Page 38 of Midnight Rider

She trembled as his hands searched for buttons at her throat and began to unfasten them. The room was hot, so hot. She could barely breathe for the heat. And then his mouth found her throat and worked its way down the path of the buttons until he moved it right inside her dress, into her bodice, against her bare breast.

She shivered and moaned loudly. Her fingers caught in his thick hair and she pulled at his head, coaxing it, her body moving, shifting, to bring him where it wanted his mouth.

“Please,” she choked out. “Please, here...here...just a little farther...!”

Her hands guided him blindly until his mouth was on the hard, swollen nipple.

“Here?” he whispered huskily. “Here, Bernadette?” He began to suckle her, tasting her soft skin, and she arched up to him hungrily.

“Yes,” she sobbed. “Yes, yes, yes!”

His mouth was the center of the universe. It was wicked, what they were doing, but she wanted it. Oh, how she wanted it! She wanted her bodice down around her waist, and his mouth all over her breasts. She wanted his eyes, his hands, his mouth on every inch of her body....

He groaned at the fever they were kindling. He moved her into the light from the high window and his hands efficiently moved the blouse and the straps of her cotton slip and chemise aside. She hadn’t bothered with her usual corset because of the awful heat, and now that he knew it, he was glad. He pulled the straps down to her waist and caught his breath at the sight of those firm, pretty, red-tipped breasts.

“Dear God, Bernadette,” he whispered. He touched them reverently, caressing them with tenderness and awe.

She shivered, her hands clutching at his sleeves as the magic of his touch worked on her body and made her ache in her most feminine places.

She arched her back, her eyes half-closed, drowning in the delicious sensation of being seen intimately by him. “Please...Eduardo,” she whispered, pulling at his head.

He looked into her wide eyes. “What do you want,amada?” he whispered softly. “My mouth on your breasts, like this, with no clothing to dull the sensation?”

“Yes,” she said brokenly. “Oh, yes!”

“It is what I want as well, the taste of you, like warm petals on my tongue.” He bent and slowly opened his mouth against the silky skin, feeling her immediate response, hearing her soft cries, enjoying the taste and scent of her.

He was slow and thorough. She felt as if she’d died and gone right to heaven in his arms as he teased and touched and tasted and explored her with tenderness.

“Such exquisite skin,” he murmured against her body. “Soft and warm and scented like roses. I want all of you, Bernadette. I want to feel your body soft and naked under mine in my bed. I want to possess you absolutely.”

She should have been shocked by the passionate words. But she was only aroused more. Her arms slid around his neck and she met his ravishing mouth with all the clumsy ardor she could manage, loving the taste of him, the feel of him.

The sudden sound of loud footsteps and even louder voices out in the hall made them fly apart. Eduardo seemed dazed, which in fact he was. His black eyes studied Bernadette’s bare breasts as if they were incapable of anything else. He touched her again, with quiet wonder, even as the footsteps became louder.

She started to speak, but he put his finger over her lips and they both held their breath until the footsteps, which had paused briefly at the pantry, suddenly went past and on down the hall toward the living room.

“Too close,” he murmured softly. He searched her eyes with a rueful smile. “So much for restraint.” He looked down at her breasts and shook his head as he began to pull the chemise and the slip back up to cover her. “How beautiful you are, Bernadette. The sight of you makes a madman of me.”

She was bereft of words. She watched him dressing her with a sense of unreality. It wasn’t until the buttons were once more fastened that her heart began to beat normally. She was breathless, but not dangerously so. She looked up at him helplessly with longing and adoration.

He met that soft glance squarely and smiled gently. “It delights me that you have no experience at coyness,” he said. “When I touch you, you deny me nothing. It bodes well for the future.”

“Are we going to have one?”

He nodded. “Because I can’t give you up, regardless of my grandmother’s feelings.” He added, “I owe her a great deal, you understand. But marrying Lupe to repay her is more gratitude than I am capable of giving her.” He traced around Bernadette’s soft, swollen lips. “You make my blood race like wildfire through my body. I ache for you, night and day. The wedding must be soon, for the sake of your chastity and my own honor. This—” he indicated their surroundings “—was a near thing.”

She was puzzled. “A near thing? But it would be impossible for anything indiscreet to happen here.” She laughed nervously. “There’s not even a...a bed!”

“Oh, Bernadette.” He chuckled. “How innocent you are.”

“But there isn’t any place... Eduardo!”

While she was telling him why they couldn’t, he picked her up by the waist and pinned her to the wall with his hips.

He kissed her gently and let her down again, smiling at her red-faced realization.

“It is possible to make love while standing,” he whispered, laughing at her shocked gasp. “And in many other unlikely places and positions. Once we’re married, I’ll show you all of them.”

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