One Thing Leads to a Lover (Love and Let Spy #2) - Susanna Craig Page 0,58
sated—she could only press hungrily against him, willingly supplying the answer his kisses demanded. She hid nothing from him as he plundered her pliant mouth, whimpered with pleasure when his teeth snagged the plump curve of her lower lip. Nothing gentle, nothing coaxing. Just scorching heat and salt and a hint of brandy.
Oh, sweet heaven. Who could have imagined that amazing range of voices and accents were not his mouth’s greatest skill?
Nor were his hands still. The palm at her ribs rose higher, skating over her breast to the bare expanse of her décolletage. He hooked two fingers in her bodice and tugged. The sound of popping threads only ratcheted her need higher.
She threw back her head, craving the torment of his hot mouth on the nipple he’d freed, and then…
Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the library door.
Had she locked it?
No, of course she hadn’t. To have done so would have made it seem as if she had been expecting—
Oh, God.
He pinched her nipple between the knuckles of his first and second fingers, bringing it to an urgent peak as his lips drifted lower, lower.…
Her back arched again as the decadent pleasure of his tongue consumed her. So good, so—oh.
Once more the door caught her eye.
She squeezed her eyelids shut, trying to focus on Langley’s mouth and the pleasures yet to come.
Still, the mental image of the unlocked door intruded. What would happen if someone, a servant, her mother, came in and caught them in…in…? She couldn’t think of the proper words, or rather the improper ones, to describe their current situation. In—something…
His other hand slid up her arm and settled at the base of her throat, its pressure yet another sensation she had not known to crave, yet impossible to ignore. “Is something distracting you, Amanda?” he whispered coolly across her wet nipple.
She could hardly catch her breath to explain. “The—the door isn’t locked. We could be caught in—in flagrante delicto! That’s it, that’s the phrase I was trying to remember. Though it hardly seems adequate to the purpose, does it?” she added with a nervous laugh. “Well, perhaps the flagrante part. Delicto, too,” she added reassuringly. Oh, what was the matter with her? This was no time to be showing off her knowledge of Latin—
He lifted his head from her breast and favored her with a smile that sent a shiver up her spine. “You said you wanted to live dangerously, did you not?” As he spoke, he brushed the pad of his thumb over the pulse thrumming in her neck.
“Yes,” she confessed breathlessly. “I want a night with the rogue. But if we’re caught, you may be compelled to act the gentleman.”
“And you wouldn’t want that.” Was it her imagination, or did he sound disappointed? “Then I suppose you’re right,” he said, straightening. “We’d best not risk it.”
Despite the fact that she had been the one to point out the perils of their present position, a wail of protest rose in her throat. Before it could escape, however, he was kissing her again. His arms came around her as he stepped forward, propelling her backward, until her hip struck not the immoveable bulk of the desk, as she’d expected, but the door itself. One thunk, as the panel settled against the frame beneath their combined weight, recalling the illicit, eager lovers the night of the ball.
“There. Now no one can get in.”
And then the torment began anew: lips, tongue, teeth, fingers, each sensation sharper, sweeter than the last. With one hand, she gripped his shoulder, while with the other she blindly groped behind her back to steady herself, dragging her fingernails over the cool, painted wood.
Unrelenting, he gripped one of her thighs, lifting it, hooking it over his hipbone. Then, dropping his hand to her ankle, he swept up her leg, not over her skirts this time, but beneath them, her stockings the only thing separating her skin from his palm. Higher…higher…his fingertips pausing to toy with her garter, then dancing across the back of her bare thigh.
At long last, he dragged his knuckles through the crisp curls that guarded her mound, stirring those sensitive hairs. The pleasant throbbing between her legs swelled to an ache. Then his questing fingers grazed higher, over the damp folds of her sex, and his thumb began to lightly circle her nub.
“Ahhh…” A sigh shuddered from her as she chased a release that still shimmered on the distant horizon.