Page 52 of Unmasking the Earl

He chuckled. “As long as you are only good with me.”

She kissed his smile, planting brief, soft kisses along the seam of his lips and in the tilted-up corners of his mouth. As her hands moved over his body, continuing their delicious exploration, he made a small humming noise of appreciation and took his lips on a leisurely journey over her neck and her ear.

Shivers of fire coursed across her skin and her whole body quivered. She wanted to feel more of him, to gain mastery over his responses as he commanded hers. She ran her hands experimentally over the lower part of his back, and then farther down, over the back of his breeches. His flesh tensed beneath her touch, and she felt an overwhelming urge to squeeze, remembering how tempting his behind had looked in the mirror at Portia’s.

How she longed to feel his nakedness again! His body called to her from every pore, awakening in her an overwhelming desire to own him—body, heart, and soul.

But at this specific moment, his body would do.

He found and untied the drawstring of her chemise and commenced distracting her with tiny sucking kisses along her throat, and across her collarbone, then over her bare shoulder.

Before she could think about how skillfully he was rendering her naked, he removed her hands from his body and placed them at her sides, then eased her loosened chemise down to her waist.

Feeling suddenly exposed, she grabbed for the garment before it descended any farther.

“You may hold it there if you wish. I don’t mind,” he told her with a wicked smile. “Because you’ll have no hand free with which to restrain my actions.”

Why would she want to restrain him? She was enjoying every touch, every new sensation, and her body had moved to a whole different level of awareness, drunk on the heated pleasures of the physical realm.

His hands cupped her breasts. Her naked breasts. His eyes held hers with a smoldering, triumphant look.

She swallowed as his warm fingers moved over the tender skin, found the erect, demanding nipples and caressed them, squeezed and rubbed across the peaks. A bright arc of sensation burned a path from the aching buds right to her womb and the heated place below, making her press her legs together in pure, sizzling delight.

A steady pressure on her shoulders urged her to her knees amongst the springing wheat, then he knelt before her. With quiet determination, he removed her hands from where they clutched the chemise, and placed them on his shoulders. She felt the linen slowly slide down, taking the corset with it, giving him unhindered access to her naked torso.

Bending his head, he touched a nipple with his lips. His tongue slid across it, and when his teeth nipped it gently, the feelings of need in her lower body cried out. His lips parted, and she felt the moist warmth of his mouth and tongue as he suckled her.

Sweet, heavenly Venus.

She shuddered with delicious shock, her head fell back, and her body arched, greedily requesting more of the same. His mouth moved over one breast while his fingers toyed with the nipple of the other.

She was trembling uncontrollably. She felt intensely naked and exposed, here on the fecund earth beneath the blue sky, one with Nature and the pulse of the world. Heat pooled in her belly, between her legs, and then her lover found that place, too, and was stroking it with strong, clever fingers, causing waves of incredible pleasure to wash over her.

In one last, faint glimmer of sensible thought, she realized he was doing everything. She was doing nothing for him in return.

She reached for his head, delving deep into the thick waving hair, caressing his ears and the sturdy column of his neck. She worked down his shoulders, across his chest, stroking the fine curling hair, circling the small, hard male nipples, fascinated to find they responded in the same way as hers. His sharp little intakes of breath told her he liked her touching them.

His head came up, and he pressed his cheek against hers. “Are you all right, sweet Cassandra? You would tell me if you were not?”

“Too much talking, Lord Stranraer. Continue your lesson. I need to find out what happens next.”

“Very well,” he growled. “Just remember you asked.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

There was no going back.

So Cassie decided there was no point in being coy. She wanted to know what was going on beneath Ned’s breeches.

She pressed her hand against him. He sucked in a breath between clenched teeth.

“Am I not to touch?” she asked, halting to look up at him.

“It is…very forward of you.” There was an unmistakable tension in his voice.

“Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” he said with a voice that sounded a bit like he was choking. “I’m just surprised. You really are a very extraordinary woman.”