The Consolation Prize (Brides of Karadok #3) - Alice Coldbreath Page 0,82
hair’s so pretty, Una,” he said huskily, and her cheeks burned to realize what hair he was commenting on. “Such a lovely shade of deep, dark red.”
She could think of absolutely no response to this. Luckily, he did not seem to require one, as his soft kisses became a good deal bolder, his fingers opening her cleft to his tongue.
“Armand!” Una panted, her head dropping back onto the pillows. She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. “Oh!” Oh my gods! What was he doing? Her mind rebelled at the feel of lapping tongue. He couldn’t possibly be licking her down there! But he was, and what’s more he sounded like he was enjoying it. He groaned against her and Una’s body took over, her mind too shocked to comprehend the wicked sensations he was evoking. She went taut as a bow, before the moment of release, and then she shot right up into the heavens with a muffled shriek.
The next thing she knew, Armand was guiding his throbbing staff between her legs and thrusting deep inside her. She gasped, but he had prepared her so well that there was barely any discomfort at all. “Ah gods,” he groaned. “So good.” Once he was planted deep, he held himself very still. “Wrap your legs around me,” he urged, dragging her thigh over his hip.
Una opened her mouth to respond, but suddenly, his fingers were between her legs again, his thumb seeking out that pleasure place, and soon he had her panting and twisting against him. The sensations streaking out from the pressure of his thumb, combined with the heady feeling of his hard shaft embedded so deeply within her, soon had her sobbing and trembling once more on the very edge she had only just descended from.
When he labored above her this time, she did not find his movements crude, but moved along with him. He was striving to please her, she realized, and simultaneously to stave off his own rapture. That was why his expression trembled between blissful and tortured. The ragged edge to his breathing, the kindling look in his eye, all served to twist the coiling pleasure in her belly higher still.
When he lowered his head to suck one pointy nipple into his mouth, Una broke again, and he drove into her hard, crying out. Their explosion seemed this time simultaneous, and it was a long while before Una felt herself drift back down from the ceiling into her tingling body.
Armand was lying half on, half off her, his face turned into her neck, one hand resting on her bottom. She should pull down her shift, she thought exhaustedly and make herself decent, but she didn’t want to move a muscle.
“My clever princess,” Armand murmured, his voice deep and velvety, with a rough edge to it. He kissed her collarbone.
She really ought to reprimand him for calling her princess, but her eyes were closing and instead she lay in his arms, limp and sated.
10
Armand spent the next morning shut up in consultation with Fulcher again while they thrashed out the last details of their arrangement. Once the bargain had been struck to the satisfaction of both, they sat back and regarded each other thoughtfully.
Fulcher clicked his tongue. “You’ve the devil’s own luck, and no mistake,” he said with a small shake of his head. “Fort you was proper done up, my lad. Caught in the parson’s trap like that and shackled to that—”
“Careful,” Armand interrupted him, his eyebrows snapping together. “That’s my wife you’re speaking of.”
Fulcher regarded him with surprise. “Well, that’s what I’m saying. She ain’t turned out a bad-looking gal at all. Some might even call her ’andsome in ’er own way,” he said generously. “When she ain’t glaring at a body across the supper table.”
Armand suppressed a wayward grin. “She thinks me a tender lamb that needs protecting from a nasty wolf.”
“Let’s not forget, the last time I told her I was meeting with you, I came back sporting a black eye.”
Fulcher avoided his accusing gaze. “Fort we was dissolving our partnership, didn’t I?” he said sounding injured. “Had to protect my interests.”
“By setting a gang of thugs on me?”
“Only roughed you up a bit,” Fulcher said with a shrug. “You broke poor Walt’s nose and give ’Enry such a blow to his ear that he ain’t ’eard nuffink but ringing ever since!”
“And, if that’s not all,” Armand added direly, “you stole my hat!”