Page 64 of The Last Debutante
“I imagine I shall attend teas and balls, waiting for something exciting to happen and for a gentleman to over-look my dubious summer and offer for my hand.” She suddenly lifted up, propping herself up on her elbows, and looked down the length of her body. “I quite like pantaloons,” she said, deliberately changing the subject.
He laughed. “I quite like them on you.”
“Do you?” she asked, seeming pleased by it as she turned a leg to view it fully.
“Aye. Very much.”
She glanced at him with a sunny smile of pleasure, and suddenly something snapped. Apart or together, Jamie wasn’t certain, but he couldfeelit, physically feel the draw between them. The moment was charged, full of unspoken questions and possibilities that rose up like a sea around them.
Daria rolled onto her side to face him. “You are so very different from any gentleman I have ever known,” she said softly. “I will truly miss you when I am gone.”
That feeling began to pull at Jamie, dragging him down into a desire so great it pulsed in his veins. “I shall miss you as well.”
“Will you truly?” she murmured. Her gaze moved to the open collar of his shirt. “You wouldn’t say that merely to soothe my wounded pride, would you?”
He leaned forward, reached for the tail of her braid, and tugged her closer. “Never,” he said low. “I will indeed and truly miss you,leannan.”
“What does it mean, ‘leannan’?” she whispered.
“It means... sweetheart,” he said, and kissed her.
Daria leaned into him, delicately cupping his jaw and sending a thousand tiny little flutters of pleasure through him. He forgot the food between them and wrapped his arm around her waist, rolling onto his back and bringing her with him. Daria wiggled out of her coat, then put her hands on his shoulders, her fingers scraping against the skin at his open collar, and kissed him back.
She was killing him, filling him with powerful desire, the need to feel her body beneath his, to enter her. With a low groan, he rolled again, putting Daria beneath him, and kissed the hollow of her throat, his lips feeling her sharp draw of breath, the slow release of it.
“Diah,Daria, you have captured me,” he said roughly as he slid his mouth down her neck to her collarbone. “I donna know how you’ve done it, but you have captured me.”
She grabbed his head, forced him to look up, and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. “You captured me first,” she said, her voice seductively rough. “You capture me over again, every day.”
This woman disarmed him as easily as four men at once. He wanted to feel her tongue against his. He wanted to feel her warm breath on his bare skin, to surround her body with his. He wanted to fill her up, to take her places she’d never been. He wanted to love her.
He wanted toloveher.
He dipped his head again, his fingers fumbling with her shirt buttons, undoing them. Then he dipped his hand into her chemise and filled his hand with her breast.
Daria sighed longingly and dropped her head back as he pressed his lips to the succulent skin of her neck and kneaded her breast, rolling the tip between his fingers.
Then Daria—brave, courageous Daria—pulled her shirt and chemise down from her breasts, exposing them to him. With a groan of longing, Jamie gazed down at the perfect orbs, her skin the color of clotted cream. He slid his hand to one, then took the other into his mouth.
A deep sigh of pleasure escaped her; she dug her fingers into his shoulders. She arched into him, her legs moving against his, pressing against his erection, sliding over it until he was aching with need. He slid his hand down her body, caressing the flare of her hip, her leg, and then sliding between her legs.
Daria gasped. She put an arm around his shoulders and found his mouth as he began to move his hand against her, stroking her through the buckskin.
Daria’s breath quickened, warm and moist against his cheek. Jamie couldn’t bear it; with his thumb he unbuttoned her trousers, then began to inch them down her body. She lifted her hips, helping him, kicking free of the buckskins when he pushed them down to her ankles.
Jamie was beyond rational thought. With his mouth and his hands, he slid down her body, leaving a hot, wet trail. He pushed her thighs apart, kissing first one, then the other. Daria’s fingers sank into his hair, anchoring her. But when Jamie closed his lips around her sex, she made a strangled cry. Her legs squeezed against him, but Jamie hooked his hands around her legs and pulled them apart, and began to lave her with his tongue. Her taste and scent were arousing him to madness; her body seemed to throb against him, matching the beat of his own blood. He was adrift on a sea of physical sensation so sweet that a dragon couldn’t have pulled him free. He covered her with his mouth, stroked her with the urgency he felt thrumming through him. She pushed against him yet held him tightly at the same time, writhing and gasping.
He felt her release shudder through her body, heard her soft cry of ecstasy, and felt something explode in him. It wasn’t physical, although he craved that release like a drowning man craved air. It was something bigger than that, something in the center of him that made him feel tender and warm. Protective. Possessive. Light.Free.
He felt like summer.
He skimmed her breast, laid his palm against her heart, and felt its wild beating. She covered his hand with hers.
As the moments slipped by, Jamie became aware of how exposed they were. He shifted out from between her legs and smiled down at her. Her hair had come undone from her braid and lay in a halo of disarray around her head. Her eyes were closed, and one arm lay limp across her middle.
And she was smiling.
Jamie picked up her coat, then leaned down to kiss her as he covered her with it.“Maise,”he said softly. “You are beautiful, lass.”
