Ecstasy (Notorious 4)

“Would you ever want to visit the Caribbean?”

“Possibly.” Kell smiled. “Just now your tales of hot sun and warm beaches sound infinitely appealing.”

They spent another hour enjoying the Frost Fair before Raven started to shiver. When Kell insisted on returning her home, she thought it only polite to offer him a respite from the bitter cold by asking him to stay for tea.

They were ensconced in the drawing room by the fire, sipping hot tea, when he spied a set of foils lying on a side table-foils that belonged to him.

Raven flushed. “I didn’t think you would mind my borrowing them.”

“You’ve been practicing your fencing, then?”

“A little. But I’m not certain if I’m doing it correctly. Dare offered to continue my lessons but he hasn’t yet found the time.”

She saw Kell’s eyes narrow for an instant. “I’m perfectly capable of continuing your lessons,” he observed, almost as if he were jealous.

“I didn’t think you would wish to trouble yourself.”

“I was only waiting for an invitation. Would you like a lesson now?”

Though surprised, Raven nodded. “Yes, indeed. Not only would I enjoy it, but I would do anything to get warm.”

And so she found herself quite unexpectedly dancing across the drawing room

, practicing the elements of thrust and parry and riposte with Kell.

It took only moments for Raven to realize her mistake. During their entire visit to the fair, she had been physically attuned to him…to his casual glances, to his nearness, to his slightest touch. But now her sexual awareness intensified.

Kell had removed his coat and waistcoat, and the fabric of his shirt stretched taut, revealing flowing muscles across his shoulders and arms. The sight so distracted her that she had to fight to recall any of the fencing skills he had taught her. And when she clumsily lunged against him and met the hardness of his thigh against her loins, the sensual shock of it scattered her thoughts so badly that she lowered her guard altogether.

Instantly she found herself disarmed, the buttoned point of his foil pressed against her throat.

Kell grinned, his bold, provocative look reminding her so much of her pirate that her breath faltered. Deliberately he backed her against the wall, his dark eyes gleaming in challenge. Her pulse took up an erratic rhythm when his rapier slid lower, brushing the swell of her bodice teasingly.

Then suddenly all teasing was gone. When their gazes locked, a sizzling tension leapt between them, the result of fierce need tightly leashed.

Kell breathed her name in a rough whisper and tossed aside his own foil. His eyes smoldering, he caught Raven to his chest, crushing her hard against him.

His kiss was carnal from the first, frankly sexual, his hard mouth bruising her with delicious force, his knee thrust between her thighs.

Raven whimpered. She hadn’t intended to make love to him, but when his tongue ravished her mouth, her hesitation melted into liquid fire. She wanted him deep inside her, needed the heat of his savage passion.

It should have shocked her when he reached up and tore the buttons from her high-necked gown, baring the firm rise of her breasts to his hungry, demanding mouth, but she was too dazed to protest. The sensation of his rough suckling made her wet at once.

With stunning swiftness, she found herself on her back on the Aubusson carpet with Kell covering her, lapping at the straining silk of her breasts. She knew she should stop him, but the urgency was too strong, too immediate.

He shoved up her skirts and mounted her, his eyes glowing like embers, burning away the thin veneer of gentility. She arched as his plunging hotness penetrated her body, crying out in pleasure as he slid himself relentlessly within her.

He took her with a pirate’s passion, and she responded with like fierceness, writhing beneath him as he thrust heavily into her again and again, his teeth bared. He was fire; he was heat and scorching flame that consumed her.

An explosion shot through her an instant later-erotic, incredibly intense-and carried him along. The harsh sounds that tore from his throat during their raw, frenzied mating matched her cries of delight as he pumped hotly into her, shuddering in racking tremors with his own burning need.

In the aftermath he sagged heavily in her arms. Her own strength shattered, Raven lay unmoving, loving the feel of his hard vital body pressed all along hers. Her fingers still clutched his hair, the ebony softness thick, sensual, alive, while his rapid breath teased the moist skin of her throat.

A deep sigh escaped her. She should deplore what she had done. She had given herself to Kell with abandon, without the slightest attempt to protect herself.

How could she have been so foolish? When she was with Kell, she shed any of the ladylike graces her mother had tried to instill in her. When he touched her, it was as if she became someone else, someone without shame or inhibitions. The rest of the world disappeared and desire alone infused her mind and body.

Raven squeezed her eyes shut, fighting a desperate urgency. A secret part of her thrilled at being wanted so fiercely by this man, at experiencing his wild, sweet mastery, while another, deeper part of her nearly despaired. He was everything her heart warned against.