Trial by Desire (Carhart #2)

He peered into her eyes. “You seem to have forgotten my many flaws. That’s not like you. Are you sure you’re my wife?”


His naked chest brushed her br**sts as he leaned toward her. She could feel the heady weight of him poised above her. His flesh, so warm, was in sharp contrast with the cold air. Her own skin quivered in anticipation. He brought his hand up to touch the side of her cheek, and he brushed her jawline. A shiver went through her, a sweet portent of pleasures to come.

She could taste his kiss before he touched her lips—a mingling riot of mint and sherry. His other hand came to her shoulder and he guided her down, down until her spine met the mattress. For an instant, he looked into her eyes. He held himself above her, the muscles in his arms corded to support his weight. And then he lowered his whole body atop her, from the hard planes of his chest to the weight of his thighs. She could feel his erection pressing into her belly. His mouth found hers, and her mind emptied of everything except desire.

She wanted his kiss, and his mouth opened to hers. His lips were warm against hers; they moved slowly, yet firmly. His hand slid down her side; she could feel his touch through the thin fabric of her half-discarded nightgown, trailing down her ribs. There was nothing between them but a scant layer of silk, and even that seemed too much.

No wonder he’d not started a fire. He was a blast-furnace himself, his body searing hers.

He pulled back for breath. “Feeling feverish?”

Her blood was pounding in her head; her own breath came only in short pants. And she was hot all over, from the palms of her hands to the core of her body. She nodded shortly.

“Do you have a headache?” His tone was solicitous. “Or any pain? Or do you find that you are thinking irrationally? Women who don’t find release often do, you know. I’m only thinking of your health.”

She stared up at him, her mind completely blank for a bare instant. Then she remembered what she’d told him when she came in—her worries about the symptoms of male abstinence. She smacked his shoulder with her fist. “Are you mocking me, at a time like this?”

“Are you laughing?”

She was; her breath froze around him.

“Then it worked,” he said. “You definitely are irrational. That’s what I was waiting for.”

His hand crept up to encircle the swell of her breast. Hot and cold warred against her skin, the frigid temperature of the room contrasting with the heat of his fingers. Her ni**les tingled in anticipation.

“It would be wrong for me to take advantage of you in such a state,” he intoned piously.

“It would be more wrong if you didn’t.”

He drew a figure eight atop her breast; his thumb feathered briefly over her aching nipple.

“Ned,” Kate said, “stop playing and do it.”

He was still looking her in the eye. He smiled again and raised one eyebrow. “If you insist.”

And then he leaned down and closed his mouth around her nipple. She had a moment to feel the warmth of his breath. It enfolded her, like that instant of silence between the stab of lightning and the rumble of thunder. Not the particular it she had meant but, oh, she wouldn’t stop him, and the cry she let out was the farthest thing from a protest. The heat of his tongue around her nipple overtook her. She felt the sweetness of the connection clear from the bottoms of her feet to the palms of her hands, a powerful tingling net cast about her. Her thighs parted; she pressed up against him in unspoken longing, in years-old desire. This was supposed to be practical. But there was nothing practical about her want, about the deep well of longing that overtook her.

And still he held back from her. When she arched her back, one of his hands slipped behind her; when she pushed up at him, his tongue inscribed a circle, a wet, heated kiss, about her breast. He lifted his head to nuzzle her ear, and cool air washed over her.

“You’re going to undo me,” he growled against her neck.

“Hurry up and be undone.”

His fingers pressed into her back. “Do you know what I was doing when you walked in?”

Even the thought of it left her awash in further longing. She still had no verbs to describe that action. Only the one pitiful word, a mere noun: onanism. And that word described a sin, not the near sanctity of her husband’s body.

“The only words I know are proper and stilted.” Not hot and needful. Not a match for what she felt.

His mouth covered hers again. There was a rough urgency to his kiss, as if she would fade away if he let her go. But she was positively alive with light. She felt her blood pulsing through her, in time with the rhythm of his caress. She angled her head back and he kissed his way down her chin, her collarbone.

“There are only improper ones,” he said.

“Don’t treat me like a flimsy thing. Don’t pawn me with kind assurances and excuses of propriety.”