Breathless whispers of encouragement escaped when his lips sucked fiercely on her breast and his tongue flailed over the tip, the flat of one palm coming up to massage the other. “Aye, like that.”
Whimpering at how easily his attentions fired her blood, she grazed her hands over his shoulders, coasted them over the powerful muscles and passion-warmed skin, craving him closer…ever closer.
He transferred his mouth to her other breast while his splayed palm glided down her stomach and below her waist. She tilted toward him and was rewarded with the first probe of his fingers.
“Mmm.” She dug her nails into his back and crawled them lower as though she could bring him higher, entice his shaft to slide inside.
But wait—
As he stroked over her labia, her thighs widening in welcome, her fingertips encountered more than one straight ridge low across his back. Despite the growing pressure, the languid urgency building in her abdomen, she deliberately traced along one wicked line until encountering a host more, numerous thin welts parading across his flank the farther she slid her palms.
Understanding made her gasp.
Noticing where her hands had frozen, he grew rigid.
“Your father?” she whispered.
A full three seconds later he nodded against her breast.
“That insensitive bastard.” Curving her fingers over the scarred flesh, Thea swore aloud for the first time in her life. “How could he—”
Lord Tremayne lunged upward and silenced her with his lips, with the raggedly voiced, “You wonderful woman.”
You goddamn wonderful woman!
The taste of Thea, the feel of her slick passion coating his fingers, her untutored body’s response—and her reaction to the old scars—practically stealing his wits, Daniel recalled himself without a moment to spare.
“Stay.” The order was instinctive. Rude even, as one hand drifted over her trembling thighs when he reluctantly slid from the bed to retrieve one of the machines purchased the day of Sarah’s party.
Another second and he would have forgotten to armor himself.
Startling because after years of regular and consistent use, he never forgot. Never.
He’d started donning the machinery years ago after it made the rounds when Lord Tims’ trusted mistress gave him not only an hour’s pleasure but a screaming case of clap (after dallying with a visiting French count, or so the story went).
Not one to risk his ballocks for a quick tup, especially after hearing about the pain and blisters, it had been a worthwhile sacrifice to avail himself of the plentiful preventatives. More than that, it became easy to justify their usage when long-time Louise started hinting at something more permanent between them, offering to bear his heir. Egad. The lunatic ideas she had espoused made it easy to suffer a bit of sensation loss for the sake of his sanity.
So it was with no little astonishment Daniel found himself nearly forgetting a habit so well ingrained. Habit or no, his blighted hands fairly shook at the task, his need for her so great.
At his continued absence, she sat up with a whimper, not understanding his departure. Until seeing what he was about, pulling the device over his cock and tying it firmly at the base.
“Oooo—is that a preventative?” She leaned forward as though to inspect the contraption covering his shaft. “I’ve heard them hawked in the streets but not seen one up—”
With a growl, he shoved her back and grasped her ankles, one in each hand. “Later.”
He tried to apologize and explain a world of information in those two syllables. Later, she could inspect the armor if she was of a mind. Later, he’d make it up to her for being abrupt. Later—later—later, maybe his patience would return.
For now, a savage beast controlled him. A sexual beast she’d roused. One that needed appeased.
“Later,” he said it again, softer this time, but it didn’t seem to matter. She wasn’t pouting—prettily or otherwise.
Nay, she was writhing on the bed, her hands stroking up his arms, nails scraping over his skin, legs tensing within his restraining hold, as he slid his grip along her calves, unable to miss her feminine folds weeping, begging for satisfaction. His recently neglected body was past ready to please her.
Yet he knew if she laid a hand on him again, if she dared caressed his ridged buttocks once more with her delicate touch, it would be over before it began. So he braced his legs wider on the floor and readjusted his hold until he could pull her forward. Positioning her groin right where he wanted it—and his arse out of reach.
Instead of fighting him as he thought she might, Thea only stretched back upon the mattress and urged him on. “Aye, please.”
One of her hands fluttered above her stomach. A second later those very fingers came down to knead her breast. Her other hand flew to her mons, then jerked backward two inches, anchoring itself just above her downy curls.
“T-touch yourself for me.” He was shaking, his entire body vibrating as she did as bade, her eyelids at half-mast as her fingers edged past the dampened midnight thatch and disappeared into the honeyed well between her legs.
“Ohhhh,” she breathed, sounding excited and pleased and more than a little surprised. “I’m ready for you.”
Meaning she hadn’t been with her husband? Or had never been given leave to touch herself to know?
Either thought had pride—and fury—storming through him. That such a responsive, passionate woman would go unappreciated…
“Thea.” The cry turned ragged when he saw her fingers emerge from her depths, slick and glistening, only to disappear back inside.
Timing his advance with the steady pace she set, he released one leg to grasp his cock and run the tip over her cleft. For once he hated the cover shielding him from feeling all sensation. So he nudged his thumb forward, let her heat and viscous fluid coat his skin, and imagined that those silky juices of hers flowed over all of him.
Gripping his staff just below the crown, he pressed forward, stroking between her spread labia.
“Yes, please.”
