The Countess Page 0,44

almost desperate as the tempo of his tongue thrusts matched the caress between her legs, both building an unbearable heat and pressure within her.

"I'l make this up to you," he gasped, suddenly breaking their kiss and removing his hand to lift her by the waist again. "I'l make everything up to you."

"Yes," Christiana breathed. Giving up any thought of annul ing the marriage and giving up this heat and passion, she wrapped her legs around him again. Her eyes closed and she dug her nails into his shoulders as he walked forward again and his hardness took up where his fingers had left off.

"I'l be a good husband. I'l make you happy," he assured her, his mouth trailing over her cheek to her ear.

"Oh, yes please," Christiana sighed and it was almost a prayer that it would be so, that her marriage would no longer be the misery it had been, and then he was suddenly easing her onto her back and coming down on top of her. Richard's hips settled in the cradle of her thighs and then he ground himself against her again, this time with al his weight behind it as he rotated his hips, pressed forward and rotated them again, rubbing himself from side to side atop her.

When he suddenly broke their kiss, Christiana opened her eyes, recognizing her room and that it was her bed they lay on, and then Richard distracted her by suddenly latching on to one breast again. Her gown had somehow slid back into place as they'd moved from one room to the other, but he didn't seem to notice, or perhaps he didn't care because he was licking and suckling through the lace and then blowing on the damp cloth and flesh, making her shiver as wave after wave of pleasure slid through her.

"Richard," she moaned, her legs moving restlessly against his in a sort of frustration. While he was stil lying on top of her, he was no longer grinding himself against the center of her and she wanted that building pressure again. But then Christiana felt a tickle along her knee and glanced down past his head to see that he had snaked one hand beneath the hem of her gown and was urging it up her legs, his fingers skating along her flesh as he went. She shivered and wiggled beneath him as his fingers ran along the inside of her thigh, moving higher and higher in a teasing caress. When his hand stopped just short of the core of her, which seemed to her to be screaming for his touch, she dug her fingernails into his back and shifted with frustration, a low groan rumbling in her throat.

Richard nipped lightly at the nipple he was ministering to then, but final y al owed his hand to move again, the rough pads of his fingers gliding across her skin.

"Oh God!" Christiana cried out when he final y brushed lightly over the center of her.

"Not God, Richard," he said in a teasing voice from her breast, surprising a laugh from her that ended in a gasp as he touched the core of her again, this time more firmly. Her hips bucked instinctively in invitation and reaction, and then Christiana became aware of his other hand tugging at the bodice of her gown.

Eager to help, she pul ed the gown off her shoulders and then shimmied a little to get the bodice off and push it down out of the way around her waist. Even as she did it, her hips were moving to a different rhythm, dancing under the caress of his fingers, but she stiffened in surprised confusion as she felt something pressing into her even as he continued to caress her.

"Richard?" she said uncertainly, not sure what he was doing.

His response was a soothing murmur as he raised his head to claim her lips once more and then his tongue was thrusting into her mouth in time with the invasion taking place below. The combination didn't so much soothe her worry as overwhelm it and she soon found herself responding to both caresses, kissing and sucking on his tongue as her heels dug into the bed and raised her hips into the other touch. Under this onslaught it was only a matter of moments before Christiana was a trembling mass of need, her body demanding more as she strained toward something she couldn't quite define or understand. And then in the next heartbeat she understood as