his blood heated more.
He couldn’t think when she looked at him like that, like a seductress with pouting, skillful lips. She was his friend—his best friend. He treasured their easy friendship—the rarity of it. What he was contemplating, what he desired, might very well ruin any feelings she held for him.
But he needed—had—to have at least one taste of the pleasure she could give him. One taste. One simple, forbidden taste…
He should have been thinking about the ring he’d left in his den. Thinking about how he should be proposing marriage before taking their relationship further. Anais was a lady, after all, not a demirep. He was a gentleman who knew how to treat a lady. Except, at this moment, all he could think about was how much he needed Anais sexually.
The stable was now in sight and Anais’s mare galloped full speed toward the open doors. His heart was pounding a furious pace. It always did when he was riding. But there was something else there. An irregularity; a skipped beat when he thought of turning his relationship with Anais from innocent friendship to an intimate session of shared delight. Pink, flushed skin. Swollen lips, parted in pleasure. Her fingers digging into his shoulders as their bodies heated and glistened with desire… Yes, that was what he wanted, the shared delight of flesh.
He wanted her as a companion. A wife. A lover. He didn’t think he could stand the agony of enduring another day, another month, another year of dreaming and longing. How damned torturous it was to have her near him and not be able to touch her. Had she any idea what he wanted to do to her as they sat by the pond and twirled the blades of grass between their fingers? Did she know how much control it took for him to resist lying atop her as she stretched out onto the grass and gazed up at the sky?
The bay snorted heavily as they tore into the stables. He heard the hard snorting breaths of Anais’s mare and he urged the bay to the stall. Before him, Anais was dismounting, the toe of her half boot caught in the stirrup. A flash of a stocking-clad ankle met his eyes and his cock hardened again. The hunger he had kept tightly reined in over supper broke free of his restraint.
Within seconds he had his hands around her waist, lifting her free of the stirrups. She gasped, a womanly, husky pant, and he didn’t think. Didn’t care that she might not want him like he wanted her. This was the moment he had been waiting for. The moment of truth. The destiny that had been ordained for him.
“I can go no longer, Anais.” His breathing was deep, his words husky as he brought her up against the stable wall. “It’s agony watching you from afar. It’s bloody torture thinking of you in the night when I am alone and wanting the feel of you against me. For so long I have needed and wanted you.”
Her eyes widened. Shock? Passion? He didn’t know, but the uncertainty ate at his belly. “I can’t look at you anymore with only friendship in my mind. I want your body beneath me. I want you flushed and hot in my arms. I want to be inside you.”
He didn’t wait for her answer. Didn’t want to hear it if she told him his feelings and desires were one-sided. He only wanted to feel her wind-chafed lips beneath his. One kiss. He would stop at a kiss if she said so. But to deny himself that, to resist the temptation, was a torment he could not withstand. If she allowed him any liberties, he would confess his love. He would sweep her away and marry her. He would make love to her in all the ways he knew how.
“Do you know what I want you to give me?” he asked, lowering his mouth to hers.
“Yes,” she whispered breathlessly.
“Will you give me what I want?” He pulled his gloves from his hands, dropping them to the stable floor. Unbuttoning her cloak, he let it fall from her shoulders, before he smoothed his palms down her arms and the delicate silk of her gown.
“If you say no, Anais, I will not press you.” Their gazes met, and he saw the war waged in her eyes. Waiting for her answer was a lesson in agony.
Another frigid blast of north wind howled angrily from the snowcapped hills. The shutters on the window flanking the wall behind Anais creaked against the bricks as the wind gusted yet again, sending icy air through the cracks of the old, weathered casement window, the sound distracting her from her thoughts.
She should have been shivering with cold after being out in the elements for so long, but she did not feel the sting of the bitter winter air, only a ravaging heat that enveloped her in a fevered warmth.
“Anais, I shall go mad if I deny myself any longer,” Lindsay’s deep voice whispered in her ear. “Please,” he pleaded, sliding both her dress and chemise down her arms, baring the white stay beneath her shift. “Say yes,” he implored as his long fingers sought the ties of her corset. “Or tell me to cease these attentions before I cannot stop.”
What was she to say? She knew what she should say, but the word would not come forth. No had never felt so impossibly hard to say as it did now. She did not want to speak the word, for she knew that Lindsay would honor her refusal. Refusing him was something she didn’t want to do. She wanted this, despite the fact it was against everything she had been taught. She wanted his lovemaking, regardless of the fact she could find herself ruined in the eyes of society.
“Anais?”
“Don’t stop,” she said on a gasp. “Oh, Lindsay, please don’t stop.”
With masterful skill, he undid the bow on her corset, pulling on the strings before releasing her straining breasts into the cool air. She shuddered, feeling the sexual awakening flooding her hot blood like a glass of fine champagne.
Lowering his mouth to the valley of her breasts, he trailed his lips along her flesh, making her burn hotter. Raking her hands through Lindsay’s thick, curling hair, Anais clenched her fingers in the silky strands as his lips trailed openmouthed along her skin. Her breath froze as his mouth descended lower. Closing her eyes, she allowed her held breath to pass in a soft exhalation of yearning—a desire she knew was forbidden. No woman of her class would do such a thing without the benefit of marriage, and in a stable no less! Only common strumpets would allow a man such liberties where anyone may happen upon them. But the forbidden was the most succulent of fruits, especially when it was Lindsay offering the illicit taste.
She didn’t think, only felt as his mouth followed the descent of her gown. It was followed by the slow slide of his fingers hooking beneath the waist of her petticoats as he drew them over her generous hips till they lay in a lace heap around her feet.
Gasping, Anais pressed further against the cold stone when Lindsay dropped to his knees and began to nuzzle the damp flesh between her thighs. His hands cupped her breasts as his mouth moved eagerly—hungrily—over her wet sex as he lapped at her.
How was she to deny him? How was she to deny herself this sinful pleasure, especially when she had desired—no, loved— this man her entire life? It was neither fanciful thinking nor melodrama in the heat of sexual frenzy, but the truth. She had loved Lindsay for…well, forever. To be here with him now, in the stables of his estate, to feel his mouth caress her in forbidden places and exotic ways was beyond what she had ever dared hope for. And she had hoped and longed for this moment for so long…
Blood pounded fiercely in her ears as Lindsay’s hot mouth covered every inch of her flesh. She heard the rapid fire of her heart mixing with the erotic sounds of his tongue laving her. The way he pleasured her made her wish for him to devour her whole and she encouraged him on with her husky breaths and the way she instinctively gripped his hair.
“I knew you would be this responsive,”
