Page 52 of Miss Flibbertigibbet and the Barbarian
Instinctively, his hands had spanned her waist; he responded to her flagrant provocation by using one arm to cinch her to him so he could send his other hand roaming.
First over her pert breasts, already straining beneath the bodice of her gown. He paid due homage, then sent his palm skating down, tracing the indentation of her waist before swooping lower to caress the lush curves of her derriere.
Her hands closed, clutching, clinging, while her lips burned with encouragement and a species of reckless abandon that lured like a siren’s call and laid waste to any thought of stepping back.
Unable to do so, incapable of resisting her demands, he closed his hand about one ripe globe and kneaded.
She rose on her toes, her hips pushing against his thighs, and using both hands, he cupped her bottom and lifted her, drawing her even tighter against him.
Through the kiss, she made a choking sound, then she leaned into him, so insistently that he had no choice but to sink to the grass and sprawl full length; it was that or topple backward.
With their legs tangling, she propped on his chest and continued to kiss him with such ravenous need and oh-so-deliberate provocation that his head spun.
He speared his fingers into her hair, drawn back in the bun she usually wore, and held her head steady as he ravaged her mouth—and she kissed him back with equal fervor.
Then she reached up, caught one of his wrists, tugged his hand from her head, and guided it down until his palm touched her breast.
He’d never been slow to interpret such signals and readily devoted himself—and his hands and fingers—to giving her what she wanted.
And then, she wanted still more.
“Adriana.” Her name on his lips was an outright plea, but for what, he wasn’t certain.
In response, she dragged him into another searing kiss, then rolled to her back and hauled him with her, partly over her. Then she drew back from the all-consuming kiss to breathe across his lips, “Show me. Now. I need to know.”
Despite her breathlessness, determination rang in her words.
He raised his head enough to look into her porcelain-doll face and saw her eyes—bright, blazing blue—glinting from beneath her heavy lashes.
Her lush lips were swollen and gleaming from their kisses, but the set of those lips and her chin left him in no doubt that she was hell-bent on exploring further. And that called to him—to the Cynster part of him—and drew it to the fore more forcefully than any other lady ever had.
She blinked up at him, then those gorgeous lips parted, and the tip of her tongue slid along her lower lip. Then she whispered, “Please.”
He closed his eyes on an inward groan, then opened them, and before she could utter another word, he swooped and covered her lips with his.
And with the same deliberation she’d been demonstrating, he waltzed them into passion’s flames.
The bodice of her gown sported a front placket with a row of small ivory buttons. He slipped them free, and when he pushed half of the bodice aside and slid his hand beneath, she murmured in outright encouragement.
He proceeded to sate their senses, to submerge them in a panoply of sensations. Educating her senses and judging her reactions and her heightening desire via all the little murmurs and gasps she uttered became a game, one of unalloyed delight.
Then his fingers tightened about one pert nipple, and she moaned, and the sound went straight to his head—and his groin—and he found a new goal, an even more desirable reward to seek and work toward.
And neither of them wished to stop there.
Between them, the flames of desire steadily rose, fed by the tactile sensations he pressed on her as he explored her breasts, the delicate, sensitive skin a delight to him as well as a source of pleasure to her.
When he bent his head and took one tightly furled nipple into his mouth, she gasped. He artfully played, his tongue lapping, then curling about the taut peak, before his teeth tightened about the distended bud, and she made an incoherent sound and her fingernails sank into his shoulders, deeply enough to mark.
He inwardly grinned and released her now surely throbbing nipple on a sigh of satisfaction.
Then he turned his attention to her other breast.
But all too soon, she grew even more demanding.
Addie had never engaged in such wanton conduct before, but now that she’d taken the plunge, she wanted to dive even deeper into desire’s sea, wanted to bathe her senses in the glorious, heady, scintillating pleasures.
Her nerves had never felt so tight—so tense with expectation and so apt to spark with a species of intense delight she’d never experienced before.
