Wicked Intentions (Maiden Lane #1)(57)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

She complied.

“Lift them a little.”

She obeyed. He grunted in what sounded like pleasure. Her movement had caused him to settle closer to her, his cock now lodged between the folds of her sex.

She swallowed, waiting for his next move.

“I think… yes, this.” He shifted, his hand between them, opening his falls, letting himself out. When he again let his weight settle against her, his naked penis rubbed quite explicitly on her clitoris, and while she was distracted by that, he brought his mouth down on hers.

He kissed her openmouthed, and it was almost too intimate, here in the dark. He lay on her—his chest pressed into her vulnerable, naked breasts, his hot cock burrowed against her softness—and thoroughly, leisurely, kissed her.

He caught her bottom lip between his teeth, nibbling delicately, then whispered against her lips, “Open.”

She accepted the sweep of his tongue into her mouth, sucking for long moments helplessly. So erotic was the kiss that she almost didn’t notice when he began to move against her. But she did. She stilled, her entire concentration on that part of his body becoming intimate with that part of her body. Until he nipped the corner of her mouth.

“Pay attention.” His voice was ragged now.

Something wild and feminine thrilled at the roughness of his voice, at the knowledge that she was affecting him, despite his sophistication. She opened her mouth beneath his, biting back at him, and he inhaled sharply. Then his mouth was crushing hers, roughly, almost out of control, a male creature dominating a female. His female.

He shifted again, his penis drawing back, finding her entrance and notching into her. He raised his head only far enough to whisper, “Now.”

He shoved powerfully.

His hardness breached her soft depths, parting and burrowing, invading where she’d been empty for years. She gasped at the movement, at the sensation both physical and mental, but his mouth was on hers again, and he inhaled her breath. He shoved and shoved again until he was seated fully, her thighs stretched wide, his hips hard against hers.

She had a moment of panic. Who was this man? Why was she under him, letting the worst part of herself dictate her actions? Then he began to move and all thought fled her mind. He moved like a wave pounding against a beach, like the wind flying across the cobblestones, like a man on a woman. It was the oldest, most common movement in history, and at the same time it was new and pure. Because it was him and her and they’d never done this together before.

She arched under him, feeling his flesh part and merge with hers as he continued to kiss her deeply.

He ran his mouth over her cheek, never breaking his smooth, slow rhythm, and whispered in her ear, “Wrap your legs around my hips.”

She did and then they were locked tightly together. He hitched himself up a little on her and she gasped. On each downward thrust, on every slow, dragging withdrawal, he rubbed his flesh against the apex of her sex. She turned her head, suddenly too exposed, too vulnerable, even in the dark, but he followed her, pressing his mouth softly at the corners of her lips. It was unbearable, this slow, controlled, repeated invasion, this sure attack on her senses. She wanted to scream, to make him stop. To urge him to go faster. And as if he understood her anxiety, he increased his pace, thudding into her core with a strong tempo.

Driving her insane.

She tore her mouth away from his, panting, her wrists twisting under his hold. “Stop.”

“No,” he whispered, an unseen ghost. “Let go.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.” He levered himself up a little more and began a slow twist of his hips as he drove into her, and somehow, the pressure, the pleasure, the heat, and the expectation all released at once.

She flew apart, sobbing, gloriously free, no mind, no soul, only a single throbbing point of shining beauty. Dimly she heard his breath catch, felt his rhythm falter and jerk, and then suddenly lose control. He thrust into her body savagely as she floated, and the movement sent her even higher.

He exhaled roughly.

His body made one or two more thrusts, and then he stopped, his head dropping as he kissed her tenderly. She had a wild urge to say something entirely inappropriate. To tell him what this had meant to her.

He released her wrists, but she was too worn out to lower her arms.

“Extraordinary indeed,” he murmured, his voice calm and deep, only slightly out of breath.

She knew she should analyze that, should make some reply.

But she drifted to sleep instead.

HE’D NEVER WOKEN beside a woman before.

It was Lazarus’s first thought the next morning. His usual lovers were, by definition, more in the way of business partners. They sold a commodity; he bought it. Simple, clean, and impersonal. So impersonal he’d sometimes not known their true names, even the ones like Marie, who he’d kept for years. Marie in whose name he searched for a killer in St. Giles.

Yet he’d never lain next to Marie. He’d never felt her sweet warmth beside him, never listened to the soft exhale of her breath as she slept.

He opened his eyes and turned his head to watch Temperance. She lay with her arms still thrown over her head. Her lips were a deep red, her cheeks flushed, and the dawning sun gave her skin a golden glaze. She was almost too beautiful, lying next to him, to be real. Only the tangle of her dark hair saved her from perfection. Thank God. He’d bought and used perfection before, and it no longer interested him. His blood stirred now for a real woman.

One untidy lock of hair trailed across a cheek, down her neck, sticking a bit sweatily, and curled at the top of one exposed breast. Round and full, the nipple a soft rose. He touched that nipple, wondering at the velvet texture of her skin, the instant tightening at the tip.

She gasped and his gaze flew toward hers. She looked at him wonderingly as if surprised to find herself here in his bed.

Well, perhaps she was.

“Good morning,” he began. Banal, perhaps, but what the deuce else was he to say?

But she threw back the covers and bounded out of the bed like a startled fawn. “Where is my chemise?”

He crossed his arms behind his head. “I have no idea.”

She turned a glare at him—entirely charming since she was nude. “You took it off me. You must know.”

“I had, er, other matters on my mind.” Pity. He had no need to look at his lap to know that his cock would’ve been more than happy to repeat their activities of last night.

He glanced at her. She was on her knees, her bottom in the air as she searched under a chair, presumably for the missing chemise. The view was astounding, but he had the feeling she wasn’t in the mood.