Scandalously Yours (Hellions of High Street 1)

She clutched at his shoulders, palms sliding down the hard slope of contoured muscle. His hands were roving over the swell of her hips, the curve of her derriere. There was nothing languid or leisurely about their touching. A volatile eagerness seemed to have taken possession of them. A frenzied need.

“I want…I want…” The words broke free of their own volition. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted. All she knew was that a strange wave was cresting inside her, demanding release.

“I know what you want, sweetheart.” John’s voice was a little muzzy, as if he, too, were caught in some powerful current. “And the Devil take me, I want it as well.” Quickening his strokes, he sheathed himself in her warm wetness again and again.

And again.

A cry—was it really hers?—shattered the surrounding stillness of the room as a brief burst of brilliant sparks outshone the sunlight. Olivia felt herself spinning, spinning in a shower of gold-flecked flickers of fire before floating back down to earth.

John covered her cry with his lips, the tremoring sound resonating down to his very core. Everything about Olivia seemed to thrum with passion—her eloquent words, her inspiring ideas, her beautiful body. Even her creamy soft skin seemed to radiate sparks.

Sparks that ignited some elemental longing.

She was exquisitely exciting. Exhilarating.

The mere scent of her, a beguiling mix of neroli and spice, had his emotions tumbling and turning topsy-turvy. And at that moment it seemed impossible to imagine being content with a coolly correct relationship. An arrangement of faultless manners, of easy expectations.

Being with Olivia was a constant challenge. She pushed him, prodded him, made him lose control. That was dangerous.

Dangerous. And a little frightening. But it also made him feel elementally alive.

He held her tightly as she came undone in his arms, her shudders sending a spurt of joy through his being. So sweet, so sweet. His own need was rising fast and faster, its fire burning through his blood.

His pulse was racing, his heart was pounding, his grip on self-control was perilously close to snapping. By sheer force of will, he caught himself and withdrew just as his body convulsed.

With a ragged groan, John fell back upon the bed and pulled her close, their limbs tangling together in the rumpled sheets.

For a moment, he lay still, eyes closed, listening to the tandem echo of their breathing.

Two as one.

It was the last coherent thought he had before drifting into a dreamlike sleep.

Olivia was drowsily aware of floating in and out of wakefulness. How long, she wondered, had she been lingering in sweet oblivion? Time seemed awfully fuzzy, in contrast to her heightened perceptions of the physical surroundings. The patterns of light on the whitewashed walls, the ruffling of a breeze through the garden hedge, the winsome melody of a linnet’s song.

They were matched by her own acute awareness of her own body. Languid limbs, pleasurable sense of peace…

She felt John shift in a whisper of linen and prop himself up on one elbow. Turning slowly, Olivia gazed at him with a sleepy smile.

He smiled back, but she saw an odd sort of seriousness lurking at the corners of his mouth.

“You look pensive,” she murmured.

“Do I?” His lips twitched slightly, which seemed to dispel the momentary illusion.

It must have been a mere quirk of the slanting light.

“I suppose,” John went on, “that’s because I have been thinking.”

“Of what?” she asked, watching as a tiny gust from the open window set a lock of his dark hair to dancing along the curve of his jaw. It was, she decided, a very nice sight.

“Of what date we should set,” replied John.

“But I thought the date of the speech was set weeks ago, when debate on the issue first began,” murmured Olivia, still distracted by the beautiful shape and textures of his profile. “I can’t imagine they will allow you to change the schedule at the last minute.”

“Not the speech,” he answered. “The wedding.”

“What wedding?” He wasn’t making any sense.