Mismatched Under the Mistletoe - Jess Michaels Page 0,28

it washed over her. She shook and slapped a hand over her mouth so her keening cries wouldn’t alert the entire household to what was happening here in her parlor.

He dragged her through the crisis, pulling more and more pleasure from her until she flopped, weak and spent, against the settee cushions. He kissed her thigh and she shivered, watching through a hooded gaze as he glided his mouth across her hip, along her stomach, between her breasts. How he could wake desire in her again so swiftly, she didn’t know, but by the time he took her mouth she was aching again.

She tasted herself on his lips, his tongue, and wound her arms around his bare shoulders as she drank of her own pleasure. When he pulled away, she stared up at him, so close and so warm and so…hers in this moment that couldn’t last.

“I hope I served you well, my lady,” he said with a crooked grin.

She laughed despite the emotions bubbling deep in her chest. “Very well. Did the keening not make it obvious?”

“The keening was a fine indication.” His gaze slid over her face. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to have the understanding that there is no wrong answer.”

Her heart thudded at the seriousness with which he observed her. “What is it?”

“Would you like me to…continue?” he asked, sliding a hand up her side, letting his thumb caress the underside of her breast in a most distracting fashion. “Or stop?”

She stared at him. There had been no thought in her mind that he would pleasure her and then leave without taking his own relief. There had been no assumption that he wouldn’t take her the moment he started touching her.

His expression was impassive but for the heat in his eyes, and she almost shook her head in wonder. But of course he would offer her this. Cav had been taking care of her for years, sometimes at his own detriment, she knew. It was his nature, perhaps, to make sure those he cared for were safe and comforted.

She traced his cheek with her fingers and smiled up at him. “If you stop now I will make sure the entertainment for tomorrow is six geese hissing at you, not a-laying.”

“Thank God,” he groaned, resting his forehead against her shoulder with a laugh. “I’m hard as steel—I would not have survived the walk back to my chamber.”

She might have laughed at the image of him limping to his chamber, but the idea that he was hard as steel was too fascinating. She pushed at his shoulders to make him lean away.

“Show me,” she whispered.

His eyes went wide and the laughter left his face. His expression went hard and hot and heavy. In that moment, he looked every inch the rogue, the rake, the man of his reputation, but not any action he’d ever brought to her doorstep. She shivered at this part of him that was a stranger to her. This part that would bring her to shattering pleasure all over again, that was clear by his expression.

He shoved to his feet and stared down at her for a long moment. Then he moved to the chair across from the settee. He removed his boots and unfastened the fall front of his trousers. When he stood, it dropped away, and she caught her breath.

It had been a very long time since she saw a man unclothed, let alone a man at attention for her. She’d forgotten how compelling a hard cock was. She crooked her finger to bring him closer. When he was within arm’s length, she reached for him, tracing just a fingertip along the hardness of him.

It was impossible not to compare him to Andrew, and she hated herself for thinking of her husband when she was about to bed another. But Andrew was her point of reference, her only lover until tonight. Cav was thicker, if Andrew had been longer, and as she closed her hand around his girth, she let out an involuntary sigh. God, she wanted this, wanted him deep inside of her. She stroked him and he staggered slightly as his fingers came down to dig into her hair. Pins pulled free as he clenched her hair, tilting her face up to look at him while she fisted him.

“Get up,” he said, soft but firm. “Please.”

She laughed at the added please, because this was an order. One she wished to follow. She released him and