Sin With a Scoundrel (The Husband Hunters Club 4)

move.

She stirred, pushing her hair out of her face, and propped herself up on one slender arm to gaze down at him with sleepy green eyes. She looked utterly magnificent, and he reached up to tuck a long, tangled strand of hair behind her ear. She turned her head to lick his hand with the tip of her pink tongue and then smiled.

“Is it always like this?” she said, and made him laugh with joy. Tina was never afraid to say what she was thinking, and he hoped she’d never change.

“No,” he admitted, “it isn’t. This is . . . exceptional.”

She seemed pleased with that. Her green eyes glowed, and her lips curled into a smile that was tempting him to reach up and kiss her. He wanted to. He wanted to stay here all afternoon and make love to her over and over again. But he had work to do, Sir Henry needed him at his most alert, and when he was with Tina he found his wits too easily went wandering.

While they were wandering this time, she’d begun to unbutton his shirt, and now she slipped her fingers inside it to continue an exploration of his chest. She circled his nipples and raked her fingertips through the line of dark hair that ran down over his belly and disappeared inside his trousers. From the rapt expression on her face she was enjoying what she was finding, and he knew it would only be a matter of moments before those clever fingers were tugging at his buttons, caressing his erection until he was hard to bursting.

He groaned.

She bent to lick his skin. “You taste of . . .”

“Ambrosia?” he managed thickly.

She smiled. “Cigar smoke.”

Unfortunately, that was one of the drawbacks of working for Sir Henry.

“Was that you, last night, in the garden?” she murmured, returning to her work. Her finger circled his nipple and watched it go hard. “But it couldn’t have been, could it, because you were with me? Unless you ran very fast.”

He’d been so intent on enjoying her touch that he hadn’t really been listening to her, but suddenly the words penetrated his pleasure-sodden brain. “Was someone outside in the garden last night?”

She nodded. “I saw the glow of a cigar. One of the men going for a stroll, I expect. Does it matter?” She glanced at him, resting her cheek against his skin, her eyelids heavy over her green eyes. Her naked breast brushed his arm, and he reached out to cup the soft, heavy flesh in his palm. Her eyelashes fluttered, and she made a little sound, half pleasure and half longing for more.

He shook his head. The man in the garden could have been the Captain, plotting, and he’d been playing at seduction with Tina. At one time he would never have allowed anything like that to escape him, and now here he was, too weak to climb out from beneath the woman.

But not just any woman, the voice in his head mocked him. Tina Smythe is certainly not just any woman.

What was she doing now? He made to sit up, just as her hand closed over the hard shape tenting his trousers.

“Sshh,” she whispered, as he groaned, “let me make it better.”

She began to unbutton his trousers, slowly, so that he wanted to shout at her to hurry up. He could tell she was enjoying herself, making him suffer, so he bit his lip and said nothing, letting her have her way.

At last she finished with the buttons and with a smile slipped her hand inside the flap and found him. “Tina,” he said, “you are playing with fire.”

“Am I?”

She held him a moment, then began to stroke him, finally encircling him with her hand and giving a gasp of admiration.

“So big,” she breathed. “I wish . . .” But whatever it was she wished for was never uttered. Instead she showed him with actions rather than words.

He moved involuntarily in her grip, his hips jerking, and this time when she straddled him he was her slave. He could feel her moist heat above him, so hot and tempting, and for a moment he almost stopped her. But then she smiled down at him, her dark hair lying over her shoulders and playing peekaboo with her breasts, and began to slowly, carefully, lower herself onto him.

It was her first time—she was a virgin—but she was determined. She was a goddess, and she wanted him, and he was only a mortal, how could he resist? Richard could see her determination in the set of her mouth and hear it in her little gasps of pleasure and pain. Miss Tina Smythe was going to have her way.

“Tina,” he warned, but he’d left it too late.

His will, always fragile where she was concerned, gave way.

She bit her lip as she felt resistance—her blasted maidenhead—but now it was his turn, and with a jerk of his hips he’d pushed through the thin membrane and lodged deep inside her. She cried out, but almost at once she was moving against him, her expression utterly rapt at the sensation created.

“I feel you . . . inside me . . .” she panted.

He guided her movements, quickening his thrusts, deeper, and then her body began to contract about him.