Page 63 of A Woman of Passion

His lips brushed the bright tendrils at her temple. “Bess, I've waited so long.”

She took his hand and drew him toward the house. Her heart was hammering. It was true, she had made him wait forever, but now that their time had come, she vowed she would love him with every pulse in her body.

When they entered Northaw there were no servants in evidence, but they were beyond caring. They climbed the stairs with their arms entwined about each other, unwilling and unable to conceal their passionate desire any longer. If any had seen them, they would have known the pair were about to become lovers.

Before their heavy bedchamber door swung closed, he enfolded her in his powerful arms, then claimed her mouth with his in a kiss that was possessive and demanding and would never be denied again. Her lips parted at his insistence, and his tongue invaded the hot, sweet cave of her mouth, exploring with strokes and thrusts until she shivered at the intensity of her arousal.

Her delicious shivers prompted him to draw her closer to the fire before he began to undress her. His hands were knowing and sure as he unfastened her gown and lifted it off. Bess undid the tapes of her petticoat herself and stepped out of it, leaving herself clad in only a short shift and her stockings.

William gathered her to him again, and she felt the heat of his hands through the thin material that both revealed and concealed her curves. “Your body was fashioned to give a man pleasure.” His possessive hands fondled her breasts, and he dipped his head to kiss, then tongue her nipples through the delicate fabric. The clinging wet material turned transparent, so that the bright pink tips of her breasts were now temptingly visible. His eyes told her of the inner excitement the sight of her body brought him.

Every glance, every touch heightened her arousal and made her hands bold enough to go inside his doublet to unfasten his shirt. “William, I want to look at you and touch you in the same way.” When he shrugged out of his doublet and removed his shirt, Bess's dark eyes drank in his male splendor. She had never seen him unclothed, and she thrilled at the realization that his wide chest and powerful shoulders had nothing to do with the padded doublets that were the fashion.

“Oh,” she gasped, as she ran her hand over his sleek muscles. “You're so hard.”

He took her hand and brushed it across his groin. “Hard as marble.”

“Let me see!” she demanded, as a hunger for the sight of him gnawed inside her belly.

William stripped off his clothes and stood before her completely nude.

“Oh, my God,” she murmured with breathless admiration. His cock was so dominant, it was a full minute before she could take her eyes from it. Then she saw the other things that made the male so different from the female.

His hips were narrow, but his thighs bulged with muscles, which had no doubt developed from long hours in the saddle. She reached out inquisitive fingers to trace a sinew and watched in fascination as his shaft reared and bucked as if demonstrating the brute force it possessed.

Bess gazed at him in wonder, her eyes slowly sliding up his magnificent male body. “You look like your stallion.”

“That's exactly how I feel—rampant!”

“Now I understand. … My God, how ignorant I was. Now I see how difficult it must have been to control your raging need. I understand your haste.”

“I was in a hurry, Bess, but I'll never be in a hurry again, sweetheart. Slowly. I'll savor you slowly.” He drew her closer to his body and thrust his phallus against her soft belly.

Her back was to the fire, and he inched up her shift until her bottom was bared. The flames heated her naked flesh, arousing her further. Bess pulled the front of her shift up above her thighs, then she rubbed herself against him. “Mmmm, that feels so good.”

He kissed her eyelids. “Foreplay with you is like being in paradise.”

Bess thought it a lovely word. “Why, because I'm a virgin?”

He cupped her hot bottom cheeks. “That's part of it, knowing this is the first time you'll be fully aroused, knowing I'm the first to breach all your defenses. But a year from now, when you'll be anything but virgin, foreplay will still be like paradise. Your body is so lush, Bess, and your inborn sensuality so potent, nothing will stop it once I've awakened it.”

She rubbed her cheek across his dark auburn chest hair and nipped at his nipple with her teeth. “If you light a fire in me, you'll have to douse it.”

“Oh, I'll certainly try, sweetheart, but I suspect it will be more than a fire. It will be a conflagration.” He laughed down at her, then lifted off her shift and flung it into the air with a flourish. She was now clad in white lace stockings, held up by ribbon garters. “Those are the sauciest garters I've ever seen. Walk about for me, so I can get the full effect.”

“You rogue, what do you mean?”

He rolled his eyes in ecstasy, making her laugh. “There's something so titillating about red curls and green ribbons. I can't describe it. … Walk over for me and look in the mirror.”

Bess went to the mirror and blushed pink at her wanton reflection. Her high mons was covered by a profusion of red-gold curls, while on either side a green ribbon decorated her thighs. Bess liked the naughty picture she made. He'd had her stripped down to her stockings once before, and she remembered vividly what he'd done to her that night. Only this time he didn't have to stop! This time she would let him play out his erotic games to their wicked conclusion! Bess cupped her breasts and admired them in the mirror.

He growled low in his throat and pounced. With one arm about her back, the other beneath her knees, he swept her up, raising her mons until it was high enough for him to kiss. Bess arched provocatively, then squealed as he buried his tongue in her, carrying her to the high bed before he withdrew it.

“Lie back,” he murmured.

As she did so, Bess lifted her hair so that it spread over the green cover in silken splendor. He knelt on the bed and gazed down at her. “Open your legs for me so I can look at you,” he said huskily.

Bess lifted her legs and placed a small foot on each of his shoulders. The tip of her tongue came out to lick her lips. “Would you help me remove my stockings, sir?”

---