The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,53

swell and beneath every starlit night, her smile was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

He nearly took her then, immediately, half-dressed, wholly ready. He didn’t. She deserved more. She deserved everything. So instead he cupped his hands around her perfect breasts, lowered his mouth to the neglected nipple, and said, “Second dish.”

~o0o~

He undressed her one garment at a time. Between garment removals he made her wild with need. And he made her laugh. She had never imagined that there could be laughter in making love. But this was her scoundrel, so of course there was.

With kisses everywhere she wished—as he had promised—he brought to the surface all the longing and pleasure buried within her. Then, with kisses in places she had not even known could be kissed, he sent the pleasure deeper than she had known pleasure could go. It was all very new, delectably shocking, intensely delicious, and wonderful.

Just as wonderfully, he encouraged her to touch him, to undress him, caress him, and kiss him, also wherever she wished. By the time she was finally fully undressed, naked beneath him, and once again aching with need, she knew the contours of the muscles and sinews in his arms and chest and legs, the powerful beauty of his bared shoulders, and the thorough delirium of his skin against hers.

“Sweet Elle,” he said against her throat. “I am well-seduced, entirely at your mercy, ravished beyond ravishment.”

She laughed.

“Say you will have me now, Elle, or I’ll perish at once.”

Circling her hands around his arms, she smiled. “I will have you now, Captain.”

He took her mouth beneath his and kissed her beautifully, deeply. Then she had him.

She did not know what to expect. Her memory of intimacy was a fog of pain and frustration.

This was entirely different.

“Good God, Elle,” he said, his lips brushing her lips, his chest moving hard against hers as he grew still within her, a great big hot presence that was stretching her nearly beyond endurance. “It feels good to be inside you.”

“You used a subject pronoun.” She spread her palms over his shoulders. “You said it.”

“Overcome. Won’t happen again.” His hand found her breast. She moaned, his lips claimed hers, and she forgot all about discomfort and doubt and grammar.

“Now?” he said.

“Yes,” she whispered, and there was only languid, throbbing heat. And hunger.

His hand came between them. And then, with the caress of his fingers, he made her writhe. Pressing up to him, desperately hungry, she begged with her body.

Finally he moved in her, slowly at first, forcing moans of need from her. Upon a firm, quick stroke of his fingertip he thrust deep. Then again. Then again until she was seeking him, needing more, needing everything. His hands grasped her wrists and he met her again and again, faster, harder, until she was begging for release, and then crying out when it came. His muscles hardened like rock and he spoke her name, powerfully, then again as he grew still.

Their bodies hot and slick, their breathing ragged, he tenderly brushed damp silk from her cheeks. Then he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face against her neck.

For the first time since they had met in an alleyway at dusk, they said nothing for quite some time. Twining her arms around his waist and tucking her head beneath his chin, she wept a little more, then fell asleep smiling.

~o0o~

Having traveled hundreds of miles yet rested little over the previous five days, Tony was unsurprised to discover that he had slept past dusk. The bedchamber door was ajar and a lamp glowed on the stairwell landing. In the dim light he saw no woman tangled in the bedclothes beside him.

He tugged his breeches on. None of the feminine garments he had removed from her were strewn about the room. But she must be nearby.

He found evidence of her in his sitting room. The little print mistress herself was not, however, present. In the center of his desk littered with papers was a handwritten note. With a peculiar sensation scraping the back of his throat, he took up the page of closely penned words and read.

When he came to the end of it, he lowered himself into a chair, drew a long, shaking breath, and read it again.

Then he read it again.

Folding it carefully, he went into his bedchamber to dress.

Chapter Thirteen

Elle was not a martyr by nature, only vastly unlucky, cursed by Fate, and scorned by heaven. Simply because she had suffered a lot of