To Tame a Dangerous Lord (Courtship Wars)

“Run your hands over my body. Let your fingers wander over my skin.”

It was a command she urgently wanted to obey. Leaning closer, she reached down and began with his powerful torso.

He was so very male, she thought, splaying her fingers over the sculpted ridges of his chest, feeling the flexing sinews beneath the satin skin. Her own chest felt too small to contain the swell of her fast-beating heart as she allowed her touch to roam farther at will. The heat and steel beneath his smooth bare flesh was kindling to her senses, as was his scent. He smelled of musk and warm skin, Madeline realized, reveling in her exploration.

More brazenly, she shifted her hand lower, over his taut abdomen, and then lower still. Bypassing his loins and the swollen column of male flesh that jutted up from a nest of curling black hair, she tentatively rested her hand on his thigh.

When she went no farther, Rayne took her hand again and wrapped her fingers around his thick, straining arousal. Madeline nearly gasped at how big and hard he felt against her palm, but he pressed harder, encouraging her to continue.

“Go ahead … you won’t hurt me.”

To her surprise, the turgid length was velvety soft at the tip and sleekly rigid elsewhere. And below that, the swollen sacs felt like ripe melons.

Madeline looked up, her cheeks flushing as she met Rayne’s gaze. He was watching her, clearly enjoying the look of fascination on her face.

“You are much larger than I expected,” she admitted.

“What did you expect?” he asked curiously.

She gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know exactly … something significantly smaller. My only basis for comparison has been classical statues. I don’t quite see how you will fit.”

His eyes alight with teasing laughter, he reached up and slid a hand behind her nape. “I promise you, sweetheart, I will fit perfectly—although first I must make you ready for me.”

His fingers spreading deliciously through her hair, he brought her face down to his and kissed her, his mouth brushing against hers in a tender, erotic caress. And when she responded eagerly, Rayne drew her down fully against him, pulling her into the hard strength of his body.

The warmth of his naked flesh beneath hers was another exquisite shock of sensation, as was the taste of his lips. Madeline shut her eyes, cherishing the feelings that were racing through her … at the same time acknowledging the danger. This mad rush of emotions Rayne was stirring in—all the heat and want and yearning—would only make him harder to resist.

Yet she didn’t have the will to fight it, not when he tenderly eased her onto her back and took complete control of her seduction.

He began by kissing the hollow of her throat, then nuzzling his face in the valley between her breasts. Next he suckled each of her nipples in turn, gently nipping and rasping.

His mouth was hot and sweet and demanding as he attended to the rest of her body. Eventually his stroking hands joined in her arousal, caressing her with the probing eroticism of an expert lover, lingering and taking his time, as if her pleasure was his only pleasure.

Her thighs were trembling when at last his thumb found the curls of her woman’s mound and glided downward to her slick, sensitive folds. And when he penetrated her throbbing sex with a slow finger, Madeline arched her back wildly.

“Easy, now,” Rayne murmured.

She couldn’t be easy, though. She ached with the way he touched her. His lovemaking felt excruciatingly right—a drawn-out seduction by a man determined to shatter every part of her.

Yet he wasn’t entirely satisfied by his progress, it seemed.

“Give me your mouth, love.”

His roughly sensual voice came to her through her daze, merging with the pleasure vibrating through her body in heated waves.

Wishing desperately that Rayne would take away the ache he’d created in her, Madeline obeyed, raising her face to his. His kiss was hot and bold and thrilling, a spellbinding connection of lips and tongues. When she whimpered with need, his mouth turned even more forceful, yet still remained tender beneath the urgency.

Madeline welcomed his ardor. For this wonderful moment, she was living her most secret fantasy—that Rayne wanted her, loved her.

The scent of him was all around her, and so was his enveloping tenderness as he eased his thighs between hers and covered her body. The heavy, strange-but-familiar weight warmed her … but then his hard flesh slowly, slowly sank inside her.

With his caressing mouth, he drank her gasp of surprise at the burgeoning pressure, soothing her open lips with featherlight kisses. But when he was seated fully in the cradle of her thighs, irrevocably joined to her, Rayne held himself still.

Her breath came in soft pants while her body grew accustomed to the alien hardness impaling her.

Long moments later he broke off his comforting kisses and lifted his head to scrutinize her face. “Are you all right?”

“Yes….” she answered truthfully, feeling the pressure ease as her feminine flesh began to soften and melt around him. “You didn’t hurt me.”