Page 48 of My Hellion, My Heart
Her thighs went weak. Good heavens, there was nothing soft about him. Henry’s hands roved over her body restlessly as his mouth claimed hers once more. Lost in sensation, she opened for him, relishing his taste and the seductive feel of his tongue rubbing against hers. Once more, she made to turn in his arms, but he held her still. “No, I like you like this.” His voice was like rough velvet across her rapidly fraying nerves.
Irina gasped as his hand slipped inside the neckline of her coat and under the cotton chemise within. He rolled an aching nipple between his fingers and then shifted his attention to the other breast. Sharp bolts of liquid fire shot from their tips to the center of her hips, making her moan his name into his mouth.
“Henry, please,” she said, not knowing what she was asking for.
But he seemed to, and obliged with a muffled growl as he nipped and suckled at her throat. His hand slid down the front of the coat, undoing her buttons as he went, until it gaped open. Both his hands reached beneath her chemise to cup and knead her breasts as she lolled back against him in senseless abandon, lost to the storm he was inciting inside her. With deft fingers, he skimmed down her torso, his warm hands exploring the waistband of her breeches.
“Laces,” she murmured as his fingers fumbled in search of a clasp.Good Lord.She couldn’t believe she’d just instructed him on how to loosen her clothing. But if his touch felt anything like it had when he’d undone her coat, she wasn’t about to complain.
The laces unsnapped loop by loop, each flick of the leather cord making her pulse leap in reckless anticipation, until she felt the waistband loosen and Henry’s large hand inch its way downward past her silk drawers. Irina held her breath as he pressed his palm against the very core of her. Moaning, she writhed against his hand, wanting him to touch her more but unable to articulate exactly what it was she wanted. Everything ached at the point where his palm met her body.
“God, Irina, you’re so warm,” he whispered into her ear. One teasing finger slid past the slit in her drawers, threading through the soft curls there. Irina arched back against him in bewilderment. “Relax,” he coaxed, scraping his teeth along her neck. “Let me touch you.”
Words failed her as his fingers began to stroke through her sleek, damp center, causing white-hot sensations to streak through her limbs and into her belly.
“Oh—oh.”
Suddenly, Irina couldn’t focus a single coherent thought in her head—her brain had become as utterly pliant and useless as her body was in his hands. Those clever, devious hands that were doing things that could not be decent. A decadent shiver took her unawares, and she gasped. She didn’twantdecent.
“You feel like silk,” he murmured, trailing scorching kisses along her jaw. “Hot, wet silk.”
His words seduced almost as much as his fingers did. Irina’s mouth fell open on a shattered exhale as pressure began to build with each glide of his finger against her. She moaned in deliciously shocked surprise as Henry strummed her body like a virtuoso. He plucked and stroked and circled her flesh, making her mad with desire, while his mouth continued its lush sampling of her sensitive nape.
Irina knew she should have been frightened. She was alone in the woods with a man…his hands caressing places that had never been touched. But she also knew Henry would never hurt her. Alone with him at last, she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t wary. She felt bold, wanton. Like a free-spirited Greek nymph.
Pleasure built in lavish surges within her as his fingers and mouth coaxed unbelievable sensations from deep inside. He groaned when she arched backward and tilted her neck, a sigh rising in her throat. Was he enjoying this as much as she was? Was she wrong to crave his touch so shamelessly?
Whimpering softly, Irina tipped her chin up and sought his lips. His tongue mimicked the motion of his wicked fingers below. Pleasure ebbed and flowed in surges as her hips rocked against his hand.
“Henry—”
“It’s yours, just reach for it,” he told her and took her lips again, his clever fingers quickening their pace.
Her thoughts turned to nonsense. With a soft cry, she felt her body tightening until she could hardly bear it, and then she shuddered against him as violent waves of pleasure rocked through her. When the inner storm finally subsided, her brain felt numb and her sated body boneless.
Never had Irina felt anything so stirring…so soul shattering.
So unbelievablywicked.
Weak-kneed, she sagged backward into the spooning arch of his body. Supporting her weight, Henry removed his hand from the damp crux of her, still cupping her intimately as she collapsed against him, her breath coming in short, strained pants. She wanted to laugh at the shocking pleasure of it. She wanted to weep with how tender he’d been.
Neither of them spoke as Henry finally turned her to face him, his patient fingers re-lacing her breeches and buttoning her coat. Irina felt herself coloring fiercely. Only now she truly understood the meaning of carnal pleasure. She had just been the willing recipient of it.
Embarrassment filled her in a blazing rush at how wanton and pliable she’d been in Henry’s arms. She had let him touch the most intimate part of her, and worst of all, she’d enjoyed every blissful minute of it. Irina dared a look up at Henry through her lashes and felt the warm satiety depart her body. This time a whole other unpleasant emotion gripped Irina, something that matched the brooding, furious expression on Henry’s face. Confusion swiftly followed, and once more, she became fixed in place. He stared at her as if she’d grown a pair of horns, when he’d been the one to incite the devil in the first place.
She’d done nothing wrong. Had she?
Chapter Fourteen
Henry stepped back from her, his bare feet treading upon his clothes, which he’d dropped to the ground seconds before grabbing her from behind and pressing her against the rough bark of the tree. That had been his first mistake—putting his hands on her at all. His second had been in not sending her home the minute Remi left. His third…well, the state of his engorged body was proof enough of that.
As if in response to his thoughts, Irina’s eyes dropped to his naked front, and the stain of color on her cheeks intensified. Her eyes rounded in shock as her mouth, those perfect lips he’d been plundering seconds before, parted in unconcealed astonishment at the unobstructed—and unabashed—view of him. Henry crouched and took up his trousers, pulling them on with angry tugs as she spun away, averting her hot stare. He suppressed the sudden, demented urge to drag her to the forest floor and bury his rigid arousal in her warm, willing body. The cling of her dewy skin on his fingers had been drugging, her moans and whimpers even more so.
“You are intent on ruination,” he muttered, buttoning the fall quickly over his straining anatomy, gooseflesh rising on his arms and stomach despite the heat of exasperation simmering just beneath his skin.
“I—I only wanted to run the course again, and I thought you were still in London,” she said, turning slightly to see him.
His shirt was damp, the linen sticking to his wet arms as he dressed. Noticing her perusal, Henry’s jaw clenched. She’d been at the pool, he knew, watching him. His ravaged back must have been on full, grisly display then. Had she felt horror? Revulsion? Or worse…pity?
