Page 15 of Seducing a Stranger
And here was someone soft. Soft and…beleaguered by a familiar loneliness. Asking for him to share a few moments of pleasure.
He was too soul-weary to resist such an enticing bargain.
Releasing his hands, she curled her fingers in her lap, bunching her skirts and lifting the powder blue hem to uncover lace boots and stark white stockings.
It was an invitation not to be denied.
Morley plunged his hands beneath the folds and frills, drawing them up shapely, silk-covered calves until he reached her knees. He parted them, filling the space he made with his body.
With her sitting up on the ledge, and him on his knees, their faces aligned. He claimed her lips once again, marveling that there was a mouth on this earth that tasted like hers.
He delved into the warmth, a velvet intrusion. A parody of what he would do to her elsewhere. Her little, warm tongue made gentle slides against his, tentatively testing his restraint.
Finding the edge of it.
A fire of anticipation immolated in his loins, and he suddenly ached to taste every part of her. To rip her dress open and see if she was as pale as the night suggested. If iridescent veins adorned her breasts and the thin, tender skin on the inside of her thighs. He wanted to mark her with little bites of his teeth, to show the man who had never pleased her that someone was able and oh so willing.
He hitched her skirts higher, hands venturing from her knees up her thighs, finding curious frills, silk garters bedecked with lace and little bows attached with delicate stitches.
His hands played there, plucking at things and testing textures while he savored her mouth for as long as his inflamed body would allow.
Her hands didn’t remain idle.
They rested on the buttons of his coat, releasing them with jerky, uncertain motions until she could wrench it open and slide her hands inside. She explored the width and breadth of him until her arms locked around him.
The uncertain tenderness in the embrace was too much for him to bear.
Morley broke the kiss, pulling back to assess her. To watch her widening eyes as his fingers threaded higher, following the silken expanse of flesh until he met the barrier of her thin cotton drawers.
She tucked her lips between her teeth and trembled, but didn’t look away.
“Tell me again what you want.” He hardly recognized his voice, the dark, growling street accent, the insolence and lust.
She gave a delicate swallow before answering. “I-I can’t say it.”
“You want me to kiss you?” he prodded, covering her mound. “Here?”
She gave a little jump, and her knees clamped his hips, as if they might have closed had his body not impeded it.
“Yes,” she replied with a bashful whisper.
Feminine heat radiated from beneath the thin barrier of her undergarment, and Morley leaned in to lift her hips and draw it down to her ankles.
He wanted to kiss her again. He never wanted to stop kissing her, and because of that, he didn’t allow himself to do so.
Kissing her was dangerous. As was the sweet detention of her arms.
A man could find himself a willing prisoner of such shackles, and he hadn’t the inclination. He hadn’t expected such sweetness. Hadn’t been prepared for the answering emotion evoked in his body.
Best he keep this carnal.
Lowering himself down, he ducked his head beneath her skirts. His shoulders widened her legs and she leaned back, giving him the sense she’d rested her hands on the stone.
In the pure black beneath her skirts, he used his other senses to guide him.
He breathed in the scent of her. Fresh floral soap, feminine musk, and something that reminded him of ripe, summer berries.
He stilled for a moment, just feeling the sensation of what he’d cupped in his hand. The slight tickle of soft hair. Warm, pliant flesh, which parted in a seam of liquid heat.
