of the beautiful flesh.
Beautiful. Rounded. Firm and proud. The peaks were dark, a soft shade of brown, puckered and tight from the exposure to cool air.
He puffed out a breath.
She wriggled.
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I have been waiting to see these all night.’
He swirled his tongue around first one tightly budded nipple and then the other.
She moaned.
He felt her dampness on his thigh pressed between hers. Oh, yes, she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Desire shone like a bright flame between them, glowing on their skin and heating their blood. The pulse at the base of her throat urged him on, yet he was loath to let it flare and all too soon die.
He suckled.
She speared her hands in his hair, pressing his mouth to her breast. He caught her by one shoulder, supporting himself and holding her trapped, teasing her other breast with a flicking thumb.
She cried out her pleasure. The shudder of her body as the shocks of pleasure held her in their grip drove him beyond control and into the darkness of his own urgent need.
He widened his knees, opening her thighs. Her dark curls were damp. He guided himself to her entrance.
‘Merry,’ he commanded. ‘Look at me.’
She lifted her eyelids. Her full lips smiled. There was yet one more thing he needed. One thing he needed to know.
‘Say my name.’
She licked her lips. ‘Charlie,’ she breathed.
He slid deep inside her. Knew her as only a lover could know a woman.
Her heat closed around him in welcoming warmth. He kissed her mouth, probed with his tongue as he moved his hips. She clutched at his shoulders, digging her nails into his skin, tilting her hips, rising to meet his every thrust as he stroked her insides. He watched her submit to the pleasure.
The urge to drive into her, to bury himself deep and simply let go, jolted through him.
He fought for command. Battled for the will to lead her from one little death to the next without taking his own. He was known for it. Anything else was unacceptable.
He slowed his breathing.
Clung to control by a thread with each warm slide into her depths, each slow lingering withdrawal.
He breathed deep and slow, the body and the mind in perfect harmony. Energy building to peaks, then rippling away in muscle and bone.
‘Charlie?’ She ran her fingers over his chest, tweaked his nipples, raised herself to suckle.
His breathing faltered, distracted by the sight of her glorious black tresses against the whiteness of her shoulders and the generous exploration of his body.
Her touch felt wonderful. Not giving or taking, but delightfully shared.
She lifted her legs high and took him deeper.
The pleasure hit him hard and fast. A breath caught in his throat. Breathe, damn it. He twisted his hips, grinding himself hard against the yielding heated flesh.
‘Oh, Charlie.’
The sound of his name on her lips, the feel of her luscious body around him, her legs tight at his waist, sent him over the edge. He succumbed to the urges beating in his blood.
He pounded into her. Mindless. Feral.
The climax built. Hit him hard. ‘I can’t Merry you have to’ He pumped his hips and caressed with his thumb.
Her eyes widened. Her body trembled. Her inner muscles tightened around him. Gripped him, as her fingers gripped his shoulders. He gazed into her face, saw the strain and the reach. Her eyes opened wide. She let out a cry as she fell apart.
Undone by the glory of the utter bliss on her face, unable to contain his own race to the finish, he pulled clear and spilled against the covers.
Oh, what did she do to him? He felt like an inexperienced lad. Vulnerable. Without control instead of bringing her to greater heights, keeping her in a state of ever-increasing arousal, until he decided to let her go.
Dear God, he’d almost spilled inside her body.
Aware of her laboured breathing, he turned on to his side and gazed into a face dreamy with satiation. Eyes closed, she lay utterly relaxed, her face still flushed; the scent of their lovemaking perfumed the air.
Her eyes drifted open. ‘Mmmm,’ she murmured, her chest still rising and falling. ‘That was good.’
Bloody hell. He was leaving in the morning and one night with Merry was not nearly enough.
‘You are glorious,’ he said and pulled her into the cradle of his arm, let her head rest on his shoulder. His pounding heart slowly quieted, her breath tickled his chest and his own breathing slowed to match hers.
Cosy and warm and deliciously replete, Merry woke to light filtering through her eyelids. It must be morning.
Time to get up. She opened her eyes.
The room was ablaze with candles. They burned on the tables each side of the bed. And on the mantel. Beside her the sound of another’s deep breathing. The gentle inhale and exhale from Charlie. She glanced over at the window. Still dark outside.
The last thing she remembered was him saying he wanted to watch her sleep when she suggested they snuff the lights. Carefully, she eased on to her side and gazed at the man sprawled beside her on top of the covers. He lay on his stomach, his flanks and broad back gilded by candlelight. She reached out to run a hand over the beautiful skin, then whipped it back, touching her lips with a fingertip. He looked so relaxed, it seemed a shame to disturb him. Even if the little flutters low in her abdomen suggested he might very well like it.
She glanced at his face, at the full lips, relaxed in sleep, the dark crescent of eyelashes, the slash of brow, the rugged features.
Delicious. A gorgeous man.
She raised up on her elbow. He looked younger in sleep. Less world weary. Less drawn. Less severe. Closer to her own age than she’d thought.
The clock on the mantel struck the quarter hour. She glanced over and saw it was past five o’clock. Very soon Brian would come to make up the fire and find her here. She’d asked him to take over the task from Beth and Jane. She didn’t want Tonbridge propositioned again. Not by them, anyway. She quelled a small smile.
Nor did she want to start any gossip.
The ripple of concern over the bourgeois Miss Draycott and her brief girlish love affair in those long-ago schooldays would be nothing to the scandal of being caught in a marquis’s bed.
Her first indiscretion had been with a boy. Charlie was a man. A beautiful, wonderful man who knew how to please a woman.
She
