“Hold up your gown,” he ordered softly.
He was asking her to participate in her own seduction? She knew better, and yet she obeyed.
“Ah, sweet Kate….” His rough whisper was mesmerizing, increasing the sexual excitement inside her. “I remember how you looked climaxing the other day, how you felt, the little moans you made….You can’t moan now, though. You need to remain quiet, remember?”
When Kate gave another whimper of frustration, he hushed her by placing his free palm over her mouth. His right hand remained between her legs to continue his sensual assault, probing the delicate tissue, rubbing lightly. Kate strove to maintain control. He was as strong-willed as she was, and he was leaving her no choice but to submit to him.
“You are not…playing fairly,” she complained in a muffled tone.
“No.” She heard the smile in his voice as he drew his fingers along the crevice, stroking, parting her sensitive flesh.
“Open your legs for me, lovely Kate….”
She gave in, closing her eyes, her head falling back against his shoulder.
The next moment he gently slid one finger inside her. Kate arched wildly against him, her heart racing with echoing thunder.
“Steady,” he urged. Bending his head, he touched the frantic pulse in her neck with his lips while he plied her folds with his finger, gliding slowly, sinking just deeply enough inside to linger and tease before withdrawing again.
She was panting a little when he pushed her thighs farther apart and a second finger joined the first with a sweetly probing eroticism.
Kate whimpered again, her hands instinctively clenching at the silk fabric of her gown. She was suddenly a quivering, trembling jumble of nerve endings, and Deverill was encouraging her abandon w
ith every caress, every provocative whisper.
Her hips began moving instinctively in a primitive, needful rhythm. He was wooing her senses, his wicked fingers sheathed in her pulsing warmth while his thumb attended the swollen nub and the throbbing knot of nerves there. She could feel the walls of her woman’s passage stretching, heating, could feel her dampness grow, seeping and spreading from her core to her inner thighs.
“Lord, I want you. I have imagined what your lovemaking would be like, your lovely body coiled around mine….”
He pressed his lips in the curve of her neck, feathering her skin with kisses, sending pleasure rocking through Kate as he stroked her with torturous intent. The heat rising inside her centered around the imprisoning caress of his hand, yet he made her whole body burn.
In another score of heartbeats, she was writhing. Suddenly, the pleasure was too keen to be borne. Her hips jerked, driving her sex against his fingers. Sensation tore through her, spiraling outward.
She gave herself up to the convulsive climax he urged upon her, her body shaking. The intensity of it stole her breath away.
Even when her spasms faded, Deverill kept his fingers where they were. Kate sagged back against him, her eyes tightly closed. If he hadn’t been holding her, she would have slipped to the floor.
Eventually, though, he pushed her skirts down and, still supporting her, turned her in his arms. Then he tipped her face up and his lips found hers tenderly.
His slow, thorough, heart-stopping kiss devastated all her remaining willpower, rendering her utterly weak and helpless.
When at last he pulled away, Kate gazed up at him blindly. Once again he had left her dazed with pleasure. Even through her daze, however, one thought kept returning. She wanted more from Deverill than just pleasure. She wanted him to want her for more than just pleasure. She wanted him to love her.
So what do you intend to do about it?
Her sight clearing, she realized Deverill was gazing down at her with unmistakable desire. She refused to look away, but the heat generated by his look made her blood sizzle.
Then he drew her hand to the front of his satin breeches. “Once again you have caused me great pain,” he accused, a spark of humor lacing the strain in his voice.
“It is your own fault,” Kate rasped.
Determined to seize control back from him, she withdrew her hand from his grasp. But in that moment, she hit upon a plan.
She didn’t want to lose Deverill—to that witch Julia Dalton or even to that paragon of bridal candidates, Daphne Farnwell. Therefore, she would heed Maura’s wise advice to act.
She had no other choice, Kate reminded herself. The women in her family were not shrinking violets. No self-respecting Wilde lady would sit back and relinquish her gentleman to a rival, or worse, actively help the object of her affection find someone else to wed.
If she wanted Deverill, she needed to fight for him.