In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,104

set her free, and she realized the best she could hope for was to emerge with some shred of pride intact.

If he allowed it.

Ariel gasped as his mouth closed the gap between them, his lips slanting hard and full over hers. It was not so much a kiss as it was a claim, a warning not unlike the one her brother had given her about playing with fire. FitzRandwulf was fire. He was heat and flame and slow, hot breaths that scorched her cheeks and flooded her body with liquid incandescence.

She groaned as his lips forced hers wider apart and his tongue thrust past the barrier of her teeth. The bitter tang of ale gave way to the sinfully bold taste and feel of a man whose power she had already acknowledged to be formidable and uncompromising. Her body betrayed her, weakening with each deep, wet thrust so that her hands closed around fistfuls of his shirt and her breasts pressed shamelessly into a heated wall of muscle.

He was fire and she was flaming gloriously under his searing assault.

Streaks of sensations brought on by his hands, his lips, his tongue started to sweep through her, hot and icy, sharp and sweet, fierce and tender all at the same time. Her entire body seemed to be shivering, shuddering under a deluge of bright, burning sparks and she began to kiss him back, welcoming each bold stroke of his tongue, feeling the raw, primitive rhythm repeat itself in the staggeringly explicit ache that throbbed to life in her loins. His hands slid down from the tangle of her hair and pressed into the small of her back, coaxing her even closer, inviting her to share even more shocking intimacies.

Eduard kissed her until her mouth was chafed and swollen, then sent his lips chasing down the strained arch of her throat. Her skin was smooth and warm, the flesh so white against the tanned darkness of his own, it looked like cream. Like a big, hungry cat he lapped at the fluttering pulsebeat in the crook of her neck, then sent his tongue swirling into the pink shell of her ear. He could feel the deep, wracking shudders of pleasure that shook her with each nuzzling caress, and he was aware of the dangers of continuing … but she was all heat and soft, gasping wonderment, and he was as hungry to feel her lushness crushing against him as she was to feel the lushness spread and shimmer throughout her whole body. Her arousal was like an intoxicant in his blood, far more potent than any amount of ale he could have consumed and he wanted to drink his fill of her before the sobering effects of reality intruded.

Reality tried to intrude when his lips encountered the laces joining the edges of her bodice. The camlet was thin and airy and molded easily to her breasts as he stroked his hands around their fullness. The pebble-hard buds of her nipples strained against the cloth, shadows beneath the whiteness, and it would have taken a far stronger man than he to ignore their pleas to be set free. It took only a few swift tugs of his fingers to unfasten the laces and push the offending wings of camlet aside. He caught at his breath and ran his hand over the smooth surface of her skin, circling his palm around the cool heaviness of her breast before he lifted the puckered crown to his mouth.

His tongue traced silky, wet patterns over her skin and Ariel nearly crumpled to her knees under the stunning torrent of heat that poured into her belly and loins. His lips closed around her nipple and her body spasmed with the shock, with the pleasure. His tongue and lips suckled more of her, all of her that he could hold into the well of his mouth and she cried out, arching her head back in a violent, shiny whiplash of colour. He sank down onto his knees and she did not think to stop him. She thought only to press her body closer as he lavished her breasts with warm, ravaging caresses, and she became like quicksilver in his hands, hot and eager, eager and willing, willing and wanting …

For the first time, Eduard made a sound. It was muffled, distorted by the pliant sweetness of her flesh and by the taut edges of camlet that intruded on his senses again. He had not expected to lose his own grasp