Page 42 of After the Spy Seduces

He stroked his hand behind her knee in featherlight tracings, not daring to go any higher. Yet he teased his fingers playfully at the top of her stocking, as if contemplating removing it and baring her leg completely. If he did, would he place his mouth there the same way he’d done to her bared breast, to give her yet another kind of wonderful kiss? She trembled at the temptation of it.

He murmured yearningly against her lips, “You’re the angel every devil wants to possess.”

“No.”

He froze at that single word, his hand stilling immediately against her leg. But she could feel the tension inside him, the longing to keep touching her—and more—even as he slowly lifted his head to stare down at her in surprise.

“I mean—” Heat flushed through her cheeks. “That’s not—”

Flustered, she tightened her hold on his shoulders to keep him from moving away, only to bite back a groan when she felt his muscles flex so invitingly beneath her touch. If she had any sense at all, she would shove him away and hurry back to her blanket and book where she belonged.

But she simply couldn’t bring herself to leave his arms. He truly was well on his way to seducing her, and he didn’t even realize it.

A wanton and reckless thought sparked inside her…What if I let him?

How wonderful it would be to lose herself in his strong arms, if only to temporarily push away all the worry, pain, and fear, all the horrible sadness and grief she carried inside her that sometimes flared up so intensely that she thought it might just devour her. For a few precious moments, he could make her forget. She could lose herself in him, and he would never ask for more. Not him. A man like him would never ask to court her, would never want to marry her…would never ask for a future she couldn’t give.

She could never have him completely, but she could claim these few moments of harmless kissing and touching that would never lead to anything more.

“I’m not an angel.” Closing her eyes against the bittersweetness of the moment, she reached for his hand and guided it up between her thighs.

His breath hitched. “Diana,” he murmured in pleased surprise against her temple.

“Touch me,” she whispered, then heard him groan softly at the invitation she offered as his hand slid up to tenderly caress her.

She closed her eyes against the stinging emotions rising inside her and let the wave of pleasure consume her.

He teased lightly at her, as if afraid she might yet stop him. But doing that would simply end her. With subtly increasing pressure, his caresses grew firmer and deeper, making her squirm beneath him with both pleasure and longing for more. There was no point in denying her desire for him, not when he could surely feel it. Her sex grew slick and slippery beneath his fingers as he caressed her— No, he wasexploringher, taking all kinds of gentle, little caresses to discover her most intimate place, to learn where to touch her to bring her the most pleasure.

Tears of emotion watered her lashes at his thoughtfulness, and she brushed her lips over his cheek, unable to put into words her gratitude for making her feel so feminine and beautiful. So desired. He would never know how much this encounter meant to her, nor could she ever tell him. But she could show him, and with a trembling sigh, she parted her thighs as wide as her skirt allowed.

With her name nothing more than a rasping murmur, he gently sank a finger fully into her tight warmth. She gasped at the wonderful new sensation, and he kissed her to drink up the sound of mixed surprise and pleasure on her lips.

He stroked slowly inside her as he continued to kiss her. The feeling was simply exquisite, somehow both exciting and comforting at the same time. Each sinking caress came as a smooth and gliding stroke, each retreat a swirling tease, and every movement grew the throbbing ache at his fingertips.

Unable to stop the trembling that overtook her, she buried her face against his neck. A second finger joined the first, stretching her intimate lips wider and eliciting a throaty whimper of pleasure from her at being filled so deliciously. Her arms tightened their hold around his shoulders, and she pressed into his hand, shamelessly begging for more. It had been so long since she’d felt this feminine, this wanted…too long, and now that it was happening again, she didn’t want it to stop. She forced from her mind all the gossip she’d ever heard about Christopher, the fear over her brother’s disappearance, even her own grief and pain, and simply let go.

His thumb delved down into her folds to strum over the little nub at her core, and her hips bucked against the edge of the table. “Christopher!”

With whispered assurances her desire-fogged brain couldn’t comprehend, he teased at the little bead again. All the muscles inside her clenched down tightly around his fingers, drawing a growl of appreciation from him. He stroked her there again, and a shuddering cry tore from her, followed immediately by a wave of coursing heat and light. Her body clenched hard around him, only to release a heartbeat later in undulating pulses of pleasure that sped out to her fingers and toes. She clung helplessly to him, the bliss he’d given her overwhelming.

In the stillness that followed, the silence between them was broken only by the sound of her breath as she fought to regain both it and her balance. She kept her face buried in his neck. She was too overcome—and inexplicably too shy—by what they’d just done to look at him.

As if he realized the confusion inside her, he kept her close within the circle of his arms and rested his lips against her temple. “Are you all right?”

She nodded against his shoulder, then bit her lip to keep from crying out in protest as he slowly slipped his hand away from her.

“I hadn’t intended—” He stopped himself, then paused, as if searching for the right words, before admitting, “But I don’t regret it.”

“Nor do I,” she whispered, unable to speak any louder for fear that her voice would crack and reveal how confusion warred with pleasure inside her.

He smiled against her temple. “Thank God.”

To hide the seriousness of what she felt, she forced out a teasing, “Because you don’t want to face down the general at the end of a dueling pistol?”

When he loosened his hold around her and shifted back far enough to stare down at her, the expression of desire and determination on his handsome face stole her breath away. “Because I very much want to do it again.”

Her heart stopped with a brutal thud.