Untouched

So his touch was gentle as he cupped her face between his palms. Slowly, he bent his head to brush his lips across hers.

He sipped pleasure, coaxing her to open. Her lips softened, parted. She sighed and gave herself up to the kiss with a swiftness that made his blood leap with joy.

He used his tongue to explore the warm recesses of her mouth, learning again her sweetness, her passion. Her tongue fluttered to meet his and the dizzying pleasure threatened to spin out of control.

It was the same melting delight he’d savored yesterday. But it was also different. Even yesterday, she’d clung to a vestige of prudence. Tonight, she held nothing back. He read surrender in her uninhibited response, in the fluid yielding of her body. Her nipples were hard points against his chest. Soon he’d taste her there. The prospect shot a blinding jolt of lust through him.

With increasing confidence, he intensified the pressure. She hummed low in her throat and drew his tongue deep into her mouth. His heart slammed against his ribs at the glorious sensation. He lashed his arms around her, pulling her tight against him. She gasped and clung closer, her fingers clenching and unclenching in the lawn shirt that stretched across his back. The kiss developed a desperate edge.

Careful, Matthew. Careful.

If he didn’t discipline his hunger, he’d hurt her. He tore his mouth from hers and stared helplessly down into her dazed eyes. He craved her so much, he was delirious. But he didn’t want to attack her the way a starving man fell on his first meal after a famine.

Although, God knew, he starved for her.

“Oh, my,” she gasped, releasing him and staggering back against the bed. She looked like she’d lived through an earthquake. A hectic flush lay along her cheekbones and her lips were red and full. From his kisses, not paint, he recognized with a sharp punch of satisfaction.

She pressed one shaking hand to her chest. Each ragged breath lifted her full breasts under the sheer nightdress. He closed his eyes briefly and prayed for restraint, while every moment made restraint more elusive.

Even the few inches of space between them tortured him.

“Come here,” he said roughly, tugging her into his arms again. All that shining black hair had teased him since he stood in the doorway. Now it slid around him like dark satin.

His mouth plunged down to take hers. She answered with wild ardor. Her slender body was tensile as hot steel.

Her mouth ravished his, hungry, rapacious. The openness of her desire astounded him, made his cock swell and pulse against her belly.

He wanted to devour her. Jesus, he already did a fair job of it.

He tried to hold himself back by concentrating on her responses. But her responses were so willing and ready, they only stoked the heat inside him until he threatened to combust to ashes.

He raked hot, open-mouthed kisses across her cheeks, her eyes, her nose, her jaw, her neck. He wanted to inhale her, ingest her, so he’d never be without her. She tasted like salty honey. She tasted like heaven. He couldn’t get enough of her.

The scent of jasmine whirled around him. Heavy. Dark. Whispering of sin and seduction. But beneath her heady perfume, she still smelled like sunshine, like the woman he’d first held and wanted. The woman he’d want forever. The woman as much a part of him as blood or bones.

He traced a line of hard, sucking kisses along the tendon that ran down her neck. She gave a choked gasp and trembled in his arms.

Interesting.

He used his teeth, not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to make her shiver and moan.

How fascinating a woman’s body was. How fascinating Grace’s body was.

He followed her collarbone with his lips. Paused to explore the wildly fluttering pulse at the base of her throat. She sighed and arched into him.

Reluctantly, he left that hollow, so warm and redolent of her, to discover the silken firmness of her shoulder. His lips met one of the fragile knots holding her nightdress.

Soon, soon that knot would loosen to his fingers.

Even while his blood trumpeted the need for haste, he forced himself to linger. He didn’t trust how long this joy would be his. His uncle’s schemes had caught him out before. He’d experience all he could before fate stole his treasu

re.

Her scent, sharp with what he instinctively recognized as arousal, intoxicated him. She trembled like a reed in a gale and her sighs and gasps filled his ears with the sweetest music he’d ever heard.

Suddenly impatient with barriers, he pulled away to shuck his shirt over his head and fling it into the corner. He didn’t dare remove his trousers. If he did, he’d be on her. The friction of worn nankeen on his tumescent sex already threatened to send him over the edge.

He battled his ravening impulses. Grace deserved better than a rough tumble from an inexperienced boy.