Page 61 of Tender Blackguard

“Then I’ll drown you in it. I want pleasure to be all you know when you’re with me,” he muttered gruffly. “Will you allow it?”

Her hands strained in his grip and her low back arched, inspiring a gentle roll of her hips. His fingers slid intimately through the slick heat of her sex. Trembling erupted in his belly and rose up through his throat in a rough groan. He leaned forward to rest his forehead against the wall. Turning his head, he pressed a kiss to the silken skin below her ear.

“Will you allow me to pleasure you?” he asked again, needing her answer.

“Please,” she replied on a sigh.

“My sweet angel,” he whispered, “you exceed every possible fantasy. I must taste you.”

Releasing her wrists, he dropped to his knees. Though she stiffened in surprise, he couldn’t gather the words to assure her. He was far too focused on the treasure before him.

A soft belly and trembling thighs. Golden curls and the heady scent of her desire.

He murmured soothing words as he slid his hands up the backs of her thighs to the undercurve of her lush little rear, then down again to tease the backs of her knees. Taking a deep breath of her scent, he reveled in how the essence of her swirled inside him, stoking the fires of desire, sending pulse waves of tingling pleasure through his blood.

Hooking one knee with his hand, he lifted her leg until it rested over his shoulder. She offered no resistance to his direction, submitting to him with utter trust and a tremulous sigh of anticipation. With his thumbs, he gently parted her soft folds, exposing her to his hungry gaze.

She was delicate perfection. Glistening and pink.

An animalistic growl twisted through his core as he became overcome by a primitive urge to claim. Possess. Devour.

The first touch of his tongue to her velvety, slick warmth was like sipping from heaven. The second slow lick brought him to the fieriest depths of hell as a ravenous need clutched at him. Inside and out. His skin burned. His muscles shook.

Spreading his knees on the floor to brace himself, he flattened one hand on her soft belly, loving how she trembled for him. When pressed his open mouth over the swollen bud at the apex of her sex, her thighs tensed. When he gently suckled her sensitive flesh, her knees went weak. It was all he could do to simply hold her secure—against the wall, propped by his shoulder, held by his hand—as he gave in to the hunger raging through him.

Licking, delving, thrusting with his tongue. Sucking, nipping, teasing. Feasting on her lush female heat. Until she shook and moaned. Until she grasped at his head to hold him there between her thighs. Until she gasped for breath and her body went taut and her sex pulsed against his lavishing tongue.

Even after the intimate shocks of her pleasure receded, he couldn’t stop soothing her with soft kisses and languid thrusts of his tongue into her hot, sweet passage. He ached to go deeper. To claim her completely. But above all, he didn’t want to hurt her. Or push her into anything she might regret.

That thought alone was what convinced him to draw back.

Reluctantly wiping her essence from his mouth, he lowered her foot to the floor before sliding his hand to her waist as he rose to his feet.

Her breasts were flushed, and her nipples were pebbled to a dusky rose while her breath puffed erratically through parted lips that appeared swollen from being held between her teeth. Her eyes were closed, but she reached for him, sliding one hand around the back of his neck as a soft, incomprehensible sound slid from her throat.

Her bed, tucked into the shadowed corner behind a thin folding screen, was narrow and small. But the rug before the fire was thick and warm. He swept her languid body into his arms and crossed the room in long strides before laying her down. A knit shawl was draped over the chair nearby, and he spread it over her naked form to keep her from feeling a chill.

It took another minute for him to add wood to the grate until greater warmth spread into the room. When he turned back to her, she had rolled to her side and curled her limbs toward her center. Her eyes were steady and clear as she watched him.

His tongue thickened in his mouth and his throat closed as he acknowledged that he hadn’t the slightest idea what to say to her.

What he wanted more than anything was to lower himself beside her, pull her into the strength and heat of his body as he wrapped himself around her. He wanted to pretend the two of them existed in a space and time separate from the rest of the world outside her cozy little room. Separate from the past and the uncertain future.

But such dreams were impossible.

It was far more likely she’d realize her error in allowing him the indescribable beauty of making love to her. She’d regret the pleasure he gave her and fear the possibility of ruin or worse.

Sitting back on his heels beside the hearth, he fisted his hands and pressed them to the tops of his thighs. Clenching his back teeth, he forced a severe expression as he met her gaze. He couldn’t risk her seeing how badly he still hungered for her. Ached for her. Needed her.

The silence between them was interrupted only by the crackle of the fire and the heavy beat of his heart.

“I can see the thoughts running through your head, my lord.”

He scowled, trying harder to conceal the torment inside him.

Then she sighed. Soft and slow. A gentle exhale. Pushing herself up to a seated position with her legs folded gracefully to one side, she allowed the shawl to drop to her lap.

Alastair struggled to keep his gaze from roaming wildly over every inch of her soft skin as it warmed beneath the dancing firelight.

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