The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,40
and even the brush of his fingers upon her lower back made tendrils of heat slip all through her.
“You—” She looked up over her shoulder. “You are making me go now?”
“Yes.” The syllable was hurried. He paused and looked down at her, and alarm ricocheted through her. His eyes were bright, fevered. His perfect lips parted. “Unless you—”
“I do not.”
“Course you don’t.” His voice was gravelly. He pivoted again toward the door.
“What are—I—” Words would not form. “You—”
“What? I—”
“Why are you limping?”
“Not quite limping,” he said, somewhat strained.
“Then what—”
“A man can’t—that is, don’t like to say—I’ve—Miss Flood,” he snapped, as if he were on the deck of a ship, but huskily. “Go. Now.”
She drank in his profile and the rush of heat inside her was so astonishingly good. Her feet would not move. The next statement popped out of her mouth without her approval.
“I don’t want to go.”
“You don’t want to go?” He shook his head. “No. No. I’m certain you do. And I want you to go too. I’ll call Cob down. He’ll drive you home.” He opened the door, stepped back from it, and turned his face away. “If you please.”
“I want you to kiss me again,” she whispered.
His eyes shut and the gorgeous sinews on his fists bulged. “I pray you, madam.”
“Please kiss me again,” she said.
“Gabrielle—”
“Captain, kiss me.”
He slammed the door shut, seized her shoulders, and pulled her against him. “Certain?” he said over her lips.
“So certain that I wish it were already happening.”
It was more than a kiss. It was ravishment, pure and simple, although who exactly did the ravishing to whom was not in the least bit clear. His hands were all over her—on her back and arms and neck and her back again—but hers were all over him too. When he kissed her throat and tugged her earlobe between his teeth she allowed it. Indeed, she whimpered her approval and spread her hands on his chest, then slipped them down his waist to his sides, making herself drunk on the hard contours of his body. He was so male, so muscular, so perfectly formed and she needed to touch every part of him.
Then her breasts were in his hands. She didn’t know quite how it happened. But she encouraged it. It was the height of weakness to allow it, but it felt so good, so very good, the gentle cupping of his big strong hands and then—upon her gasp—the touch of his fingertips, the stroking, fondling, caressing her nipples to a madness of pleasure.
“You are beautiful, Elle. Your face. Your hands. Your body. Your breasts,” he uttered, his lips on her neck making her wild. “Beautiful. Perfect. Every part of you. Every inch of skin I’ve glimpsed and every curve I’ve only seen clothed.”
“I cannot breathe.”
“Dratted stays,” he murmured against her neck. “Let me help with that.”
He unfastened the hooks of her gown with remarkable speed. It gaped open at the back.
“What are you doing?”
“Helping you breathe.” Where he tugged down her gown and undergarments his lips found her bare shoulder. Pleasure rushed through her.
“This is not helping me breathe.”
His hands were inside her dress now, moving down her back, his fingertips descending on either side of her spine, pressing inward, feeling her, memorizing her shape. Explosions of pleasure deep inside her followed his caress.
Clearing the stays, his palms spread over her lower back. Then lower.
She gasped.
His hands stilled. His breathing was hard.
“No farther, I promise,” he said roughly by her ear.
“Yes farther.” She reached back, covered his hand with hers, and pushed it down to her buttock. They both groaned and he took her mouth with his again. His palm was large and wonderful. Given his hand’s position of leverage, it seemed the most natural thing in the world next for him to draw her hips gently against his. And then not so gently. And then tightly.
Thigh to thigh, with his arousal hard against her, Elle shuddered.
“You feel good,” he said very roughly. “Like heaven.”
“So do you.”
Hand on her neck, then in her hair, then encompassing her jaw and tilting her face up, he kissed her, pulling her in and exploring her at once. She loved having him inside her, his tongue making love to hers, and his fingers around her behind. Clutching his sleeves, she felt his thigh come between hers and moaned when he urged the muscle against her. Trapping her hips between his thigh and his hand, he made her ride him. She sought breath; this mimicked mating better