”

“How can you sound so damnably composed?” The question came out all of its own, leaving Sophie to realize that parting with her clothes was creating other vulnerabilities and exposures completely beyond her experience.

His shifted so his hands could close on her shoulders. “Iron self-discipline alone keeps me from tossing the covers aside and rutting on you like a satyr.”

A thread of darkness in his declaration suggested he was telling the truth.

“Satyrs seem like such happy creatures.” Sophie made this observation as Vim shifted her over him, until she realized he wanted her to straddle him.

Good God, was this why ladies never rode astride? The very