The Devil She Knows - By Diane Whiteside Page 0,58
flowers.” Gareth undid her gown’s top button very slowly. She could feel his eyes on her like a caress, warming her from the inside out. She turned toward him further, fireflies taking flight from her skin.
He brushed his fingertips against the base of her neck, like the gentlest of kisses. She arched her head back and let herself float into a sea of lust, sparkling like sunshine over waves through her body.
“Delicate and strong to survive winter’s harsh winds, yet bring beauty in the spring.” He undid the second button, then another and another.
She swayed toward him, like the flower he called her, and met his mouth. Joy floated between them, pure and bright as the ocean waves reflecting off the ceiling.
He rolled her onto her side and she caught his head in her hands. His shirt rasped her aching nipples through her fine lawn chemise and she twisted against him.
“What is it?” Gareth murmured against her throat.
“You promised,” she murmured disconsolately—and gasped when he nibbled the pulse at the base of her throat.
“Promised? Ah, my shirt.” He trapped her gaze, his mouth a passionate invitation to carnal folly.
“Yes,” she gasped. “And your boots.”
His eyes narrowed at her demand for everything he’d promised, rather than a more ladylike minimum.
He came to his feet with a panther’s speed and removed his shirt, tossing it carelessly toward the door. His boots and socks received the same cavalier dismissal, thudding to the floor as emblems of masculine dishabille.
Portia’s core became a furnace, melting itself into a slick river of hungry cream for him. Nothing mattered except looking at him. Even fear, once so deeply embedded in her bones, seemed unimportant compared to his glories.
“Your eyes are very dark, Portia honey.” Gareth’s voice lured her, rich and slow as fine brandy—or the Kentucky bourbon she’d stolen once as an adolescent.
“Still too many clothes,” she complained. But whether to herself or to him, she couldn’t have said.
She drew up her legs and began to tear off her beribboned slippers, cursing the fashionable idiots who’d insisted on so many bows.
“Whatever you wish, my dear.” He sounded satisfied—or anticipatory. But she didn’t care, not when hunger ran hot and fast through every iota of her flesh and she could smell his need over the salt sea. For the first time, that scent drew her, made her want to luxuriate in it.
Cloth whooshed through the air, thudded against the wall, and slithered onto the floor.
Gareth swept a sheet onto the floor and lay down upon it, on his side.
Portia’s breath stopped. His stalwart frame was magnificent and deadly, he was graceful and quick as a great cat—yet he bore so many scars. Somehow those imperfections drew her even more than seeing one of Michelangelo’s statues come to life would have. She wanted this man, hardened and experienced as any medieval warrior engraved at a chapel. She needed to touch him, to rub herself over him, to reassure her every fiber that he was real and not cold stone—and to keep hot life vibrant in the steel gray eyes watching her.
She shrugged off her tea gown and threw it over his trousers.
His eyes flamed, blue leaping in them like the hottest flames’ core.
She licked her lips rapidly, then undid her drawers and tossed them aside. Her chemise dropped down to her knees, concealing her.
“Ah, sweet Portia.” Hoarseness rippled through his voice like fuel being added to a fire.
“Gareth.” She knelt beside him, eager to finally lose herself in him. Darling, she added privately.
He pulled her into his arms and above him.
She tugged her chemise over her head, heedless of any scattered buttons.
He roared his approval and suckled her fiercely, making love to her breasts as if that morning had been the lightest sample.
She sobbed her pleasure, lust lancing between his mouth and her core. Heat pulsed in her blood, hotter and faster.
His muscles steadied her, while his crisp body hair pricked her into a world of wilder sensation. Her senses swam, engorged with his scent, drowning in a myriad of new sensations where everything was Gareth—sight, sound, scent, touch.
His hands were everywhere, fondling, probing, adding just the right touch to drive her wild. His deep voice was like the magic smoke from a genie’s lamp, seducing both her ears and her bones.
She burned for him, her muscles ached to hold him. She stropped herself over him, her lust’s bright edge growing sharper with every new inch of his body she discovered.
“Dammit, Gareth, please.” She wrapped her hand around his