Page 71 of How to Start a Scandal

Seth kissed his way down her chin, to the length of her graceful neck where the delicate violet perfume grew headier, spiced with the natural feminine fragrance of this woman’s beautiful scent. It went straight to his head, the same as drink on an empty stomach, and left his thoughts swimming.

His lips found the sensitive place between her neck and her shoulder. She leaned her head back with a moan, yielding herself to him completely. He ran his hands back up her waist to her breasts. He cupped the weight of them in his palms and pushed them up slightly so the rounded tops of her bosom nearly spilled out.

He stared down at them, unable to stop himself from imagining how they might bounce with each thrust of his body into her. With a groan, he leaned over her, tracing the neckline of her muted grey dress with his tongue.

She held tighter to him and whispered a single word into the night.

‘Yes.’

Before he could stop himself, he tugged at her bodice with trembling hands. Her full breasts spilled out into the moonlight for him to admire, smooth, creamy skin and topped with rosy nipples. He bent and ran his lips over the right nipple, an intentional tease that had her writhing with anticipation before he suckled the first bud into his mouth.

She gasped and practically fell against him. He easily caught her with one hand while cradling the silkiness of a breast in the palm of another and kissed her full lips again. His manhood throbbed with desire, rock hard and straining at his fall.

She curled her right leg around his left one, drawing their pelvises close, so close, until his arousal nudged her lower stomach. The pressure from even that brief contact was nearly his undoing. He groaned and suddenly they were lowering to the ground together. His mouth found her breasts again, nuzzling, kissing, licking, sucking.

Her gasps and whimpers in response to his attentions quickly disposed of the last shreds of his morality. Suddenly, he was reminded of that rake again, the man he’d been before he left. The one with skilled fingers and a wicked tongue who knew well how to pleasure women.

But he wasn’t that man any more. And it wasn’t women he wanted. It was just one. Violet.

He lay over the top of her in the soft, summer grass. The dewy freshness of it rose around them and the shadows obscured them in a shelter of privacy.

‘Touch me,’ she whispered.

Touch me.

Dear God. He hesitated, plagued with thoughts of William who had debauched ladies. Except he’d had no intention of marrying them. Not like Seth had with Violet.

‘Please.’ Her tone was pleading now, desperate.

He shifted his hands between them, skimming down her skirts to run his fingers over the cleft between her legs. She cried out.

He kissed her swiftly to muffle the sound and froze. When it was apparent no one had heard, or bothered to investigate the sound, he curled his middle finger into the folds of her gown where it nudged between her legs, rubbing her sex beneath.

The heat of her yearning was evident and he knew, if it were not for the layers of fabric separating them, she would be slick with need. Her hips ground against his touch, the quickening of her breath indicative of how close she was to climax.

The mere thought of hearing her cries of release were almost more than he could bear. In fact, he needed to hear them. A sweet memory to cling to that evening as he drifted to sleep, enveloped in recollections of Violet.

He prudently lifted the neckline of her gown to cover her breasts once more.

She clung more tightly to him. ‘Please, don’t stop.’

‘I won’t, but nor will I ruin you.’ Even as he spoke, he lifted the hem of her gown. He paused to stroke her stocking, marvelling at her neat ankle and shapely calf. His touch skimmed over the white cotton to the bare skin inside of her knees.

‘I think you don’t know what ruin means,’ she gasped.

‘But I do,’ he murmured. Up her inner thighs he went, the skin there impossibly soft. He didn’t stop the agonisingly slow trail of his fingers up her legs until he brushed the slit of her sex.

Her hips jerked and she sucked in a hard breath.

He lay on his side as he leaned over her, propped on his elbow, intending to kiss her, to swallow up every moan and whimper she would issue.

‘There?’ he teased.

She nodded.

He found the bud of her sex with his thumb where it was swollen and hot with the need to release. ‘And there?’

She leaned her head back. ‘Oh, God, yes.’