Page 87 of A Kiss Of Lies

“I’ve always found your scars rather sexy.”

Her words were slightly slurred. The opiates and alcohol had taken effect.

He was angry that such creamy perfection was marred, but at least he’d managed to save her life. That was what was important. His soul felt at peace for the first time in, well, forever. His mother would have been proud of him.

She rolled onto her side to face him, careful of her injured shoulder. Her naked breast pressed against him; her nightgown scrunched down to her waist from when he’d bandaged her wound. “Kiss me,” she whispered.

Her soft mouth was a temptingly short distance away. “Go back to sleep, darling. I can wait until you’re well.” Even though it would make for a very uncomfortable night, Christian thought, with his erection straining uncomfortably against his breeches. He hadn’t undressed before he’d fallen asleep, and he’d hardened the minute he’d woken in her arms. With her scent filling his nostrils, her luscious curves filling his hands, and then seeing her naked breasts when he’d attended to her wound meant he’d get no further sleep this night.

“Kiss me, please.” Her fingers traced the line of his jaw and brushed along his lips. “I want to make love to you as a free woman. Not as a murderess or an adulterer, but as your fiancée. Then I might finally feel clean.”

He heard the plea in her voice and his resolve began to crumble. “What about your shoulder?” He’d secured her arm in a sling close to her body so she couldn’t move it and damage the stitches.

She placed her hand on his chest and pushed him onto his back, rising over him to straddle his thighs. “I think this will work but you’ll have to help me undress you. My one free hand can only do so much.”

And heronly so muchwas to caress his rampant erection through his breeches. He groaned into the silent room. It had been several days since he’d made love to her, and he wanted her with a hunger verging on insanity. He wanted to claim her, mark her as his own, and wipe the memory of Peter Dennett from her mind. He wanted to love her, this woman who had chosen him, had wanted to be with him and who had risked her life to save him, burns and all. He’d do anything for her. Serena leaned down, her one bare breast pressing into his chest. “Perhaps now I’m scarred you won’t wantme,” she teased.

“Don’t be ridiculous. A scar means nothing to me. I love you! You the person, the brave and courageous woman who for two years went through hell, and had the determination to claw her way back.”

“Touché. Now, I don’t ever want to hear you doubt how I feel about you again. You’d battled through unimaginable pain to survive, and I swore that if I had to go back to Peter, I too would be like you—brave and strong, strong enough to survive, and one day come back to you.”

In her drug-addled state she did not comprehend what she had confessed. “You came to the duel to offer to go back to him to save me?” Christian exclaimed in horror.

She tensed above him. “I’d have done anything to save you,” she said, cupping his face. “I would have killed him myself if I could. Peter was handsome as sin on the outside, physical perfection to be precise. Women threw themselves at him, yet he was rotten to the core inside. Every day I was with him, I wanted to die.” Tears fell from her eyes. “But you are so filled with love, kindness, and goodness, that it makes your outer scars invisible. You’re the most beautiful man I have ever met, and I count myself the luckiest woman in the world to claim you as my own.”

He didn’t know what to say. He finally understood what a treasure he’d found in Serena. She was the daughter of a duke. A woman of incomparable beauty, who, if she chose, could have all of society at her feet, yet she wanted him and would marry him, a man the rest of society could hardly bear to look at.

She tugged at his shirt. “Now, if you please, clothes off. I’d like to demonstrate just how beautiful I find every inch of your body.”

How had he come to deserve a woman such as this? He decided to send Simon Penfold and his father, the Duke of Barforte, an extremely large gift. He even wanted to thank the villain who was set on ruining him. For if not for her deception, he would never have been in Canada and been able to meet or help Serena, and she would never have been there to save him from a life of self-pity and self-loathing.

He was lucky, very lucky. Immediately after Waterloo, when he’d lain in mind-numbing pain, struggling for life because of his horrific burns, he’d thought God had turned against him. But he hadn’t.

“I’m a very lucky man,” he whispered into the darkness.

“I beg your pardon?” Serena said.

Christian chuckled. “No. I beg your pardon. I’m terribly slow at getting naked.”

Christian’s pulse beat heavy in his groin at her answering seductive, languorous smile. Together they hurried and fumbled to get rid of his shirt, breeches and underclothes.

Straddling his body once more, Serena purred. Holding his gaze she leaned down and lapped at his nipple exactly like a cat. One delicate, tiny hand caressed his burned right shoulder.

Christian gripped the sheets with his fists as she slowly let her mouth and hand roam over his chest and stomach, moving tantalizingly toward his groin. He half rose off the bed as her lips brushed the head of his cock, and a deep groan escaped into the room.

“God, that feels so good,” his voice was hoarse as he lay back down, happy to let her pleasure him.

Her answer was to take him into her mouth and run her tongue around the sensitive head of his member. She began to suck and he closed his eyes, willing his body not to surge into her mouth. Her hand found his sacs and gently squeezed them. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, as her mouth worked its magic on him. She felt like heaven. Her mouth was hot and wet upon him. So good, it was almost painful. He wanted to come so badly.

His hips lifted. He couldn’t help it. But he was worried about jostling her shoulder. He half sat and tried to lift her gently off him but her mouth clamped down firmly on him.

“Christ, Serena. Please . . . Have pity on me. I can’t take much more,” he gasped.

She lifted her head and licked her lips. “I could become addicted to the taste of you.” Then with sultry eyes, she rose and moved up to straddle his groin. Maintaining eye contact, she guided him into her sleek, wet entrance and sank slowly down, taking all of him deep within her body. He fought every screaming impulse to surge into her.

She was extremely tight and hot. It was almost too much. He gripped her hips, trying to hold her still, his breath coming in gasping pants.

She tried to move, fighting his hold. “Love me, Christian. I’m free. Make it feel like it was my first time with you.”

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