Page 95 of Miss Prim and the Duke of Wylde
In flagrant pursuit of that, she pressed even closer, and his arms locked about her, and he lifted her off her toes and waltzed them toward that gigantic bed.
Again, she expected to feel at least a twinge of trepidation; she was a virgin, after all. Yet once again, caught up in the driving heat of the moment, in the building urgency, with her senses consumed and desire lashing her with a fiery whip, all she was conscious of was an utterly compelling, giddy-making impatience to rid themselves of the layers between them so she could feel his body against hers.
That was what she wanted; that was what she was determined to have.
Drago had expected this engagement—the first of many, or so he hoped—to proceed by slow and cautious steps. He’d steeled himself to pander to and delicately overcome some degree of maidenly modesty and shyness.
Clearly, his bride—his new duchess—was made of sterner stuff and had other ideas.
Or more precisely, she had only one.
One that had captured his own raging desire and whipped it into a frenzy.
He’d thought he’d been waiting with sophisticated patience. In reality, his inner self had merely been craftily holding back, biding its time and seeking the right moment to rise to the fore, slip every leash, and seize her.
With her greedy hands and urgent, hungry kisses, she’d given his primal, primitive inner self permission to do just that.
As if to emphasize her direction, the instant he halted beside the bed, without breaking from the conflagrationary kiss, she snatched her hands from his hair and fell on his cravat. She freed the large pin, anchored it in the lapel of his coat, and set her quick fingers to the silk folds.
What was he supposed to do?
With his more primitive side in the ascendancy, he sought out the buttons closing the bodice of her carriage dress and expertly slid them free.
This wasn’t at all how he had envisaged the engagement progressing, but he saw no reason—had no wish much less any will—to cavil as, in a flurry of hands and grasping fingers, they peeled layer after layer from each other.
Fine fabrics went flying, discarded with abandon. Shoes and socks were dispensed with in short order.
At one point, gripped by a guilty sense that he should make some effort to be more attentive, he tried his damnedest to slow down, but she gave vent to a frustrated sound and all but ripped his shirt away.
He gave up, gave in, and helped her free his hands from the cuffs—before she realized the advantage his hands and arms being tangled afforded her.
In between scorching, searing kisses marked by increasingly flagrant and provocative caresses, they proceeded with frenzied alacrity to strip each other of every last stitch.
Exuberantly, she flung the shirt aside, and his inner self chuckled, amused and delighted. He couldn’t recall ever having such a blatantly enthusiastic partner.
They swayed together while their lips and mouths continued their ravenous plundering, and her fingers wrestled with the buttons anchoring his trousers while he unpicked the laces of her full petticoats that some unkind person had knotted at the back of her waist.
Finally, the laces came free, and with a well-judged push, he sent the fine frothing cotton sliding down her long, long legs.
Still engrossed in kissing him, she raised one foot, stepped free, then used her other foot to kick the petticoats away. Angling his gaze down, he saw she was wearing silk stockings anchored above her knees with ruched blue-silk garters.
On impulse, as his waistband loosened, he broke from the kiss and her grasping hands and slid to his knees before her. “Allow me.”
The words emerged in a gravelly growl.
Her body was still teasingly sheathed in a fine translucent silk chemise. Sliding his hands beneath the chemise’s edge, he set his palms to the bare skin of one thigh, just above the garter, and her breath hitched and her fingertips sank into the muscles of his shoulders.
Smiling inside, he glided his palms down, smoothing garter and gossamer-silk stocking over the sleek muscles of her calf to her foot, then when she raised that foot, he drew stocking and garter free and dropped them to one side.
He leaned into her, his head against the soft swell of her belly, and repeated the exercise with her other leg.
Her fingers slid into his hair and gripped, clutching his head to her as she fought to find her balance in what, to her senses, was no doubt a careening world.
The scent of her arousal reached his nostrils and wove into his brain, an aphrodisiac like no other.
Driven by a surge of primitive need, he rose—and discovered that she’d succeeded in loosening both his trousers and the silk smallclothes he’d worn beneath. Both garments slid from his lean hips and puddled about his feet.
She pushed into him, and her lips found his again. He stepped forward, into her, lifting his feet free.
