Page 59 of The Highwayman's Bite

Rhys paused and regarded her with a concerned look. “Do you want me to stop?”

She shook her head. “Please continue.”

He unfastened the remaining buttons and worked the dress over her head, and tossed it across the cave onto her cot. She lay beside him in only her chemise and stockings, yet he did not give her time to dwell on her diminished garb.

Rhys cupped her heavy breasts through the fabric of her chemise and she gasped at the heat of his palms. His thumbs grazed her nipples, turning them into swollen, sensitive peaks.

He slid the top of her chemise down, baring her to his hungry gaze.

She’d thought that breasts only served to fill out a gown and feed infants, but she’d been wrong. Oh, so wrong.

“So beautiful,” he whispered, then lowered his head and covered her mounded flesh with kisses. His fingers continued to stroke the sides of her breasts as his tongue circled her areola before flicking over her nipples, sending jolts of electric pleasure coursing through her entire body.

His mouth and fingers worked their way lower as he tugged her chemise down her waist and down her hips. For a moment, everything she was taught cried out that she should be ashamed to be unclothed before a man, but then, as she looked up at Rhys’s adoring gaze and felt his gentle touch, she realized that nothing was more natural than this.

“Perfection,” he muttered, and lay down beside her, pulling her into his arms. For a long while, he just held her. The feel of his arms around her and the warmth of his bare flesh against hers filled a void within her, an ache she’d endured since time immemorable.

Vivian trailed her fingers along his back, reveling in the texture of his masculine flesh. She tilted her chin up and he answered the unspoken plea by claiming her lips with his. They kissed for a blissful eternity, tasting and exploring each other.

Rhys’s hands caressed her hips and teased her thighs above the tops of her stockings. She shivered at the sensations he wrought and shifted her hips closer. When her center grazed his hardness, a pulse of heat flared through her core. Rhys groaned at the contact.

“Did that hurt?” She didn’t want to cause him any discomfort.

“No,” Rhys hissed through his teeth, yet his expression did indeed look pained. “Let me show you what it felt like.”

His fingers shifted up from the top of her stocking and delved between her thighs. Vivian gasped at the contact. She’d never imagined that men would touch women there with their hands. She thought they only wanted to touch them with their parts. It was as if he’d lit a sort of fire there, making a strange ache coalesce in her most secret place. She’d pleasured herself this way before, but him doing so felt completely different. The pad of his thumb circled the nub at the top and she cried out.

He gave her words back to her. “Did that hurt?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how to describe it.” She reached up and stroked his cheek. “I only know that I do not want you to stop.”

Rhys’s smile was sin incarnate. “Then I will continue until you ask me to.”

His fingers wrought magic, pulses of ecstasy that intensified with every stroke. Vivian pulled him to her, kissing him to silence her cries. The sensations built and spiraled through her being and then shot through her like bolts of lightning.

Rhys pulled her tighter against him with his free arm and continued his ministrations until she gripped his shoulder, shuddering from the magnitude of his touch. “No more.”

Immediately, he withdrew his hand and licked his fingers. The sight of the carnal gesture made her blush.

“I would like to taste you there,” he said. “To bring you to climax with my mouth.”

She quivered in his arms, imagining the feel of his tongue on her sensitive flesh. “I do not think I could bear that.”

“Perhaps tomorrow.” He grinned wickedly. “Right now, I would very much like to make love to you.”

Her eyes widened, remembering the purpose of what they were doing. He would be inside her. Would it give her the same pleasure?

Rhys loosened his grip on her shoulders. “If you do not wish me to, I will not.”

“I do,” she said, pulling him closer. “I am only a little frightened. I am told that there is pain the first time.”

He closed his eyes, silent for a moment before meeting her gaze. “Yes. I would do everything possible to lessen it. But we don’t have to—”

“Yes,” Vivian said. She reached down and cupped the hard ridge in his bulging trousers. “I want more of you. I want all of you.”

Rhys’s eyes glowed copper fire as he unlaced the fastenings and slid his trousers down his hips, releasing his swollen length. Vivian sucked in a breath at the sight, so different than what was depicted in paintings. Long and thick, with a drop of moisture beaded on its ruddy tip, she could only stare at it in awe.

Then he covered her body with his, infusing her with the heat she’d already begun to crave on her skin. She felt the tip of him press against her tender core. He withdrew, then slowly pressed into her further. So far, it did not hurt. In fact, she rather enjoyed the sensation of him sliding across her wet flesh.

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