The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh (Cynster #20) - Stephanie Laurens Page 0,100
then the tip of her tongue appeared and swept over her lips, leaving the lower glistening, ripe and luscious.
He inwardly groaned and tried not to too obviously react.
She must have felt something, because the gleam in her eyes grew just a touch brighter, the curve of her lips a touch deeper. “I thought,” she murmured, her gaze falling to his lips, “that given we have this very long and otherwise quite boring drive to live through, we might try enlivening the moments with an adventure.”
He arched his brows higher. “An adventure.”
“Hmm. One where we explore just what, for us, is possible within the confines of a traveling carriage.” Her gaze returned to his eyes. “I’m sure you’ve experienced this sort of adventure before, but I haven’t.” She leaned closer. “So I think you should show me.”
Trapped in her pansy-blue eyes, caught—so effortlessly—in the net of her attraction, he heard himself admit, “Actually, I’ve never . . . indulged in a carriage.”
Those fabulous eyes flared wide. “Never? Not ever?”
He shook his head. “The opportunity never arose.”
He hadn’t thought it possible, but her expression brightened further, eagerness and delight infusing her features. “Even better. We can explore together, learn and discover all . . . there is to uncover.” Her gaze fell to his lips, then lower, to his cravat. “Speaking of which.” She reached for the folds.
He caught her hands, flattened them against his chest. “No—that’s one thing I do know about such adventures. Clothes stay on.”
Her eyes widened. “They do?”
He started to nod, then paused. “Well, mine do. Yours”—he lowered his gaze to her breasts—“more or less.”
She considered him for a moment, then she laughed—in that register he’d realized she reserved just for him, sultry and sirenlike. To his well-honed instincts, the woman so revealed was the real her, the Mary Cynster who lived inside the bossy, pragmatic, shrewd, and domineering social shell.
The woman of immeasurable warmth and sensuality.
The female his inner lion craved.
Her eyes locked on his and he read the challenge writ in the blue.
“Very well, my lord. You take the lead and I’ll follow. So.” Leaning closer, she brought her luscious lips to within a whisker of his and breathed, “Lead on, and show me how.”
He couldn’t have resisted the lure had his life depended on it. Moving slowly, deliberately, he slid one palm up her spine, letting her feel the weight, the strength in his hand as he traced between her shoulder blades and swept higher, skimming the sensitive skin exposed at her nape, then he cupped the back of her head.
Holding her not just steady but immobile, he closed the last inch, covered her lips with his, and without so much as a by-your-leave took complete and absolute possession of her mouth.
And did as she’d asked, and went adventuring with her.
Several hours later, with Mary thoroughly sated and, by all the signs, still blissfully satisfied, lying dozing, secure and safe in his arms, Ryder realized he was smiling inanely, at nothing and for no particular reason.
Resting his jaw more definitely against her dark curls, he felt his smile turn wry.
Adventuring, she’d called it, and it most certainly had been that; she was every bit as inventive as he, and significantly more prepared, nay eager, to experiment than he’d expected any young lady of the ton to be.
She constantly gave him all he wanted, all he expected, and just a little bit more.
He certainly hadn’t expected the laughter, the sheer rollicking fun that had delighted and teased and spurred them both on, nor yet the sudden spike of passion laced with yearning and sharp, unadulterated desire that had gripped them as they’d ultimately come together, when, straddling him, she’d finally sunk fully down and taken him in—and simultaneously, in the same heartbeat, they’d realized that that moment was the first of such moments for them as husband and wife.
Even less had he foreseen the incredible closeness that had followed, when she’d laid her hand against his cheek, kissed him, and together they’d stepped beyond all the boundaries, beyond all restraint, and let that sharply vibrant passion unfurl, then dictate.
He couldn’t have foreseen it because he’d never felt with any other woman what he felt with her.
So much more potent, powerful, so much more complex. More layered; he couldn’t come close to adequately describing all she made him feel.
He wasn’t sure where that left him, much less what it meant, yet this was one road that, once having started down it, had no turns, no branches.