A Spring Deception (Seasons Book 2)(34)

Electric heat flashed through her, and she found herself arching against him. He smiled against her flesh. "Since the first moment I saw you, I have longed to see you like this," he admitted.

She drew back. "You-you wanted me from the first moment you saw me?"

He swallowed hard before he nodded. "Yes, Celia. And that had nothing to do with my case. Nothing to do with anything but you. The more I grew to know you, the worse that ache became. And no amount of distraction or self-pleasure could make it less."

Tears suddenly stung Celia's eyes and she blinked them away so he wouldn't see how much his words moved her. Since his confession the afternoon before, she had been wondering how much of their connection was real and how much had been manufactured by him for the sake of his case.

Now his words freed her from the doubt that had plagued her. Slowly she hooked her fingers into her drooping chemise and gown and shimmied the entire contraption down her hips. She stepped out and stood before him in only her drawers and stockings.

"Would touching me make it less?" she asked, shocked by her own boldness and yet thrilled with how the erection hidden behind the placket of his trousers seemed to swell even larger.

"More at first," he said, reaching out to place a hand on her hip and draw her closer. "But then your body will be the only thing that can cure the need."

"And what of my need?" she asked, blinking up at him now that their faces were mere inches apart.         

     



 

He kissed her gently. "I intend to take care of that as many times as you can bear."

Without another word, he swept his arm beneath her knees and lifted her. He pressed a kiss to her mouth as he carried her to the bed that had so fascinated her a moment before and laid her down. Her heart was beating like hummingbird wings as he tugged her drawers away, then her slippers, then unrolled her stockings.

And then she was naked, sprawled on his bed, his gaze burning into her.

"I do not deserve this," he muttered, she thought more to himself than to her.

She might have argued that point, but he didn't allow it. He bent to kiss her stomach and all her thoughts emptied. His mouth moved along her skin, down her abdomen, across her hip, and she tensed. He was going to kiss her sex like he'd done at the ball a few nights before. Her body contracted at the memory of the pleasure that had rushed through her when his mouth took her.

"Aiden?" she whispered.

He lifted his head from her thigh and said, "Did you like it before?"

She nodded immediately. "Y-yes. Very much. I couldn't stop thinking about it."

He chuckled, a masculine, possessive sound that rumbled through her whole body and made liquid flood the very sex they were discussing so intimately.

"And that was when I was rushed, knowing we had to get back to the ball. Tonight I have endless time to … " He looked back down, leaning in until his breath steamed across her sensitive flesh. " … explore."

She gripped the coverlet with both fists as his mouth lowered and at last he covered her in an open-mouthed kiss. Pleasure immediately burst there and she lifted into him with a wordless sound of relief and need. Unlike the last time, when he'd held her steady through his ministrations, this time he let her move and arch into his tongue.

He swept across her entrance, licking away the wetness that had gathered there and creating more through his wicked mouth. She turned her head into the pillow, gasping and groaning, but never more than when he let his tongue flick across her clitoris and a jolt of intense sensation would render her moaning and liquid.

But unlike that night in the out building, tonight he didn't focus his attention there. Oh, he teased, yes, ratcheting her breath higher and making her tremble, but he never focused, never drove her toward release.

"You are tormenting me," she panted.

"Indeed, I am," he murmured, letting the tip of his tongue circle her clitoris. "For when the release finally comes, I will make it so powerful, so complete that you will remember it when you are eighty."

His words gripped her just as he swirled his tongue around her yet another time, and in that moment the pleasure hit its crescendo. Waves of sensation smashed against her and she lifted into his mouth, crying out his name as her body convulsed against his seeking tongue.

He sucked her clitoris as she shattered and doubled the release an instant. But at last the waves slowed, her body twitched and she went limp on his pillows. He moved up her body and pressed his mouth to hers, letting her taste her own passion. When he drew back, he chuckled.

