Bring her pleasure.
He broke the kiss and lifted her in his arms with ease. Her curves were generous, but she was deliciously short, and he was a big, muscled oaf. She felt as light as air. Perfect, tucked against him. As if she belonged. He wanted to keep her there forever.
But he could not.
He could only have tonight—Christ, this morning or whatever hour it was. Dawn had not yet broken, and the servants had yet to scramble into action. He had time. Precious little, but time enough.
He stalked toward the bed, his gaze riveted to her face. Flushed with passion, gold-brown eyes wide, lips swollen from his kiss. His. For the next hour and no more.
“You want me to touch you?” he asked gruffly.
“Yes.” She did not hesitate in her affirmation, the throaty dulcet tone of her voice washing over him like a caress.
Fucking hell.
He had always known she was going to be trouble, from the first moment he had clapped eyes upon her. But he had never known just how much. How badly he would want her.
None of that mattered now. He laid her gently on the bed. “I let you tend me. It’s my turn to tend you, my lady.”
He was going to make her spend. If he could never have her again, at least he could know how she tasted. He could have her on his lips, tongue. Make her writhe and quake and come undone beneath him.
With trembling fingers, he unhooked the buttons lining the front of her dressing gown. If he had but one moment to savor her, he was going to see her, damn it. He was going to have the memory of her naked and glorious, awaiting him on his bed, forever imprinted upon his mind. She shrugged out of the sleeves and rose to her knees on the mattress, clad in nothing save another of her desperately taunting night rails. Together, they tugged the gown over her head.
For a moment, he lost the ability to speak. His tongue was sluggish and insufficient. His mind affected by a cloud of sheer, unrepentant desire. He inhaled the scent of ripe apples and sin and temptation. Evie. A goddess. More beautiful than his pathetic imagination had been able to envision.
Full, pale breasts tipped with hard, pink nipples. So much smooth, delicious skin. Wide hips, lush thighs, her mound covered by a thatch of golden curls. His mouth was watering. He was out of his mind. A Bedlamite. For as long as he lived, he would never forget the sight of her bare for him, awaiting him, his to pleasure.
“Lie down,” he ordered her, his voice hoarse with the power of his need.
He was going to suck her pearl until she spent all over his tongue. And then he was going to do it again.
She did as he asked, lying back on the counterpane which had been brought by a servant to replace the one she had thieved from him the night she had worn it about her shoulders like a cloak. She pressed her legs together, the flush on her cheeks deepening.
She was shy and innocent, his Evie. And bloody beautiful.
He joined her on the bed, daring to glide his bare palms up her calves, past her knees. Her skin was silken and creamy. He could do nothing but worship her. He lowered his head, pressed kisses along her inner thigh as he caressed her.
“Relax for me, love.”
He coaxed her legs apart. Her thighs opened, revealing her to him. At long last. He had dreamt of this so many nights, he could scarcely countenance she was real. Her cunny was pink, glistening, and pretty. He could not wait another moment to have his mouth on her. Taking her hips in a gentle-but-firm hold, he found her pearl and sucked.
She jerked beneath him on a low, keening moan.
The taste of her was musky, sweet, flooding his tongue. He could not get enough. She was slick. So slick. He licked down her slit, his tongue dipping into the tempting cove he would not breach no matter how much he wanted to. Her hips pumped beneath him. Bloody hell, she was so responsive.
Desire roared through him, as intense as any longing for a woman he had ever felt. And he knew instinctively he would never again know this fervent need. This all-consuming yearning, which was so different from the lust he had known for others. Not just for her beautiful body, but every part of her, to her