Page 44 of A Bride for the Icy Duke
“Then don’t think,” she gasped.
He reached for her skirts, drawing them up her legs, and she helped him, revealing her stockinged legs to the chill. Only, though she knew it was cold, she could feel none of it. Her blood was rushing and her heart was pounding, and there was heat inher body, yes—the messy, liquid heat that she recognized from their last kiss—but notcold.
His palm skated across her thigh, and he muttered another curse under his breath. “I have been thinking about these incessantly,” he informed her in a voice that scraped.
She tipped her head back against the wall. “Please, touch me...”
He groaned, one hand cupping himself as he trailed his fingers closer to the precious point between her legs. To encourage him, she widened her stance.
Then, to her surprise, he dropped to his knees and took hold of her ankle, carefully placing it over his shoulder. Then, he pushed her skirts up further and just stared at her.
“It has been so long…” he whispered, seemingly to himself, squeezing that bulge between his legs. At least Lydia knew to look for it, though it was sadly out of reach with him all the way down here. “You look delectable, Lydia.”
She let out a shuddering breath. “Alexander,please…”
He seemed to need no more encouragement, finally bringing his fingers to where she needed him the most. The pleasure hit her almost immediately, far stronger than it had been by herself in her bed. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, muffling her cries, though the rain was such that she doubted anyone would hear, even if they came into sight of the lakehouse.
“There,” she gasped. “There. Please.”
“You’re so wet.” He sounded almost tortured. “Can I use my mouth?”
“What?”
“To kiss you here.” To illustrate his point, he slid his fingers across her folds again, finding the spot she needed and drawing small circles. “Please.”
“Is that something gentlemen do?”
“I don’t know how gentlemanly it is, but it’s something I want to do to you.” There was real strain in his voice. “It will feel good, I promise.”
She hadn’t imagined using her mouth—or using his, for that matter—but as soon as she imagined the hot press of his tongue, her knees trembled. “Yes,” she gasped. “If it pleases you.”
“Believe me, Lydia, this pleases me.” He leaned forward, and then his tongue wasthere.
The flood of heat through her made her legs weak, and she gripped his wet hair, holding on tight as though she could somehow bear the pleasure better. But, even as he ravaged her with his tongue, he slid a finger up inside her, and she trembled. This was more than she could ever have imagined, and the samecresting peak that she had sensed in her bed by herself beckoned again.
Only, this time, instead of riding it and never progressing, it burst like fireworks behind her lids, and—
“Ohhh,” she moaned, and if he hadn’t been holding her up with his shoulders, she might have fallen.
This was different—bigger, better—than anything she had experienced before. A pleasure so vast, she had fallen headlong into it; a pleasure so raw, it had stripped her bare, torn her into a thousand different pieces, and as the waves of light slowly ebbed, Alexander’s mouth on her was the only thing that stitched her back together.
She removed a hand from his head and placed it against her heart, feeling as though she had been rendered apart and remade anew. She knew, finally, what pleasure was. How intimacy felt when she cupped it in her hands…
Alexander groaned, that hand on himself again as his body jerked. And Lydia looked down in shock at the way he gripped himself, and the unmistakable pleasure that rocked him.
His eyes opened, meeting hers in the gloom. Something passed between them, bigger than any words they could have said. Still, the rain rattled on.
She reached for him, needing to feel him there, human and solid, before her. “Don’t tell me you regret this,” she breathed heavily when he rose to his feet.
His fingers came to wrap around her wrists. “Do you?”
“That was—” How could she possibly describe what that was? Mind-altering.Drugging. The kind of pleasure that drowned you in its wake and left you on the shore, bedraggled and overcome.
She could understand how it could become an addiction…
Unexpected tenderness swept across his face, and he brushed his thumb across her cheek. “I know.” He glanced around them, and a sigh gusted out of him. “This was not how I had intended on—” Before he could finish the thought, he cut himself off.
She looked up into his face wickedly. “You mean to say you imagined it?”