"That was supposed to be much more drawn out. Had I known that words could send you over the edge, I would have forced myself to remain mute."

She reached up to cup the back of his head, pulling him in for a second, deeper kiss. She sighed as they parted. "I will remember that even if I forget everything else, I assure you," she whispered. She looked upward, toward the heavens as she tried to calm her heart, and her gaze caught something unexpected on the ceiling above her. "Er, Aiden?"

"Yes?" he asked, his fingers smoothing back and forth over her shoulder in a rhythmic motion.

"Why is your ceiling covered with naked people?"

He shook his head and laughed. "The real Clairemont's ceiling is covered with naked people. For a recluse, the man was something of a libertine. He had that piece carved so he could look at all the things he wanted to do, I suppose. It is a bit distracting."

She wetted her lips as her gaze flitted over the erotic images. Men with women bent over, being taken from behind. A woman riding one man while she took another in her mouth. Women with women. Couples in every position one could possibly imagine and a few she wouldn't have thought were possible.

She cast a quick side glance at Aiden and found he wasn't looking at the images above, but at her. Judging her reaction. Heat flooded her cheeks.

"Can you really do all those things?" she asked.

"Can I? Or can anyone?" he asked with a chuckle as he wrapped an errant curl around his finger.

"Either one," she said, wondering at how her body felt hot and tingly all over again. Looking at those carved images while he touched her made them even more impactful.         

     



 

"I've done a few," he admitted, his gaze holding hers. "I'd like to try at least three of them tonight with you."

"Which three?" She jerked her gaze back to the ceiling, trying to determine the answer.

"One we've done. Twice now," he said, his voice low and seductive.

She searched the images and found a few where a lady was being pleasured by a man's mouth. "I see."

"The others will be a surprise," he said, and leaned in to kiss her once more.

She closed her eyes, forgetting the erotic art, forgetting everything but his taste and how his rough tongue slid so gently over her own. How his hands gripped her with passion and smoothed her skin with tender care. Nothing else mattered at that moment. Everything else she trusted him to make right.

He broke the kiss at last and pulled away, backing toward the fire.

She sat up partially, watching him go. "What are you doing?"

"Removing the rest of my clothing," he said, his voice low and seductive as he finally shucked off the shirt she had opened what seemed like a lifetime ago.

She watched his muscles move beneath his skin and bit her lip as her sex began to tingle with need once more. How could he do this so easily to her? Whether he touched her or looked at her or just stood there being … being him … it seemed he was irresistible to her. A force that drew her in completely until she would give anything and everything to be in his arms.

His arms. Her gaze flitted to his arm, the one that had been injured earlier in the day. There was a dark red mark slashed across it, proof of how dangerous a man this was.

"Does it hurt?" she whispered.

He glanced down at the mark and then shook his head. "No. It's minor, I assure you."

She bit her lip. "But-"

"Shhh," he said, smoothing a thumb over her cheek before he stepped back.

He met her gaze as his hands moved to his trousers. Slowly he unfastened them and then glided them down his hips. She tracked as inch by inch of flesh was revealed and finally the erection she had been aware of so many times since he first touched her bobbed free.

She caught her breath as she sat upright. Rosalinde had told her a little about a man's … cock, she thought she'd heard it called. When she was to marry Stenfax, the idea of it was terrifying. Tonight, looking at Aiden, seeing the swollen, heavy, utterly masculine proof that he wanted her … well, it was still terrifying. But it was also exhilarating.

This man wanted her so desperately that his body hardened, rising like a divining rod meant not to find water, but to seek her out. It rose proudly against his stomach, and she stared blatantly.

"Is this the first time you've seen a man's cock?" he asked.

"Unless you count the ones carved above me, yes," she murmured. "I'm a lady, you recall. We aren't exactly taken aside and given intense lessons on the subject."

He nodded, but she thought she saw the flicker of a frown cross his face. He approached her slowly and let her get a closer look.