Page 54 of To Hunt the Hunter

“Lucian,” she said, her breath coming faster as both hands stroked and touched with something close to reverence. She reached her arms up to him, wanting him to come to her, wanting his body against hers, his mouth on her.

“Yes?” he said, amusement glinting in the silver of his gaze. “Is there something you want, my love?”

“Yes,” she said, turning her head to the side, closing her eyes against the jolt of pleasure as he lightly pinched her nipples. The sensation shot through her, tugging at her core, making the place between her legs throb and clamour for attention. She arched her hips, but he sat astride her thighs and offered her no relief.

His hands slid down her torso and, for one blissful moment, she thought he would touch her there, would seek out the intimate place he had found before and send her off into glittering ecstasy with his clever fingers. He did not, and Matilda huffed and pouted.

“What’s the trouble, darling girl? Won’t you tell me?”

She opened her eyes and glared at him reproachfully.

“You know what the trouble is,” she accused him.

“I do?”

He tried to look innocent and failed by a mile. He looked like a fallen angel. He had the body and face of an angel, at any rate, but devilry burned in his eyes.

“Yes. Yes, you do! Oh, Lucian, please,” she begged him, writhing beneath his touch as his hands continued to caress her breasts, teasing the hard peaks that were sending shock waves of sensation rolling through her when he so much as brushed against them now.

“I’ll do anything you want, Matilda. Only ask it of me. Command me.”

“Touch me,” she demanded, beyond being embarrassed now. “Touch me like you did before, in your bed.”

“You mean here?” he asked, shifting back a little and trailing a lazy finger through the curls between her legs.

“Yes. Yes.” Matilda nodded, wanton and eager.

“Like this?” Slowly, so, so slowly, he teased a fingertip along the seam of her sex.

Matilda gasped, spreading her legs as far as she could between the cage of his thighs, silently demanding more.

“Do you remember the dinner at Mrs Manning’s?” he asked, tormenting her with barely there touches designed to send her wild with frustration.

“What?” Matilda snapped, bewildered by the question as her patience frayed. He wanted to make conversation now? “The one where you pretended I’d agreed to go to Green Park with you, when I’d done nothing of the sort?”

“That’s the one,” he murmured, still trailing his finger too lightly over her sex, just enough to make her tremble and quiver beneath his touch. “The one where I touched your hand and you fell to pieces.”

“Oh, you devil!” she cried, laughing yet half mad with exasperation. “Yes! Yes, I remember.”

“Do you know what I was thinking then?”

“No.” Matilda closed her eyes and prayed for endurance.

Her body was nothing but nerve endings, every one of them standing on end, oversensitive and on edge with anticipation, her focus entirely concentrated on the too gentle brush of his finger between her thighs.

“I was thinking of you, like this, with your beautiful body open to me. I was quite desperate. All I could think of was tasting you. I wanted my mouth on you so badly I could not have stood up without everyone in the room knowing just what you’d done to me. It was excruciating.”

Matilda’s eyes flicked open and she stared up at him in astonishment.

“You were as cold as ice,” she accused him. “You didn’t so much as bat an eyelid.”

His lips quirked. “Appearances can be deceptive, my love. I was never more out of control in my life. I only thanked God there were a great many courses so I could govern my unruly libido in time.”

Matilda stared at him disbelievingly. “You wanted…?”

“To taste you.” His eyes glittered with desire. “Here.”

He illustrated his meaning by sliding his finger in between the delicate folds to the slick heat beneath, and Matilda exclaimed, her hips jerking as pleasure jolted through her.