Seduced by a Scoundrel - By Barbara Dawson Smith Page 0,79

atop him so that her soft slim body draped his. He knew she could feel his arousal, thick and hard against her belly. He wanted her so much his fingers trembled as he cradled her head in his hands.

She sighed, lifting herself slightly so that the tips of her breasts brushed tantalizingly close to his mouth. He drew one into his mouth and suckled her until her hips undulated, rubbing his hard length, torturing him with anticipation. The darkness fired his blood and heightened his other senses. The faint rosy scent of her skin. The warm silk of her breasts. The sweet taste of her nipples. He slid his hands down her smooth spine and over her shapely backside, touching her thighs before bringing his hands back up to lace his fingers with hers.

“No knife,” he murmured into her fragrant hair.

“Knife?”

“Darling, I thought you’d come to skewer me.”

“Mmm.” Reaching down, she caressed his throbbing arousal. “I’d far prefer you do the honors—to me.”

He sucked in a sharp breath. Where had she learned her sultry playfulness? He must be corrupting her. And he ought to regret it. But he could only anticipate all the endless depravities he wanted to teach her. Subjecting her to a hungry kiss that roused a demon in him, he slid his hand between them and found the warm, slippery elixir of her passion. Alicia moaned and arched to him, and he needed no further encouragement. Rolling her onto her back, he mounted her, plunging deep enough to touch the mouth of her womb.

A primitive exultation stilled him for a moment. Her wet silken heat surrounded him. No other woman had ever fit him so tightly, so perfectly. He could get no closer to her than this, yet irrationally he wanted more. Rubbing his unshaven cheek against her soft skin, he muttered her name and moved slowly, torturously inside her.

Her lips sought his in little stinging kisses. Like a blind person in the darkness, she touched his face with her fingertips, tracing the contours. “Drake … oh, Drake … I love you.…”

Something strange and powerful gripped his throat. No. She didn’t love him; she loved this. He thrust hard and deep into her sheath, honing the tension with his sword, determined to prove her lust by carrying her to new heights of rapture. He relished her soft sounds of passion, the eagerness of her hands on his body. Panting, she locked her legs around his waist. He felt her begin to convulse around him in delicate inner shivers that pulled him deeper inside her, driving him wild. His woman. His wife.

In the moment before he spilled his seed in a violent rush, he had the illogical sense that they had ceased to be two separate beings. As one, they cried out with the explosion of ecstasy. As one, they held fiercely to each other through the long waves of pleasure. As one, they sank into the peaceful aftermath.

* * *

Grateful for the darkness, Alicia rested her cheek against Drake’s sweat-dampened shoulder. His heavy weight pinned her to the bed, and he lay with his face tucked into the crook of her neck. His breathing was slow and deep, and she wondered if he’d fallen asleep. A terrible tenderness caught at her throat. She was glad of the reprieve, for it gave her a chance to face her newfound feelings.

In the throes of passion, she had voiced words of love. She had spoken ardently, without thought, the disclosure rising from a hidden place in her heart. And she feared it was true. She loved Drake Wilder.

The knowledge left her feeling vulnerable and shaken. Never could she forget what he had done to her, taking merciless advantage of her desperate situation. Never could she overlook who he was, a man who had made his fortune off the weaknesses of others. Those facts shone as clearly in her mind as the admirable charity he bestowed on other people. He was a complex, ruthless autocrat, and she had wed him because she’d had no other choice. But she did have a choice in matters of the heart.

Or did she?

Beset by a helpless yearning, she savored his sheltering closeness. She could not ignore the deep river of emotion that flowed inside her heart. Her long-ago attraction to the Duke of Featherstone had been mere infatuation; her regard for Lord Hailstock, only affection for an old family friend. Then fate had brought Drake into her life. He had wanted a wellborn wife, and