When he’d finished, he rose to his full height behind her and stroked his hands up her body and against the side swells of her breasts.
Mariah caught her breath. She barely dared to believe that this was happening. That Robert truly found her desirable. But when he began to pull free the lace of her stays with both hands, each pull coming faster than the one before in his eagerness to have her undressed, his desire filled her with a longing so intense that her eyes blurred with emotion. This was what she’d dreamt about, the moment when she could come to him bare and without pretense, as a lover instead of an enemy. And now that it was truly happening, oh, it was simply divine!
She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by nervous anticipation as her stays fell away, leaving her in only her thin shift. Then that, too, was slowly peeled away. The cold air tickled over her bare skin, and excitement pulsed through her as she stood naked in front of him in the shadows of the dark room.
“Dear God, Mariah.” He sucked in a ragged breath. “You are so beautiful…”
Stepping forward to bring her into his arms, he captured both breasts against his palms and leaned her back against his chest. The buttons of his waistcoat scraped cold against her spine as he kneaded her fullness, and the wanton sensation sped through her with a yearning ache. She couldn’t believe how wonderful the heat of his large hands against her breasts, how tantalizing his fingers teasing at her nipples until they grew hard and aching. Then he pinched them, and a pulse of pleasure-pain shot through her, landing hard between her legs.
“Robert,” she whispered, her lips thick with arousal as she arched her back to bring his hands harder against her. There was no shame in so boldly giving herself like this, not to him. No shame in encouraging him to find pleasure in her the way she knew she would find the same in him. Delicious tingles danced through her, and having his hands on her naked body exceeded her wildest fantasies. “I want…I want you to…”
“This?” He slid his hand down her belly and through the triangle of curls, to slip gently into the valley between her thighs.
“Yes,” she panted out as his fingers stroked against her, each caress delving deeper into her folds and flaming the throbbing at his fingertips. He touched her confidently, as if he already knew her intimately. Instead of frightening her, that thought completely eased away her nervousness. She closed her eyes as her head rolled back, giving herself over to pure pleasure. “Oh yes…exactly that.”
“You are lovely, Mariah,” he whispered achingly, his mouth resting at her temple while his hands continued to explore her body and stoke the arousal burning inside her. “So much spirit in you, so much daring, yet still soft and feminine.”
Encouraged by his words, she drew a breath to calm the pounding of her heart and shifted her legs farther apart. Her pulse spiked when he groaned softly at her boldness, and a shivering thrill raced through her. His tender caresses intensified against her, harder and deeper, until one finger slipped inside.
She gasped, all of her tensing. It was a sensation unlike any she’d ever experienced, making her feel inexplicably vulnerable and emboldened at the same time. Both wanton and wanted. But when he began to stroke inside her, she melted with a soft sigh and shivered as a delicious warmth spread through her, all the way out to the tips of her fingers and toes.
“So many nights I fantasized about being with you,” he murmured as he tenderly kissed the side of her face. “Holding you in my arms, making you happy.”
“So did I,” she admitted, her eyes stinging at his words. He was making her so very happy tonight…although she’d certainly never imagined it feeling as good as this. Each swirling plunge and retreat of his finger came as a tender caress that left her tingling with pleasure and yearning for more, for something she couldn’t name but felt approaching with the intensity of an oncoming storm.
“Did you fantasize about me kissing you, too?” His lips nibbled at her earlobe and elicited a tremble from her. “Kissing every inch of you?”
She knew what he meant, and a blush heated her cheeks and all the way down to her breasts. “Yes,” she whispered, “that, too.”
Turning her in his arms, he kissed her hungrily as he stepped her backward to the bed. This time when he lowered her to the mattress, he left hot, open-mouthed kisses down her front. He suckled at her breasts until she moaned and her back arched off the bed in sweet torture. Then he continued downward over her belly, lower and lower…
She held her breath as his mouth found the aching place between her thighs, only to exhale with a soft shudder when he placed a tender kiss there. But when he continued to kiss her intimately, she squeezed her eyes closed and bit back a moan. Never…oh, never had she imagined being with a man could be both so heavenly yet so wicked at the same time! But only because of Robert. He made her feel beautiful and desired, the way no man ever had before. And as she knew in her heart, the way no other man ever would again.
With alternating kisses and licks, he flamed the fire inside her until all of her shook with an increasing need that begged to be released. She pulsed electric, every nerve ending in her body tingling. The world receded until all she knew was the exquisite feel of his mouth against her, the softness of his hair as she reached down to run her fingers through it, the solidity of his hands stroking her inner thighs and holding her open to his ravishing lips.
When he closed his mouth over the little nub buried within her folds and sucked, her hips bucked off the bed.
“Robert!” she cried out, her fingernails digging into his shoulders.
“Relax, Mariah,” he cajoled, each word a hot tickle that pulled tighter the knot in her lower belly. “Let yourself go and enjoy it.”
Heavens, if she enjoyed it any more, she’d jump right out of her skin! But she couldn’t fight back the flames licking at her toes as he continued to kiss between her thighs. Or the overwhelming urge to wiggle her hips against his mouth.
An appreciative groan escaped him. “It’s all your fault, you know,” he whispered against her.
“How…is this…my fault?” she panted out between gasping breaths.
“Because you’re so delicious that you make me want to devour you.”
The brazen audacity of his words poured liquid flames through her, and when he sucked at her again, a shuddering wave of pleasure crashed over her. Her breath came in large gasps as her thighs quivered against his shoulders. She felt as if she were levitating weightlessly off the bed, with only her hands clenching the blanket beneath her to keep her from floating away to heaven.
When the exquisite release waned, she lay still on the mattress. Her eyelids were too heavy to lift as she drank in the residual waves of pleasure lapping softly through her.
Then her desire-fogged mind registered that he had slipped away from her. “Robert?” she whispered anxiously, afraid that he’d changed his mind. That he didn’t want her after all.
“I’m right here,” he assured her. “I’m not leaving you tonight.”
When he returned a few moments later, his clothes were gone, and his naked body was warm and hard and so very large as he slid up the length of hers. Everywhere their bodies touched, heat prickled her skin, and a new, even more intense ache sprang up inside her.
“You are beautiful, Mariah,” he murmured.
She opened her eyes. His blue gaze was haunting in the darkness as he stared down at her. The enemy she’d known was completely gone now, and in his place was this wonderful man who was making tonight perfect for her.