Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,76

forehead and worked down her cheeks, dripping onto Dare’s glistening frame.

All teasing faded under the rising tide of their desire.

“That’s it,” Dare urged, that high praise he’d always issued whenever they made love. He gripped her hips and guided her through each desperate thrust. Until they were moving in a wild, desperate rhythm; Temperance rose and fell over him, crying out as each stroke touched her to the core.

A frantic pressure built and built, pulling her onward to a rising crescendo as he drew her up to that glorious precipice she’d never thought to again fall from. They moved as one, their bodies in exquisite tandem. “Daaare.” Her voice came pitched to her own ears, dulled by the rapid thundering of her heartbeat. Their pace grew in frenzy; her moans spilled and mingled with Dare’s guttural groans, an erotic medley that matched their bodies’ dance. The scent of their arousal hung in the air, sweat and musk, evidence of their desire that pulled her closer to a peak of pleasure.

Temperance dug her fingers into Dare’s biceps as she stiffened and exploded on a glorious climax. She cried out, screaming his name over and over as she rode him. Bucking wildly, she clung to him.

And then he joined her in her surrender. “Temperance.” Shouting his release, Dare grabbed her hips and arched up. As he guided her through that rhythm he needed, he spilled himself in long rivulets. Temperance moaned, savoring the feel of his length as it pulsed and throbbed, and she took all of him. How she’d missed the feel of him . . . of this.

With a gasp, Dare collapsed.

She fell down atop his chest, sprawled upon him with her hair forming a curtain over them.

“It was good?”

“Mmm,” she murmured languidly, her eyes shut. Wanting to keep them frozen in this place and moment so that the past and the future could never be. Always. It was always glorious perfection between them—in this.

Except . . . She rested her cheek against his chest. The moment she opened her eyes . . . pretend ended and reality came rushing in. And she was not ready for that. Dare smoothed a palm in light circles over the small of her back, that tender caress so soothing.

Alas, make-believe hadn’t ever been for one like her.

Please, do not let him be triumphant.

Resisting the urge to groan, she opened her eyes.

His thick lashes swept low, revealed . . . nothing in his gaze. His features were their usual stoic mask.

And somehow . . . that restraint was worse than any smugness on his part.

She cleared her throat. “I don’t wish for this to be . . . awkward.”

“This?” he drawled lazily, still stroking her back. His touch . . . delicious, quixotic, and distracting.

Her cheeks warmed. “I don’t wish for this to affect how we are around one another. This, of course, changes nothing in terms of our arrangement.” Or our future.

“Of course not,” he said, so instantaneous in his response that her heart squeezed in a way that defied logic. Which made no sense. She wanted him to be unaffected by their lovemaking.

Didn’t she?

“This was a mistake,” she made herself say . . . for herself, as much as for him.

“Oh, undoubtedly.”

Unable to meet his eyes, she reluctantly swung her legs over the side of the bed.

Dare shot an arm out, catching her around the waist.

She gasped.

“But you know I’ve always been one to make the same mistake over and over,” he whispered, placing a kiss against her sweat-dampened shoulder.

Her breath caught on an audible gasp as he filled his hands with her breasts.

He flipped her onto her stomach, laying her over the edge of the bed . . . as she’d so loved.

She closed her eyes and moaned. He remembered.

“Everything,” he said, his thoughts always so flawlessly following even her silent ones. He slid a hand around her front and between her legs. His fingers slipped through her damp curls, and he stroked her, drawing a low moan from her lips. “I remember everything where you are concerned,” he rasped against her neck, kissing her, trailing his kisses over her. All the while, he stroked her.

She was wicked and wanton. Her scandalous yearnings likely a product of the commoner’s blood flowing in her veins, and she couldn’t care. The woman he’d been betrothed to, the one he should be married to even now . . . any lady would never be so scandalous. And yet . . . Temperance had never