Page 33 of A Virgin for the Icy Highlander
An involuntary moan spilled out of her, those heightened senses becoming aware of a hardness between his thighs, pressing against her stomach.
She couldn’t force herself to investigate, as she was not yet confident enough to discover what that might be. And she was perhaps a little afraid of what she might find.
“Is this what ye want to ken?” he repeated in a low growl as he suddenly hoisted her up into his arms, guiding her legs around his waist. “Or is it nae enough yet?”
A juddering breath made its way into her lungs. Her head pounded with the swell of so many new and confusing sensations. She tried to form words, but they refused to come. Her ability to speak was stolen away by the intimacy of having her legs wrapped around his waist, feeling that hardness again, resting just underneath her.
“I see,” Hunter purred, a note of dark amusement in his voice.
See? What does he see?
He elaborated a moment later, not with words but with action, as he carried her over to his desk, the varnished wood still covered in the paint from his portrait. Without hesitation, he swept aside the paints and brushes.
Everything clattered to the floor, splashing color across the gray flagstones, but he didn’t seem to care, and neither did she.
Yes… Yes, I do want to know more… So help me, I do.
He seemed to hear her silent plea as he set her down on the edge of his desk and kissed her hard on the mouth. A crush of passion bruised her lips, giving her no choice but to kiss him back just as hard.
She grabbed his face and did just that, kissing him with wild abandon, shedding the last of her nerves and inhibitions as she sank into the moment. Into him.
As he kissed her, his body moved to the rhythm of it, reminding her of last night. He’d been more graceful, more adept a dancer than she’d expected, and it seemed those rhythmic talents weren’t reserved for the dance floor.
Oh…
Her eyelids fluttered as she felt the press of that mysterious hardness between her thighs, creating a pressure that made her whole body yearn and strain. Although for what, she wasn’t sure. It was a feeling similarto being nervous, perhaps like the night before an important ball, where her entire being teetered on the edge of something thathadto be relieved, or else she would go mad.
Hunter’s mouth ventured downward, kissing over the tip of her chin to her throat. His lips and tongue traced a map down that column to her chest.
Leaning forward, he slowly laid her on the surface of the desk. Their eyes met for a moment. His were ablaze with passion, gleaming in a manner she’d never seen, leading her to wonder if hers were the same. After all, there was not a single part of her that was not alight.
His gaze escaped her once more as his mouth lowered to her throat. His kisses seared downward, setting tiny fires across her skin that threatened to become an inferno.
And she couldn’t resist touching him in return. Grace ran her hands through his silky, dark locks, smoothed her palms overthe muscles of his back, marveling at his broad shoulders, relishing the soft skin at the nape of his neck, all before sliding her fingertips into his hair.
“Oh!” she cried out as his teeth grazed her chest.
It was not a shout of pain, but of surprise, increasing tenfold as she watched him tear away her fichu like a ravenous wolf.
The gauzy kerchief, worn for propriety to hide the low cut of her bodice, drifted to the floor like a flag of surrender. And with it went the very last of her common sense. All doubts and uncertainties fell away, allowing the crashing wave of curiosity and desire to take over entirely.
“Scottish attire is better,” Hunter said in a throaty voice, his hand pulling on the top edge of her bodice. “Nae so many layers.”
She stifled a laugh, covering her mouth with her hand to hide her mirth. But any laughter thatdidmanage to make it to her lips soon transformed into a breathy gasp as his tongue ran down the valley between her breasts, before his mouth eagerly kissed the ripe swells, seeking out their aching peaks.
The world swirled in a dizzying vortex, and the study blurred into a haze of light. Her hands gripped the desk as she tried to anchor herself when his lips closed around a pert pink nipple… and he sucked.
It rocked her. A surge of electricity shot through her veins, following those previously unknown channels within her, from throat to thighs. Indeed, if his mouth was the spring where it began, the apex of her thighs was where it ended. The tributaries of pleasure and desire met there, pooling into an ocean of longing.
But she was just a beginner, a novice in the art of this dance, and remained unaware of what was coming until he showed her. Already feeling as if she had been twirled about a dance floor a hundred times, her body trembling with every suck, every flick of his tongue against her nipples, she nearly missed the pressure of his hand gripping her thigh.
Hunter’s mouth trailed away from her breasts, pursuing a tingling path up the curve of her neck and along her jaw, back to her mouth. His kiss, when it came, was a crashing wave that she met in kind, kissing him with all of the fire he had ignited within her, kissing him as if this would be the first and last time, kissing him as if there would be no consequences when the bubble burst, pulling him closer as if that would ensure he never put distance between them.
And as they kissed, his hand gripped her thigh tighter, as if he was holding back from doing something more.
All of a sudden, he pulled back, a surprised expression on his face as he met her gaze. She didn’t know why he had stopped or what else he might have done. All she knew, as she sat up slowly, was that she wished they could go back to a moment ago, so she could feel his lips on hers again.
But you did it,her mind whispered.You surprised him.
