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“Are you?” Colin’s head turned. In the light of the flickering fire, his beautiful face was hard, his dark eyes cold. “I am not.”
“What could you have done in this condition?”
“There is no reason for me to evade Cartland. I should turn myself over to him and spare everyone the jeopardy my presence creates.”
“Your life is the reason!” she protested. “If you concede, you will die.”
A wry smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Without any hope of having you, perhaps such a fate would be merciful.”
“Colin! How can you say such a thing?” She covered her mouth and fought the tears that welled.
He cursed softly. “Go away. I am not fit company, as I warned you.”
“I am afraid to leave you.” She feared that he would do as he threatened and surrender.
“No, you are not. You already left me, remember?”
Amelia almost said more, but his dangerous mood stilled her tongue. She had seen St. John in similar moods at times and had always wondered at Maria’s fortitude in seeking him out when he was so afflicted.
He needs me, Maria would say in explanation.
It was obvious that Colin needed comfort, too. And Amelia had distanced herself from him, which left him only the bottle to turn to for solace.
She approached him with shoulders squared, lifting the hem of her robe to her lips where she wet it. Reaching him, Amelia raised his chin with one hand and used the other to smooth away the blood. He was still, his eyes watchful, the tension that gripped him reaching out and surrounding her as well, making every nerve ending tingle and every breath a pant.
With an edgy snarl, Colin turned his head and pressed his lips to the sensitive skin of her wrist. She froze, unable to move as his tongue stroked over her now madly fluttering vein.
His glass hit the rug with a soft thud and a splash, and then he was on her, wrapping his big body around her and pulling her to the floor.
“I want you.” His hot open mouth moved ravenously over the tender flesh of her throat. “So badly, it’s eating me alive.”
“Colin . . .” The feel of him, over six feet of potently aroused male, ignited her simmering passion to a raging fire. “We shouldn’t . . .”
“Nothing can stop it,” he said, his hand pushing open the halves of her robe and cupping her breast. “You belong to me.”
Her gaze turned to the door she had left open when she entered. “The door—”
His lips surrounded her nipple through her night rail. Amelia gasped and clutched his hair.
“Remember that night,” he whispered against her breast. “Remember how I felt inside you. Remember how deep . . . how I filled you . . .”
She quivered in longing, her blood hot, her breasts heavy and aching. His callused fingertips rolled and tugged at her nipple, sending waves of pleasure along the length of her body.
“Colin—”
He came over her and took her mouth, inundating her senses with the taste of brandy and the exotic spice that was uniquely his. She moaned in delight, sucking at his thrusting tongue in a desperate effort to drink in more of him.
Distantly, she felt his hands on her thighs. The chill of the evening air over feverish skin betrayed the lifting of her gown. As everything tightened and coiled in anticipation of his touch, Amelia whimpered into his mouth. His knee intruded between hers, urging her legs apart. Shameless, she complied, spreading her thighs to give him access to the throbbing flesh at the apex.
Colin lifted his head and watched her as he cupped her sex in his hand. “You melt for me,” he breathed, his chest lifting and falling rapidly. He pushed two fingers inside her, and she arched in helpless pleasure. “You were made for me.”
The feel of him there, where she ached, was too much. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she breathed, “Come in me. Fill me.”
His gaze darkened, the irises swallowed by dilated pupils. “There is so much I can do to your body, Amelia. So many ways to impart pleasure. Shall I show you what you will miss when we part?”
“You left me first.”
“I came back.” His seductive tone was in sharp contrast to the pain she saw on his features. “Will you come back? If I love you well enough . . . if I addict your body to mine . . . will you come back to me?”
Her lower lip quivered and he licked across it, his breath hot and scented of liquor. His fingers advanced and retreated, plunging shallowly into her clenching sex, building her ardor with tender skill. It was searingly intimate, but in a different way than before. The emotions they bared were not hope and pleasure but despair and pain.
“It would be worth everything,” he said in a serrated whisper, “if there was any chance that you might love me again.”
“I never stopped.” She cried softly, tears trailing down her temples to wet her hair. “Lack of love for you is not the problem.”
