Page 51 of A Scandalous Proposition
Well, she thought she did, but couldn’t be entirely sure. This was nothing like anything she’d ever done with Simon. He’d been considerate, had given her pleasure, but their time together had always been too rushed for them to be able to explore one another’s hungers. Moments snatched in out-of-the-way places in which they seldom enjoyed the luxury of anything as fundamental as a bed. Adam appeared to appreciate that and was intent upon showing her precisely what she had been missing. She was unsure if it would be wise to find out. Ignorance might very well have been bliss.
He lifted her from his lap and her gown pooled around her feet. He dispensed with her petticoats, and before she had the time to feel embarrassed she found herself standing naked in front of him.
‘Move closer to that candle, darling. I want to look at you.’
As though in a dream she did as he asked, feeling elated when she observed the admiration in his gaze. That she could arouse this sophisticate to such heights of passion was no mean feat and she gloried in the power she temporarily wielded over him.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said in a gravelly tone.
‘It hardly seems fair.’ She smiled and evaded his outstretched arms. ‘I’m standing here completely naked and you have yet to remove a single garment.’
With a strangled oath he rid himself of his clothes in mere seconds, throwing them aside with no apparent concern for their welfare.
‘Better?’
‘Much.’
She moistened her lips, which had become inexplicably dry as her eyes drifted toward an impressive erection.
He led her back to the daybed and laid her upon it. Resting on his side next to her, he applied himself to giving her pleasure. The feats he could achieve with his fingers and tongue soon left her feeling giddy with desire. And desperate for more. Time and again she begged him for release but he simply smiled and set about torturing a different part of her anatomy.
‘Patience, little vixen.’ He nudged her legs apart and danced his fingers up the inside of her thigh, stopping tantalising short of the place where she most wanted them to be. ‘We have plenty of time, and the pleasure will be greater if we go slowly.’
‘But I’m not sure if I can wait.’ Her breath caught in her throat as his fingers finally reached the apex of her legs and delved inside. ‘Adam, please!’
‘You ought to know that I didn’t intend for this to happen. I wouldn’t have you think that I’m taking advantage of your reliance upon me to bring Dawson to justice.’
Florentina couldn’t give two figs about what his intentionshadbeen. All that mattered was what was happening between them now. She told him as much.
‘That’s all right then,’ he said with a throaty chuckle. ‘Just so long as you understand that you only have yourself to blame for what’s happening between us.’
‘Why?’ She sighed, not wanting to waste time talking but needing to know.
‘Because you are so damnably compelling. Because I’ve wanted you since the first moment I laid eyes on you.’ He paused to do something with his left hand that sent shivers through her entire body. ‘And because you dared to argue with me.’
‘That’s no reason.’
‘It’s more than enough reason for me. People seldom have the courage to argue with me when I’ve made up my mind.’
‘Then you shouldn’t surround yourself with such sycophants.’
‘I don’t do it on purpose.’
‘Adam, this is torture!’ She moved her hips to accommodate the fingers that had worked their way inside her. ‘Please, I’m begging you.’
He chuckled. ‘So you are.’ He took her hand and placed it on his shaft. ‘Is that what you desire, sweetheart?’
‘You know it is.’
‘Then you must give it a name first.’
She sighed. ‘Why?’
He appeared affronted. ‘Well, we can hardly refer to it only as it.’
Florentina giggled. ‘All right. Since you’re a soldier, perhaps we should refer to it as your bayonet.’
‘From which I deduce that you would like me to thrust as aggressively as I would if I were fighting a murderous enemy.’ He tilted his head and smiled at her.
