Page 47 of The Earl’s Forbidden Temptation

He reached for her, guiding her to stand before him. His hands found the hem of her gown, pushing the layers of silk and muslin upward until they bunched around her hips. She stepped closer, and he helped her swing one leg over his thighs, then the other, until she was straddling him, the soft cradle of her sex pressed against the rigid length of him through their clothing.

She gasped at the contact, even through the layers of fabric. The position was scandalous, utterly improper, and she had never felt more daring and wicked in her life. Darcy could feel the heat of him beneath her, feel the evidence of his desire straining against her. He looked up at her, his eyes dark with promise.

“Have you any idea,” he murmured, his hands sliding up her thighs, pushing her gown higher, “how many nights I have dreamed of this? Of fucking you like this?

The word was obscene, and she knew it. Yet she had spent enough hours in Aphrodite’s shadowed halls, studying frank depictions of desire, to understand its power. From his lips, low, rough, and almost reverent, it lost none of its obscenity; instead, it acquired something far more dangerous.

Fucking.

The images that sprang to mind were carnal, yes, but laced with a tenderness that made her chest ache.

“Show me,” she breathed, thrilled that her presence had haunted him as well. “Show me what you dreamed.” Darcy pressed two gloved fingers over his mouth, silencing whatever protest or promise he had been about to utter. “Whether it is fucking,” she breathed, the word a wicked caress against her own fingers, “or tupping, or loving me…” She held his gaze, unflinching, her voice dropping to something raw and certain. “I want it all, and only with you. I know it is extraordinarily reckless, but it is what I want.”

His hands found the ties of her drawers, loosening them with deft, impatient fingers. The garments fell away, and then there was nothing between her bare flesh and the cool night air—nothing but his hands, burning hot against her skin. Sebastian gripped her hips and rose from the bench, bringing her up with him. Darcy instinctively tightened her hold upon his shoulders until he set her carefully upon her feet. For a moment, he kept her there before him, his hands still firm at her waist, their bodies close enough that she remained acutely conscious of his warmth.

Then he released her and shrugged out of his coat. Darcy watched as he spread it across the stone beside the bench, understanding his intention even as anticipation began to gather low within her once more.

Sebastian straightened and held out his hand.

She placed hers in it.

His fingers closed around hers, and with his other hand settling at her waist, he guided her down onto the coat with an unhurried care that seemed strangely at odds with the hunger she had felt in him only moments before. Yet somehow, that very restraint made her pulse quicken all the more.

Before she could form a question, he was on his knees before her, pushing her thighs apart with an urgency that left no room for modesty.

“Spread for me,” he commanded, his voice low and rough, stripped of all pretenses. “Wider. Let me see all of you.”

The words hovered on her lips, a confession that she had never done this before, had never been with a man. She could feel the raw, urgent weight of his desire pressing against her, and it terrified her that she might not know how to answer it. Darcy knew that if she spoke now, she might shatter this fragile, wicked magic between them.

She obeyed, her legs falling open, her most intimate flesh bared to the night air and his ravenous gaze. The cool stone bit into her skin, but she felt nothing but the burning heat of his eyes upon her, the way his breath ghosted hot against her slick, swollen folds. She was utterly exposed, utterly his, and the power of it made her tremble.

“Please,” she whispered, not even knowing what she begged for. “I ache, Sebastian. So much.”

His hands gripped the soft flesh of her inner thighs, pushing them even wider, and then his mouth descended upon her sex like a man starved. His lips parted the soft, slick folds of her pussy, and the sensation was so intense, so utterly foreign and exquisite, that Darcy cried out, her hands flying to his shoulders for support. His tongue lapped at her, broad and warm, tasting her with an unhurried reverence that made her tremble.

She had painted this very act—had captured it in oils and shadow, had studied the classical depictions of lovers in their most intimate embrace. But no brushstroke, no carefully blended pigment, had ever prepared Darcy for the reality of it. Nothing, nothing, had prepared her for the searing, wet heat of his tongue against her most intimate flesh, for the way pleasure ripped through her like a living thing.

Sebastian held her thighs steady while his tongue worked her quim with experience, devotion, and raw carnality, sweeping through her wet folds in hungry strokes and lapping at her as though she were the finest nectar. He groaned against her flesh, the vibration of it sending shocks of pleasure straight through her core.

“Oh God,” she cried out, her hands flying to his hair, fisting in the dark strands. Her hips bucked against his mouth, but he held her steady, his grip firm enough to keep her open to him.

He sucked her sensitive pearl into his mouth, circling it with the flat of his tongue, and Darcy almost collapsed. The sensation was blinding, overwhelming, an onslaught of pleasure that left her gasping and writhing on the cold stone. He released her only to plunge his tongue into her entrance, fucking her with it, the wet sound filling the garden alcove.

She rocked against his mouth, helpless to do otherwise, her head falling back as the pleasure built like a gathering storm. Darcy shattered, a sharp, keening cry escaping her lips as the first wave of release crashed through her. Her inner muscles clenched and fluttered against nothing, but still he did not stop.

“You are so beautiful like this,” he murmured against her skin, his voice thick with reverence. “So utterly, impossibly beautiful. Wet and ready like every wicked dream I have ever had.”

He returned to her pearl, sucking hard, and a second release crashed through her like a wave, her body convulsing against his mouth as she cried out his name, torn from her lips in a broken, desperate wail. Still, Sebastian licked her through the shudders, his tongue relentless, drawing out every last tremor until she was whimpering, oversensitive and trembling.

“Look at me,” he commanded, and she forced her eyes open to find him gazing up at her from between her thighs, his lips glistening wet with her arousal, his eyes dark and feral. “I want you to watch what you do to me.”

Still on his knees, he freed himself from his breeches, his thick, straining cock springing free, the tip glistening with his own desire. He wrapped a hand around himself, stroking slowly as he held her gaze, showing her the evidence of his need.

“Now,” he said, rising to his feet and pulling her to the edge of the bench. “Now you will ride me, Red. The control is all yours.”

Her heart trembled with need, softened by something impossibly sweet and tender stirring beneath it. He sat back down upon the bench, drawing her astride him once more, the blunt head of his cock nudging against her slick, aching entrance. His hands gripped her hips, guiding her, but he did not urge her down.

“Take me,” he murmured, his voice low and threaded with sensual promise as he held her gaze, his hands steady at her hips. “Take what you desire. Take me slowly. Let your pussy feel every inch of what I am giving you.”