Page 25 of The Rogue and the Viscountess

She pressed closer. “Stay.”

He groaned and pressed back, pushing her gently toward the bed. Prunella moved with him, the skirts of her silk evening gown tangling around his legs. One of his thighs brushed between hers, near that secret valley filling with warmth and need, and Prunella froze at the shock of sensation that rippled through her. She’d never felt this.

She rubbed against his leg, and the prickle of heat intensified. “Pete,” she panted against his lips. She didn’t know how to tell him what she felt, or how wondrous and alarming it was.

“I want to see all of you.” His voice was a scrape against her skin, as rough and pleasurable as the soft grate of his shaven jaw.

“Oh.” Her bottom came up against the bed, layers and layers of mattress and coverlet, cushioning her between the soft surface and the firm man. He unhooked the back of her gown and the bodice parted, opening like sepals framing the petals of a flower. Pete stared at her breasts and the expression on his face was nothing so much as hunger, raw and urgent.

“God. Nell.” He pulled free the ribbon at her waist, as if he were unwrapping a gift, and the gown fell away. She stepped out of the silken mass and with a strange grace he caught it, as if her dress deserved reverence for no more reason than that it had touched her body. He tossed the gown toward a nearby chair and it flew like a cloud of silk through the air, then settled on the chair with a whispery sigh.

“You’re…Nell.” Pete stared at her as if he didn’t have words. His hands skimmed her body, dragging from her hips along the light boning of her stays and cupping her heavy breasts. “Nell,” he said again, as if her name were magical, and so was she.

“You’ll keep kissing me, I hope.” She slipped a hand to the back of his head and urged his face toward hers. Being a wanton was new for her. She found she enjoyed it.

“I want to kiss you all over.” His growl of a voice sent shivers down her neck, and more shivers followed as he turned her about and began to unlace her stays. With her back to him, unable to see his face, the feel of his fingers at the laces, heels of his hands brushing her back, was an erotic touch she’d never known.

“All of me?” she asked, suddenly shy. Edwin had never taken the time to undress her. He’d left that task to her lady’s maid and in bed had been focused and efficient about his business, though he always asked politely if she were all right.

Her breath came fast as her stays fell apart and Pete set them aside. He pressed close and slipped his hands around her rib cage, catching her unbound breasts. She sucked in air as he followed the shape of her, palms dragging across her nipples, hard peaks beneath her shift. Something hard pressed into her rump. He rubbed against her as he kneaded her breasts, his touch firm and yet gentle at the same time. She felt completely encased, drowning in heat, entirely surrendered.

“Good?”

She shivered at his breath on her neck, and then his lips were there, dragging along her skin, setting fires along every nerve. She didn’t know where to focus first, there was so much pleasure coming from so many places. She’d never known her breasts to be so sensitive, but Pete’s touch made the valley between her legs turn to a yawning gulf.

“Up we go.” And before she knew quite what he meant, her shift was up and over her head. Air rushed in everywhere, but she scarcely had time to notice because his hands were at her waist, his bare hands on her naked skin, and he tossed her onto the bed as easily as he’d tossed her dress.

“Oh.” She squirmed, instinctively trying to hide, but he settled over her, his hips between her legs, and he kissed her until she forgot to feel embarrassed that she wasn’t wearing a scrap of clothing beside her stockings and garters, her slippers having fallen off long ago. He toed off his shoes and she heard them hit the floor, through the dim haze that her mind had become as Pete kissed from her mouth down her neck to her breasts. He sucked one taut nipple into his mouth, and she nearly screamed at the jolt of pleasure.

Her hips lifted and she wanted, cravenly, to rub herself against him, to soothe the ache. The billow of his shirt stood in the way. She fisted her hands in the material and tugged, moaning as he suckled her breasts, then moaning again when he paused to pull his shirt over his head. She lifted her head to stare. Immense shoulders, an enormous chest, and yet for all his size, he wasn’t fleshy in the middle. His bulk was all muscle and tendon and bone, and she clutched greedily at his arms to bring him back to her, to cradle him against her body.

But he didn’t stay. He chuckled at her insistence, but he was intent on a path of his own as he kissed all over her breasts, then the undersides, and then down over her belly. She squeezed her eyes shut, for she was soft there, as she was soft everywhere, but he seemed to take delight in the shape and the feel of her. Or so she gathered from the little mutters and exclamations and short, hungry groans he made as he kissed her.

Then he moved further away and she gazed down at him, curious, for why was he withdrawing? He knelt between her legs and gave her the most wicked, wily grin she’d ever seen. His hair was tousled from her tugging hands and his lips were moist with kissing her and he was beautiful, beautiful, and she wanted his body touching hers everywhere.

“Come back,” she said impatiently.

“Not done kissing you yet.”

But all that was left was her legs, and he couldn’t mean to kiss her legs, could he? Not when there were more interesting—

He bent his head and licked directly over the place that was a yawning gulf of heat for him, and Prunella, with a yelp, raised her hips off the bed.

“I’ll stop if you don’t like,” he said, and then he continued, and she whimpered helplessly, nearly sobbing, because like was nothing close to the words that could describe what was happening in her body as he kissed her there. An infernal burn. A craving that made her nearly want to weep, and something building, building, like a wild windstorm that was gathering strength and at some point it was going to break and break her wide open.

And then it did, and her entire body shook with the crest of passion as she rose on the wave and then tumbled back to earth, where he cradled her as she trembled, then calmed, and then lay tender and surprised, like a hermit crab bereft of its shell, a being made new.

Dazed, she stared at the underside of the canopy. “So that is why,” she said at last.

Pete chuckled and drew close to kiss her shoulder, then rolled to his side. “Nell. Don’t tell me…?”

“No,” she said. “Not ever. Not like that.”

“Good.” His grin was feral male satisfaction as he turned back toward her, and his breeches and stockings were gone. He was bare to the skin, and what marvelous skin, soft as she’d never expected he would be. She studied every part of him, following the path of her gaze with her hands, and he let her touch him, though his eyes burned with a smolder that made her middle melt again and made her very aware that she, too, was entirely naked.

“Done yet?” he asked as she stroked his arms, his chest, down the swell of his ribs. So this was a man, velvet flesh over hard muscle and sturdy bone.

“I might never be done with you,” she murmured, but then felt shy and foolish the instant she said it.