Page 3 of Carbon

Lady Anne gasped as her mysterious suitor trailed a finger along her cheek, a light touch, but not an innocent one. That single digit promised forbidden delights, sweetness and scandal if she did not stop him that instant. She reached up to bat his hand away but instead pressed his palm against her cheek.

“Sir, what are your intentions?”

The scoundrel clutched her skirts in one hand and lifted them slowly, oh so slowly. Only the thin cotton of her bloomers stood between the lady and her honour. Her breath came in short pants, bosom heaving as his hand rested on her thigh.

“We should not be doing this,” she whispered.

“Then I bid you to walk away.”

Walk away? Her knees trembled so much she could barely stand. Instead, she bent from the waist over the chaise longue, lost in ecstasy as the stranger had his wicked way.

Was that what Mr. Midnight wanted to do? Have me bend myself over the furniture while he got his rocks off? Talk about forward. Because the idea was...it was...uh, kind of hot, actually.

Augusta!

No!

I didn’t know who the man was, anything about him, or worse, where he’d been. But hang on, wasn’t that the whole point of surprise, illicit sex?

He trailed one finger down my jaw, and according to the script, sorry, the book, I should have clasped his hand to my cheek. But instead, I turned my head so his finger slipped into my mouth, then sucked. Heat shot through me, right from my eyeballs to my hoohah. Or my velvet glove, as Sapphire would have called it.

Say something, Augusta.Tell him to stop. Tell him this is totally inappropriate and you need to get the wine from the damn cellar and go back to being bored out of your mind at the party.

His other hand slowly lifted my silk skirt, leaving a burning path along my thigh as it got higher, higher...

“I don’t have a clue what I’m doing,” I blurted.

Oh, way to go, Gus. You sure do have a knack with words.

He answered with a throaty chuckle as one finger slid under my knickers. Not bloomers but boring white cotton bikini pants, ten pounds for a pack of five from Marks and Spencer. Tomorrow, I’d burn every pair I owned.

“Miss Fordham, your body knows exactly what it’s doing.”

Really? I’d had sex precisely twice in my life, both times with my husband and neither could be described as awe-inspiring. Romance novels spoke of shattering into a thousand pieces, of fainting with sheer pleasure, but when Rupert rolled off to the side, I wasn’t even sure whether he’d come or not. I certainly hadn’t.

“My body’s lying.”

“No, your mouth is lying.”

Dammit, he was right. You could have fried an egg on me, such was the heat coursing through my veins. I’d probably scorched him.

“Do you... Do you have protection?”

I felt rather than saw his smile. “I came prepared.”

Well, at least one of us did.

Before I could back out, he nudged me forwards over the padded chintz, and I grabbed onto the edge of the chaise longue. The hand under my dress continued its lazy exploration while his other arm wrapped under my breasts, lifting them upwards in a way no bra ever could. Soft lips kissed their way up the side of my neck until I twisted around to meet them with my own.

He tasted faintly of mint with a hint of wine over the top. Had he drunk it for courage like I did? There was certainly no way I’d have been in that position sober.

A thousand sensations washed through me, from fear to euphoria, from heat to goosebumps, but when he pushed my knickers to one side and gave me all of him, I got the strangest feeling of...of rightness. Like my entire life—every thought, every decision, every success, and every tragedy—had conspired to lead me to this moment. With him. A perfect stranger.

“So fucking tight,” he whispered.

There was a good reason for that, but I managed to refrain from letting it slip out.

Instead, I bit my tongue as he showed me that each love scene I’d imagined and each lover I’d dreamed of could all roll into one and come true with the right man beside me. Or rather, inside me.

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