Run Wild (Escape with a Scoundrel) - By Shelly Thacker Page 0,78

with a soft, deep sound of acceptance, she relaxed, letting her thighs part, feeling no more need to guard any of her secrets from him.

He lifted his mouth from hers, nuzzled her cheek. “Yes,” he whispered in her ear, brushing his fingers along the inside of her thigh. “Open for me, sweetheart... that’s right.”

He sought and found that most feminine center of her being, touching her so gently, so softly. She felt as if she’d been struck by a bolt of white-hot lightning, felt a liquid heat flowing forth to meet his hand, as if his touch filled her with so much light, warmth, life, that her body became a cascade of fire.

She cried out his name, her hips lifting from the ground as a new, almost violent wanting twisted through her. He stroked her with exquisite care, his fingertips unfolding the soft petals that concealed her innermost core, finding the hot flow of honey within.

“Sweet angel,” he rasped.

She was writhing beneath him now, swept up in a whirlwind of sensation, of yearning. Even as she knew she couldn’t bear any more, he found a small bud within those damp curls, teasing it lightly with his thumb. A pulsing wave of pleasure rocked her entire body. Her breath broke on a ragged cry.

He stroked that swollen, sensitive part of her, again and again, until she thought she would go mad. The wanting, the tension wound so tight she knew she would shatter and did not care. It was a wildness. An all-consuming need. Tendrils of fire that lashed her with sweet torment. But the more she ached for his touch, the more lightly he grazed the delicate bud, building an unbearable excitement and longing within her. She wanted... wanted...

His mouth covered hers and he kissed her again in that spellbinding way, a slow stroke of his tongue against hers, like hot velvet, matching the glide of his fingers below as they slipped inside her. She moaned, shivering with shock and pleasure at the fierce, gentle claiming. The tension spun tighter, faster, winding through her. His thumb whisked over the swollen bud, urging her onward, lifting her beyond earth, higher—

Suddenly all the tendrils of fire snapped at once.

A wordless cry of revelation and release tore from her throat. She was shuddering, falling through the heavens, through a drenching shower of flame, her entire body shattered in ecstasy just as the sun broke through the trees.

The first light of dawn bathed her and she was floating down... down through the clouds, utterly spent, more alive than she had ever been. She felt like the light itself, hot, clear, new. Felt as free as the wind, soaring over all the earth.

She didn’t come back to herself until she felt the sun warming her face, wasn’t sure how long she had lain trembling in his arms. Opening her eyes, she blinked, half-expecting to find herself still floating through the clouds with angels.

Instead she was here on earth.

With her dark angel.

He looked down at her with a smile, eyes sparkling, and she noticed a softness in his expression that she had never seen before.

Her heart beating too fast, she smiled up at him, wanting to touch him as he had touched her, to learn every texture, every taste, every breath of him. To wrap her arms around him and hold him close.

But she felt strangely sleepy, her body heavy. “Nick, I—”

He stole her words with a kiss. “Shh, Samantha, don’t try to understand it. Just let yourself feel it.”

With a drowsy murmur of assent, she closed her eyes and leaned into him as he settled back against one of the trees. She wanted nothing more at the moment than to stay right here, with him. It seemed so natural, to fall asleep with her head pillowed on his chest. So comfortable.

So perfect.

This wasn’t how she had expected the day to end at all, she thought, smiling sleepily.

Then again, nothing had been as she expected from the moment she met Nick James.

~ ~ ~

The afternoon sun beat down on Nicholas’s bare shoulders as they trudged alongside the river. He had finally abandoned the tattered, blood-stained remains of his shirt. Samantha had used what was left of the sheet to wrap a bandage around his chest, covering the brand. It would have to do for now.

They had been on the move for hours, heading upstream, figuring that their pursuers—if they were still anywhere in Cannock Chase—would be focusing their search downstream. He wanted to get to a