All the while, his mouth clung to hers.
His muscles rippled beneath her fingers as he shrugged out of the robe. Now nothing separated them. She was aware of his heat burning against her belly. Hard. Hot. Growing damp.
He tore his mouth from hers. “I shall spill my seed all over you before I ever get you to bed.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It will be,” he rasped. “I have no doubt it will be.”
He lifted her into his arms and began carrying her to the bed. She ran her hands over his shoulders, his chest. She wanted to know how he came to have every scar that she pressed her lips to, ran her tongue over. He had only the lightest smattering of hair in the center of his chest, and she wove her fingers through it. She kissed his neck, damp with sweat, nibbled on his earlobe, heard him growl, and bit lightly. His growl deepened.
He laid her on the bed. The covers had already been turned down. The sheet was cool against her back. She was hot, so very hot. The rain continued to patter against the pane, so they couldn’t open the window. There was no hope for it. Tonight she’d burn in hell, and she’d never wanted anything more.
She scooted over so he could join her, but instead he sat on the foot of the bed where he ran his hands over her ankles, her calves. He kissed her toes, her knees, the inside of her thighs, her stomach, stretching his body over her before rising up above her and gazing down on her. She thought she should feel shame at the way he looked at her so blatantly, but all she felt was joy because she could see that he found her pleasing.
“You’re so beautiful,” he rasped. “More so than I imagined.”
“You’ve thought about me?”
He gave her a deliciously wicked and sensuous smile. “Oh, yes, Catherine. That night at the first ball, I imagined you just like this, spread out over my bed in all your naked glory. And you have haunted me ever since.”
He lowered his mouth to hers, his tongue meeting no resistance, because she wanted to taste him as much as he wanted to taste her. Whiskey was ripe upon his tongue, a flavor that intoxicated her, reminded her of the night when she’d almost lost him. Desperation fueled her passion, desperation to know him in every way that a woman could know a man.
Luke didn’t know if he’d ever lain with a woman as enthusiastic as Catherine. She touched him everywhere as though she couldn’t get enough of him. Not only with her hands, but with her mouth, her lips, her tongue. She kissed each of his scars with tenderness, then ran her tongue over his chest as though she were a cat and he were the milk to be lapped from the bowl. She was by turns, bold and shy, looking to him for approval, her lovely blue eyes darkening with desire when he granted it.
She was everything a man could wish for in a lover.
Claybourne was everything a woman could wish for in a lover, Catherine thought as he skimmed his hands along her body. By turns, he was considerate and gentle, rough and demanding.
She’d grumbled at him for talking so much, and he’d told her that he didn’t have to speak at all, but he did. Near her ear, he urged her boldness on with a raspy voice that more often than not sounded as though he were strangling.
Touch him there and there and there.
Hold him tightly. Stroke him slowly.
And when her fingers faltered, he laid his hand over hers, guiding her motions, his gaze holding hers, daring her not to look away, daring her to see the smoldering passion and to know what she was capable of doing to him. She was capable of driving him to madness. He was not a quiet lover and each sound he made was music to her ears, enticed her into giving him more so that she might receive more.
A fine sheen of sweat coated his throat. Sweat belonged to laborers, not gentlemen, but she kissed his throat anyway, felt his pulse jump beneath her lips. Felt her own pulse leap when he buried his fingers in her hair and blanketed her mouth with his own.
She didn’t know what she’d expected. Something quick, painful, but still somehow exquisite. But this was more than she’d ever imagined. Beautiful in its intensity, frightening because she didn’t know how she’d live without it when it went away.
He touched her everywhere, intimately, with his fingers, his mouth as though he cherished every inch of her, as though she could possibly mean as much to him as he did to her.
He moved back down to her feet, and this time when he kissed his way up her body, he managed to wedge himself firmly between her thighs.
“I wish I could do this without hurting you,” he rasped.
She eased her back off the bed and pressed a kiss to the center of his chest, before falling back to the pillow. “You’ll only hurt me if we don’t finish what we’ve begun.”