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“Any duchess worth her salt would lure you away for a private interview.” Trembling with need, she fumbled with the front fall and slid her hand inside. His stomach tensed to rock hardness under her searching fingers.
At last, at last, she held his pulsing, heavy rod. Her excitement built, set her heart thundering.
“You drive me mad,” he groaned, flexing his hips.
She firmed her grip, marveling at his heat and strength. It was like trying to contain some mighty force of nature. “Poor duchess doesn’t know what she’s missing.”
With visible reluctance, he drew her hand away and kissed it. “What happened to my beautiful lady with the sharp tongue?”
“She fell under a rake’s spell.” She couldn’t mistake his hunger. Her confidence surged along with her arousal. Rising on her knees, she ripped his neck cloth away. “Will you take off your coat or will I?”
With gratifyi
ng swiftness, he shrugged out of his coat and tossed it on the floor. He tugged his shirt over his head, ruffling his dark gold hair. He looked like an untidy angel. Except there was more devil than angel in this wicked marquess.
As she stared at his bare chest, her mouth dried with awe and blazing anticipation. She couldn’t shift her eyes from the taut expanse of skin scattered with golden hair. She licked her lips and noticed how his feverish attention focused on the betraying movement.
“Take off your trousers,” she said in a voice harsh with control. She expected him to object to her commands. But he immediately rose from the bed, tugging off his shoes with more haste than grace before shedding his trousers.
Her heart crashed against her ribs. His nakedness struck her silent. He seemed too beautiful to be human. Too beautiful for the earthy reality of lovemaking.
Inevitably her gaze leveled on the part of him she’d so recently touched. He looked impossibly proportioned, big enough to tear her apart. He was hard and ready for her. Her eyes widened with shock as she watched him grow even larger. No wonder she’d felt invaded in the summerhouse. She raised her eyes to his, expecting him to appear proud, superior, triumphant.
His gaze focused fierce and unwavering on her face. His shoulders heaved with the effort of dragging air into his lungs. At his sides, his hands clenched and unclenched as if he battled the urge to grab her.
With a start, she realized he wasn’t basking in victory. Instead he was utterly captive to need. If she was helpless against this magic, so was he.
His unabashed hunger made her burn for the touch of his hands, the weight of his body over her. Once before, she’d known the fierceness of his possession. She ached to know it again. Her breasts swelled against the silk of her chemise. The fine material tormented her sensitive nipples, made her shift restlessly.
Still he didn’t touch her. He just stood and let her stare. Or perhaps he poised in breathless suspense, awaiting her invitation.
“Antonia, for God’s sake . . .” he forced out.
Aware she tormented him, she bit her lip. Anticipation made her belly twist and tighten. Hot moisture welled between her legs. She sucked in a breath that hurt and grabbed her shift in shaking hands. Clumsily she wrenched the final covering over her head.
Nicholas’s face sharpened with hunger. His expression was so raw, she’d recoil if she didn’t feel equal extremity. This was why she’d been unable to resist coming to him tonight, whatever the risk. This passion. This craving. This searing connection.
A dizzying sensation of power flooded her. She shook her hair back from her shoulders and inhaled so her breasts begged for his touch.
She swallowed to moisten her parched throat. She swallowed again and forced out the only words she needed.
“Nicholas, take me.”
Chapter Nineteen
Antonia’s husky invitation incinerated Ranelaw’s restraint.
Swiftly he crossed the room and covered her body with his. His hands closed around her hips. He peppered her throat and shoulders with a rain of kisses more savage than the tempest that rattled the windows. The tempest raged inside him. She stirred him as no woman ever had.
Through weeks of sleepless nights, he’d pictured her nakedness. In life she exceeded every fantasy, beggaring eloquence. She was glorious. Her form ripe and curved, the skin warm and creamy in the flickering candlelight. She promised an empire of pleasure.
He’d devoted more time than he wished to admit to wondering what color her nipples were. Pale pink? Dark rose? Brown? Her nipples were the rich red of summer raspberries. Puckered against her white skin, they were a sight to make a man grateful he was alive.
She protested under his frenzy, half laughing so he knew she didn’t mind his eagerness. Through the thunder in his blood, he realized he must be crushing her. He struggled to leash the ravening beast as he raised his head to stare at her. She was flushed with arousal and her lips were lush and full after his rough kisses.
The sight of Antonia’s nakedness, the vulnerability in her eyes, sliced at him with unfamiliar poignancy. He wasn’t used to sex having this emotional dimension. He might be supremely confident in the physical realm but this night, this woman, demanded more. A more that he wasn’t sure he was capable of delivering.
His hand mortifyingly unsteady, he reached out to stroke one tight peak, then the other. She released a whimper of pleasure and the pale areolas flushed darker pink. He already knew her breasts were deliciously sensitive but seeing her tremble when he touched her pearled nipples blasted arousal through him. And more of that unwelcome emotional need.
