Page 57 of Tempting the Earl

Was she intentionally trying to tempt him beyond endurance?

He looked into her enticing green eyes, framed by sultry lashes. Something heedless and dangerous flashed in their depths.

His stomach muscles tightened.

“Every now and then,” she mused in a warm whisper when he failed to answer her, “I feel like I get a glimpse of something crouched inside you. Something untamed, prowling for a taste of freedom.”

Colin nearly groaned at the way her voice flowed through him. At her heated proximity. At her bold insinuation.

It was undeniable. She intended to break him.

“We should go back inside.” His voice was rough with desire and his struggle to retain control over the passions surging within him. He’d almost gone too far the last time he’d kissed her. Control had to be maintained.

“Why?” She lifted a hand to flatten her palm against his chest. “I reckon you need this as badly as I do.”

His pulse thundered in his ears as he forced words past his tight jaw. “Need what?”

She tipped her head to the side and slid her hand up to curl warmly around the back of his neck. “This,” she murmured as she fitted her mouth to his.

Just as he’d experienced that night in the kitchen, the second he felt the silken touch of her lips, something powerful surged through him. Something primitive and indisputable. The urge to claim and conquer. The instinct to revere and defend.

Though he knew he should, he couldn’t resist it.

With a heavy sound of possession, he slanted his mouth more forcefully over hers and slipped his tongue past her teeth as he wrapped his arms around her warm and pliant form. In a few steps he had them spun around behind the solid, concealing trunk of an oak. As he pressed her back against the tree, he finally lifted his head, but only far enough to breathe a gruff whisper, “I’m leading. Remember?”

She gave a soft, barely perceptible moan and arched into his embrace.

The natural sensuality in her movement and her gentle sound of surrender broke the tenuous hold he retained over his self-restraint and something awoke inside him. It was elemental and wild. A raw sound rumbled from his chest as he leaned his weight into her, needing to feel more of her curves and hollows. Desire shot through him like a glowing hot arrow tip, searing a path to his core, igniting everything in its wake. Lust—hot and painful—angled to his loins.

Her breath puffed against his throat and she dropped her head back to look up at him. Her mouth slowly curved into a smile. “I can see it now—the ferocity inside you—fighting to be free.”

He didn’t deny it. It was far too late for that. So, he did the only thing he could in that moment. He embraced it.

Lowering his head, he reclaimed her lips with fierce, undeniable intent. When she gasped for breath, he thrust his tongue into the warmth of her mouth. No longer capable of denying his hunger, he tasted her. He twined his tongue with hers in a velvet dance as she clung to him and he throbbed against her.

She shifted restlessly, as though struggling to accept her position between the tree trunk at her back and his body trapping her there.

He should step back.

Nothing in the world could make him do so.

Loosening his arms from around her waist, he brought his hands to the flare of her hips. His fingers curled and flexed against the lush curve before sliding up along her rib cage until he felt the lovely weight of her breasts against his thumbs.

Though she stiffened, she didn’t pull away. In fact, she arched closer, encouraging him to continue.

With a low sound of satisfaction, he lightly brushed his thumbs over the tight peaks of her breasts before palming the soft mounds in a possessive caress.

Her arms tightened around his neck and her head fell back as she broke the kiss on a choked little moan. The sound was swiftly followed by a shocked gasp when he lowered his mouth to the upper curve of her breast where he drew the silken skin in against his teeth.

“Oh my God,” she murmured, fisting her hand in his hair. “My lord. Please.” Her voice dropped to a heavy whisper. “I ache.”

There was harsh clawing of need inside him, commanding him to appease her. To pleasure her.

He curled his fingers around the top edge of her bodice and tugged it down until one full breast was released. She shivered and gripped him more fiercely. “Please,” she pleaded again.

When he closed his mouth over her dusky-tipped breast and hollowed his cheeks to draw her deeper, he was rewarded with a throaty moan and her husky, pleasure-slurred voice.

“There’s so much...”

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