Dustin’s muscles went rigid.
“Stop.” He captured her hand, his own shaking violently.
“Why?”
“Because I’m at the bloody edge of my control.” His expression was a combination of wonder and amazement. “And you’ve barely even touched me.” He kissed her palm, hesitated, then moved to her wrist, the inside of her forearm—waging an internal battle Nicole could actually feel. “You’re so perfect,” he muttered, capturing her other arm and repeating his caresses. “Soft. Warm. Intoxicating.” He pulled her against him. “I can almost feel you under me.” He buried his lips in hers.
Desire slammed through Nicole along with a loud, unheeded warning. “Dustin.” She breathed his name, wrapping her arms about his neck. “Don’t stop—not yet.”
He tore his mouth away, but only to burn a blazing trail of kisses down her throat, the upper swell of her breasts. He descended further, his open mouth tracing the edge of her bodice. “The timing’s all wrong,” he rasped. “I have to bring you home.”
“Just a few minutes then.” Her hands slid beneath his coat, uncertain what to do, unwilling to forego doing it. “Show me,” she breathed. “Please.”
Something inside Dustin seemed to snap.
With relentless purpose, his fingers swept down the front of her gown, dispensing with the buttons in a few lightning-quick seconds, tugging the sides apart. He anchored one arm about her waist, leaning her backwards to give him greater access to her heated skin.
“Oh … God.” Nicole’s knees buckled when his lips surrounded her nipple, tugging it through the confines of her chemise. Flames shot through her, liquid fire pooling at her loins, and she scarcely heard Dustin’s hoarse groan over her own whimper of pleasure.
But she felt him, oh, she felt him. Touching her, caressing her—his solid strength taking her weight, keeping her from collapsing to the floor. Trembling as violently as she, he shoved her bodice down to her waist and pushed aside her chemise, eliminating a portion of the intolerable barrier that separated them.
His greedy eyes devoured her.
“You’re beautiful.” He caressed her breast as if it were a priceless treasure, sending shards of pleasure shooting through her. “How could you bind down such beauty?”
Nicole’s answer was a moan, as Dustin bent and claimed her with his mouth.
Had she thought his caress devastating before? If so, then now, without even a thin scrap of material between them, it was unendurable.
She cried out as his lips enveloped her nipple in velvet heat, tugged it into the damp haven of his mouth. Shrugging out of his coat, he paused only to cast it to the floor before lowering her onto it, following her down. Half covering her with himself, he bent to her other breast, laved it with his tongue.
And seared his mark on her soul.
As if from faraway, Nicole saw herself reach between them, unbuttoning his shirt and waistcoat, shoving the sides apart. Her palms glided over the hair-roughened surface of his chest to the broad width of his shoulders. “Let me feel your skin against mine,” she managed.
Dustin complied, lowering his torso to hers.
The first contact was electrifying.
Dustin threw back his head, emitting a harsh growl of. excruciating pleasure. “Derby … I …” He moved against her, dragging his chest across her nipples, shifting her legs so he lay between them, nestled in the cradle of her thighs. He seized her mouth, cupping the back of her head to fuse their lips more totally, his thumb tracing erotic circles on her breast.
Nicole whimpered, stroking the taut planes of his back, her lower body lifting instinctively to bring him closer. Dustin’s body answered, thrusting forward, pressing deep, deep into the warm cavern he sought. His hips began a reflexive rhythm, nudging her thighs farther apart, driving him against her core with an agonizing motion thwarted only by their remaining layers of clothing.
Hot jolts of sensation coursed through Nicole, coiling low in her abdomen, pooling in liquid heat at the very spot where Dustin’s hard ridge of flesh teased. Desperately, she sought more of the friction, matching his rhythm, arching each time he thrust, oblivious to everything but the need to ease the throbbing ache that only intensified with each frustrating roll of her hips.
“Nicole, don’t. Ah, God … sweetheart …” Wildly, Dustin shook his head; his hands, in the process of shifting to his trouser buttons, halting, balling into fists on either side of her, fists that shoved him away even as his hips urged him forward.
“No.” Nicole caught his forearms, totally beyond rational thought as she tried to stay his retreat. “Oh, Dustin, if you stop … I can’t bear it.”
“Nor can I.” Sweat dampened his brow, his entire body quaking with unsquelched urgency. “But I have to stop. Derby, I’m going to shatter. I’m going to tear off your gown and take you right here, right now, and damn the consequences.”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes you do. And so do I.”
Dustin’s words were a sobering douse of reality, and Nicole fell silent, blinking bewilderedly up at him.
“My God, Nicole.” He gazed deeply into her eyes. “Have you any idea what you do to me? What you reduce me to?”