Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,75

when she didn’t want reason. “I’d not have this change anything—”

“I’m certain,” she said, her breath coming in soft little puffs. Not allowing him to cast any further doubts on this and what she wanted, Temperance dragged him closer. Wrapping her arms about him, she worked her fingers over his back. She tugged his shirt out and wrestled with his jacket. “Why are there so many buttons?” she moaned.

Dare’s guttural laugh rumbled his chest as he trailed a path of kisses down the curve of her cheek, and lower.

She gasped as he lowered her bodice and buried his face against her.

His cheeks, rough from the day’s growth covering them, scraped and tickled, earning a breathless giggle.

“Still sensitive as you ever were,” he whispered, his breath a warm sough upon her skin.

Incapable of words, Temperance’s moan gave way to a gasp as he took the tip of her breast between his lips and sucked deeply.

Her fingers tightened reflexively, curling into the long, lustrous strands of his hair.

Then he switched his attention to the previously neglected mound, worshipping the sensitized flesh. He licked at her, flicking his tongue over her aching nipples, and she anchored his head to keep him close, both needing him to stop and wanting the moment to go on forever.

“Dare.” His name was a ragged entreaty as she rocked her hips, needing all of him.

“I’ve waited for this moment for five years, Temperance, and I have no intention of bringing us to a quick conclusion.” With that, he tugged her nightdress free at last, and tossed it aside so that she lay naked and fully exposed before him.

She panted, forcing herself to draw away from his kiss. “I want to feel all of you.” Rolling out from under him, Temperance came up on her knees and resumed her battle with his jacket. Her hands shook as she freed the last of his buttons. Pushing the wool garment from his shoulders, she threw it over the side of the bed. Frantically, she yanked his shirt from the waist of his trousers, moved her hands under the lawn article, and stroked up and down his sweat-slicked, muscular frame. “I want to see you.”

The smile he flashed was the pained, half-pleasured, half-tortured one he’d always worn at the height of lovemaking. That hadn’t changed. And she reveled in that realization. And the truth that for everything they’d always gotten wrong, this they’d always gotten right.

Dare pulled his shirt overhead and sent it sailing to join the growing heap of garments at the side of the bed. His trousers followed suit until he was fully naked before her.

Gasping for breath, her chest rising and falling hard and fast, she took in the sight of him. He’d always been glorious, chiseled perfection. Somehow in the years apart, he’d added muscle to his frame: his whipcord-tight, flat belly, the carefully defined lines of his biceps and triceps. Temperance traced a finger over those hard planes, relearning the feel of him. His was a beauty that defied mere mortals and belonged memorialized in the Guildhall Museum he’d sneaked her into for her birthday as a young woman.

She shifted her gaze lower to his length jutting out, high and proud.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she wrapped her fingers around him and stroked as he’d loved . . . and as she’d loved doing.

He groaned, an animallike sound befitting a wounded beast. “It is too much,” he whispered hoarsely. His mouth covered hers with a greater urgency, with a passion that danced on the edge of violence.

This time, he lay down and drew her over him so that she straddled him. Temperance sank onto his enormous shaft; her moist channel slicked the way, and closing her eyes, she moaned at the feel of him stretching her, filling her.

How she’d missed him. How she’d missed these moments of passion between them.

Temperance leaned back on her haunches, and he hissed noisily when his length filled her to the hilt.

Then they began to move. She rocked her hips wildly, sliding down and then up. All the while, she stroked her fingers through the damp curls matting his chest. The hair soft and springy against her callused palm. “You are so beautiful,” she whispered.

Laughter shook his frame; those reverberations she felt all the way inside, and to her soul. “You are beautiful, Temperance Grey.”

Temperance Grey.

Oh, God.

She bit her lower lip. “Y-you stole my compliment, Dare.” Her body trembled as he continued to drive up into her. Sweat beaded at her