The Princess and the Peer(57)

Reaching up, she pressed his hand over her breast again and held it there. “I can’t,” she whispered. “Please, Nick, please don’t stop. Don’t ever let me go.”

A full-body shiver went through him. Then, as if he’d fought his last, best battle, something seemed to break inside him, the final chains of his willpower snapping free. Pulling her forcefully against him again, he crushed her lips to his for a series of fervid, open-mouthed kisses that sent her reeling.

The room spun all over again as he scooped her off her feet and carried her swiftly across to the sofa, shucking off her robe before laying her down against the cushions.

Yanking open the silver buttons on his waistcoat, apparently uncaring when one popped loose and rolled across the floor, he shrugged out of the garment. He pulled his shirt over his head next, then sent both pieces of clothing flying.

She couldn’t look away, bewitched by his sinuous masculine grace. She’d viewed Lord Elgin’s collection of Grecian marbles, but Nick put them all to shame.

He was, in a word, magnificent.

His arms were long and roped with sleek, heavy muscle, his chest broad and roughened with the same short, curled dark hair she’d glimpsed earlier. Letting her eyes drink him in, she took note of the flat plane of his stomach and a second, much thinner, line of hair that disappeared in the most intriguing of ways beneath the waistband of his trousers.

As for the large, unmistakable bulge inside those trousers… She gulped and looked away. Heat burst to life in her cheeks in a shade that must surely have been as red as the ripest apple ever to be plucked off a tree.

But Nick made no comment as he toed off his shoes and lowered himself onto the sofa beside her.

Any momentary qualms vanished as he pulled her against him, her pulse racing furiously as his fingers reached for the row of buttons on the front of her nightgown.

He kissed her, his mouth moving in an unhurried slide over hers. It was as if, now that he’d made up his mind to make love to her, he meant to take his time and do it thoroughly.

While his fingers worked with methodical purpose over the buttons, his lips played on hers, the freeing of each new button punctuated by ever more intense and passionate kisses.

She was literally gasping for air by the time he reached the last one. Once he slipped it loose, he lifted his head, then used one large warm hand to brush back both sides of the cloth to reveal her trembling flesh beneath.

For a long moment he stared, his expression absolutely inscrutable. She wondered what he was thinking, the tight, aching peaks of her breasts drawing even tighter beneath his inquiring gaze.

Instinctively, she began to raise a hand to cover herself when he stopped her, his fingers wrapping lightly around her arm to hold her still. Bending low, he kissed her, his lips sweeping over the quivering curve of her collarbone, then down to graze first one breast then the other. Without pausing, he continued, drawing a stunned, ragged moan from her throat as he closed his mouth over one of her nipples.

She shook at the sweet suction of his caresses, yanking her arm from his hold so she could thread her fingers into the thick, dark silk of his hair and hold him closer. He smiled against her before flicking her with his tongue. Her spine arched, unwittingly giving him even more access to her needy flesh.

Renewed flames raked her body, burning in direct proportion to the intensity of his ardent attentions. Just when she thought she couldn’t stand another moment of his exquisite suckling kisses, he abandoned the first breast and moved on to pleasure the next.

Her head rolled against the cushion behind her, legs shifting with restless need.

“Shh,” he said in a soothing voice, his breath tingling against her damp skin. “Just relax. Trust me and let it happen.”

Let what happen? she thought dreamily.

Was there more than this divine bliss?

More rapture than he’d given her already?

She could not imagine how that might be possible. And improbable as it might seem, if there was more, as he promised, how would she be able to endure it? His kisses and touches were close to torture now—exquisite torture, yes, but torture all the same.

She was about to tell him that perhaps she needed to slow things down a bit when he slid a wide palm along the bare skin of her leg. Ankle to calf, knee to thigh in a tantalizing glide of pure sensation, her nightgown bunching up atop his powerful arm as he went.

A fierce shiver chased over her skin, chills battling scorching heat at each new delight he provoked.

This is what he must mean, she thought.

But seconds later she realized she knew nothing as his hand smoothed over the ultrasensitive curve of her inner thigh, his fingers reaching to part her where she’d never thought to be touched.