No proper lady should desire such things.
But she did, with more intensity than she thought herself capable of.
“An adventurous heart beats within you,” he murmured. “I wonder what it would take to liberate it. I dream of showing you all the pleasures life has to offer.”
With deliberate care, he slid his hand beneath the edge of her open gown to cup her breast. A sigh slid from her lips just before he took her mouth again in a kiss that melted away the last resistance in her mind. Sensation overcame all that remained of her sensibility.
She had never before been so grateful for the destruction of rational thought.
Sixteen
Roderick explored her mouth with a staggering hunger.
His initial intention with the wager had been to push her past her comfort zone, shake her up as he had been wanting to do since he met her. The amount of control she had displayed while playing had been impressive. But it had fired his need to break through her unflappable facade.
When she demanded a true kiss as winnings, the game became something far more than he had intended. And when he had taken her fingers to his mouth one by one and her gaze melted with emerging sensuality, he had been trapped. Trapped by his lust, his craving to experience more of the mysteries she hid so well. He knew he was caught up in something beyond his typical sexual exploits. He knew it was risky.
But he had taken risks all his life.
He gently squeezed the fullness of her breast. She arched into his palm and he reveled in her response. When he brushed his thumb over the stiff peak of her nipple, she drew in a quick breath and clutched at his shoulders. Tugging at the lacy edge of her chemise, he bared another inch of her soft skin, but it would not go farther without removing her gown and stays.
Frustration flashed in his heated blood as he drew his mouth from hers to murmur softly against her ear, “Not liberated yet, it would seem.”
A small trembling laugh escaped from her lips and she turned her head to press a kiss to the heavy pulse in his throat.
The innocent pressure of her mouth fired his blood. He grasped her waist in his hands and lifted her onto the table. She held tightly to his shoulders and drew a swift breath, but she did not protest or resist. Even when he nudged her legs apart and stepped between them.
Her enchanting gray eyes had deepened to a smoky shade, and hair had loosened from her strict bun to fall in wispy tendrils against her cheeks and neck. His gut tightened with the desire to see her hair fully released and spread across the green felt in a golden wave, her breasts unrestrained and lifted for his mouth, her skirts bunched around her hips, and her legs wrapped around him.
The jolt of lust was so intense his knees nearly buckled.
With a low sound, he grasped her hips in his hands and pulled her forward to the edge of the table. Then he wrapped his arms around the deep bend of her waist, forcing her to arch back over his arms as he brought his mouth to the tantalizing shadow between her breasts.
She clung to him, her legs squeezing against his thighs. Despite the layers of her skirts still tucked between them, he could feel the heat from her core. He pulled her hips more securely against him, pressing his erection into the cradle of her body. Her gasp turned into a quiet moan as he rocked forward. She drew her legs higher around him.
God, she was amazing. Generous. Finally unrestrained.
He wanted her so badly he could taste it. He could feel it in his blood and on his tongue.
He dragged his mouth up her throat and lifted his hand to cradle the back of her head as he claimed her mouth again. Their tongues twined; their breath mingled.
The taste of her was like forbidden fruit. He was allowing this to go way too far, but he could not stop yet. The richness of her kiss, the heat of her response was everything he dreamed it would be. He needed just a little more.
Sliding his hand beneath the hem of her skirts, he skimmed his palm up the back of her thigh, so smooth and strong. She arched against him, breaking from the kiss to gasp for breath as her hands curled tightly into the material of his shirt. The thrust of her breasts drew his attention, and he lowered his head toward one peak, drawing the hardened nipple into his mouth, rolling his tongue back and forth, saturating the thin fabric that acted as the only barrier.
Her body undulated in an erotic dance as she simultaneously held him to her breast with one hand around the back of his neck and tried to roll her hips more intimately against his.
Acknowledging what her body was seeking, Roderick reached between them to tug the material of her skirts away. Then he held her secure as he pressed his hips forward. Now, only his breeches remained between the heat of her center and the thrust of his erection.
The sound she made then sent piercing shivers of pleasure through his body. He wanted nothing more than to claim her completely.