Page 44 of Tempting the Earl

“This rather complicates things, doesnae it?” she asked with a slight tilt of amusement tugging the corner of her mouth.

Colin’s fingers tensed, pressing into the lushness of her thighs.

Her eyes darkened and his body shuddered with a deep, all-encompassing need. He strained against the fierce urge to pull her against him. Instead, he somehow managed to form the words necessary to answer her. “I suppose it does.”

His voice was as rough as he felt. Ragged and raw.

They were both silent for another long moment. Staring at each other as their breath mingled between them—as her flesh warmed beneath his tingling palms.

Then she sighed again. A slower exhale this time. A resignation.

He clenched his jaw, knowing already what she’d likely say next.

Tipping her head to the side, she shook the long, loose tendrils of her auburn hair away from her face. Something beautiful flared in her gaze. It was challenging and frightening and gorgeous.

“Complicated doesnae always mean bad,” she suggested casually.

His heart stopped and started in a hard lurch. He lowered his focus to the smile widening her lips as he replied. “No, it doesn’t always.”

Sliding her fingers up along his nape, she leaned forward to whisper against his mouth. “Then we’re in agreement.”

“Are we?” he asked, not at all sure he understood what she was saying when the blood had just rushed from his brain to his cock.

“Aye,” she breathed before she palmed the back of his head and urged his lips back to hers.

At the last moment, he circumvented her desires by lowering his mouth to the side of her throat instead. The sight of her rapid pulse caught his attention and he simply couldn’t deny the impulse to feel it flutter against his tongue.

Her head fell back with a throaty moan and her fingers fisted in his hair. She arched her spine as though she were trying to lift herself more fully to the exploration of his mouth.

With his hands gripping firmly around her thighs, he danced his tongue over her silken skin and tested the muscle sloping to her shoulder with the very edge of his teeth. She shivered in reaction and he continued the impassioned exploration, sliding his lips along her collarbone, then sweeping up the side of her throat to tease at the sensitive skin behind her ear.

Her scent filled his nostrils. His heart beat in rhythm to the unsteady cadence of her breath. His fingertips burned against her skin. He wanted to slide them higher, toward the heat beckoning him beneath her skirts.

It took him a moment to realize she was tugging at his waistcoat. He released her and stepped back, allowing the garment to slide down his arms and fall to the floor. She immediately reached for his shirt. Grasping it near his waist, she pulled it free of his breeches and shoved it up rather impatiently. Taking over, Colin lifted it over his head himself. Before he was fully free of the billowing material, he heard her gasp.

Stiffening, he dropped the shirt and searched her face.

Her eyes were wide and her hands hovered in the air between them.

“Oh my God,” she whispered in desirous awe.

Colin released a breath of relief. He’d never thought much of his physique or how it might be perceived by others. He was rather lean, but his muscles were defined and strong. He enjoyed exercise and physical activities and had discovered years ago that when he was strenuously focused on movement, he experienced a welcome break from his own thoughts.

Prior lovers had commented on occasion that he was well formed, but he’d always assumed they were only saying what they thought he’d want to hear. But as this woman gasped and stared with reverence, he was infinitely grateful for the body he’d honed over the years if only because it put such a light of sensual fascination in her eyes.

When her hands slowly drifted toward his chest, he held his breath, already reveling in the anticipated sensation of her touch on his body.

Her fingertips reached him first. They drifted lightly over his chest, sending shivers across his skin. When her middle fingers passed briefly over the flat discs of his nipples, he clenched his jaw and the muscles of his belly tightened.

A low sound issued from her throat. She flattened her hands to his skin before smoothing them down over the ridges of his abdomen. Her exploration was exquisite torture. He kept his arms passive at his sides, not wanting to interrupt her. But his palms tingled for the feel of her skin, her soft flesh, her warmth.

When she discovered the muscles that angled from his hips to his low belly, she traced them with avid curiosity in her expression until her questing caress was halted by the waistband of his breeches.

His insides twisted with a delicious sort of ache. Stepping between her thighs, he grasped her face in his hands and tipped her head back. There was a bright and heady flash in her eyes as he took her mouth with his, but then her lashes swept over her gaze and the light was gone.

He wanted it back. With an odd sort of desperation, he wanted her to look at him and truly see him. To see him—know him—and still want him.

But her hands were sliding up his sides, tickling along his ribs, and he soon lost hold of his thoughts. Tingling fire spread over his skin. Thundering heat pumped through his blood, flowing forcefully to his cock.

---