Colin pressed his cheek to hers. “My greatest regret is that I could not be enough for you, despite my best efforts.”
Amelia turned her head and pressed her lips to his, unwilling to argue again about their differences when he was already hurting. He took her kiss with tangible desperation, his heart beating so violently, she could hear it over her own racing pulse. All the while his shoulders flexed beneath her touch, the muscles working to propel his fingers into her drenched, aching sex. She cried out softly, a thready sound of female surrender and lust.
The sound changed him; she felt it. The wounded boy from her past gave way to the determined man of her present. Desperation altered to dominance; despair altered to desire. When his head lifted and he met her gaze again, he had the devil in his eyes.
“If only you could see what I see,” he murmured, gentling his fingers, pulling free of her to slide across her clitoris with a slick, expert touch.
She gasped, her hips lifting involuntarily in an effort to increase the pressure of his teasing rubbing.
“Always hungry,” he whispered, “always passionate. You burn for me, Amelia, as if you had Gypsy blood in your veins.”
Colin nipped at her chin, then slid lower, licking along her throat until he reached the obtrusive ruffled neckline of her night rail. He moved, taking a kneeling position, hovering over her in a way that made her feel ravished. She was splayed beneath him, her clothes in disarray, his fingers touching her as only a husband should. The wantonness of her pose only increased her ardor, made her hotter and more desperate.
He pushed up her gown, higher and higher, until her stiffened nipples were kissed by the air and then by his mouth. His tongue was an instrument of pleasure and agony. The gentle licking over the tight peak made her clutch at his hair and pull him closer. As he suckled her, his cheeks hollowed, goading the sensations bombarding her until there was no way to register them all.
Colin. Her beautiful, exotic Colin was making love to her as she had never dreamed he would, and she could not resist him. His need and longing tapped into her own, freeing her of her inhibitions, making her a willing supplicant to his demands.
“Such beautiful breasts,” he praised, kissing across the valley between them to pay a like service to her neglected, jealous nipple. Colin cupped the swollen flesh with his hand, plumping it with gentle kneading, rolling the beaded point between thumb and forefinger. “You are so sweet and soft. I could lose myself in you for days . . . weeks . . .”
The thought of being the recipient of the full force of his desires was as arousing as his touch, and Amelia rode his hand, the need to orgasm becoming a driving urge. “Please . . .”
His teeth bit into her nipple, eliciting a gasp of surprise. Then he traveled lower to circle her navel with the point of his tongue. “Not yet.”
“Now,” she begged, her need so intense, she could hear how wet she was. “Please . . . now.”
Colin reared up to a kneeling position, leaving her bereft of his warmth and touch. He smiled as she protested, revealing the rakish dimples she had always loved. His shirtsleeves were tugged from the confinement of his breeches and pulled over his head, baring a sculpted chest and abdomen that made her mouth water. His skin was dark and stretched tightly over a highly defined musculature. She loved his body, always had. She adored the way hard labor made him powerful and strong.
“The way you look at me will keep us up all night,” he said with darkly sensual promise.
He reached for the placket of his breeches and freed the straining length of his erection. Whatever arguments of reason she might have uttered died a fiery end, her entire focus narrowing to encompass only the man before her. He was a sensual fantasy come to life with his glistening torso bared to the waist and his thick, hungry cock curving upward in proud enticement.
Licking her lips, she sat up and reached for him.
“Amelia . . .” His tone was a warning, but he made no move to deter her as she angled him down to meet her waiting mouth.
“Just a taste,” she whispered, licking her lips. “One taste . . .”
Her tongue swept across the tiny hole at the tip.
Colin’s breath hissed out between his teeth.
The skin was softer than anything she had ever touched before, and the taste of him, salty and primitively male, was an aphrodisiac. With a moan, Amelia circled the wide, flared head with her lips and gave a tentative suck.
“Dear God,” he groaned, shuddering. His hands came up to cup the back of her head.
Emboldened by his response and a wild desire to have him at her mercy, Amelia tilted her head and licked the pulsing length from top to bottom. The point of her tongue followed the path of a pulsing vein to the thick crest. She licked around and around, tasting the thick essence of his seed.
