When his mouth slammed down onto Serena’s, Giles heard a soft growl of feminine appreciation. She arched into him and clutched at his hair to tug him closer. Her mouth opened hot and greedy under his.
Heat gushed through him, incinerated all thought of her innocence and the danger of coming together like this, so close to discovery. For two days, she’d barely spared him a kind word. While all the time, his frustration and hunger mounted—hell, he’d hungered for her all his life. That polite kiss in full view had been torture. When she left the room, he’d yielded to the overpowering need to speak to her alone.
Except they weren’t talking.
Panting, he ripped his lips free of hers. “Serena…” he said, like a drowning man snatching a final breath before he went under for the last time.
Her eyes were stormy, and she pulled his hair to the point of pain. “Don’t talk.”
She was right. What the devil use was talking?
Giles kissed her again, hard and furious. As if he hated her. He’d been in love for years, yet he’d never realized love could be like this. Like someone struck him with a club over and over again. Like fire devouring him. Sweet and terrible. Painful and fierce.
Serena bit at his lips, stoking his desire with the sting.
“I didn’t teach you that,” he said roughly.
To his surprise, she responded with a low laugh. “I’m experimenting.”
“You’ll kill me before you’re finished,” he groaned.
“What a lovely way to die.” She rose on her toes to kiss him again.
Through the steam filling his head, he realized that she was as mad for him as he was for her. How astonishing. How magnificent. Her hot mouth, her exploring hands, the incoherent sounds she made, all conspired to annihilate judgment.
He scraped his teeth along her throat, making her shiver. A few tugs, and her hair tumbled down in a slippery mass. He sucked hard at the sensitive place where her neck met her shoulder, until she was shaking and gasping. When his hand shaped her breast, she started with excitement, and her nipple beaded against his palm.
It wasn’t enough. He needed to touch her skin.
He dragged her bodice down, some frothy pink concoction cut low across her bosom. As she murmured encouragement, his hand closed around one exposed breast. Warm flesh, silky skin. Arousal shuddered through him, and he thrust his hips forward.
Instead of withdrawing, she angled in and hooked her hand behind his neck. As if he was drunk, he staggered toward the wall opposite the closed door. Serena landed with a bump that jolted the breath from her.
Giles raised his head and caught the blazing excitement in her face. She’d never been more beautiful. His heart gave one huge thump, then another. His love for her was inescapable.
“For pity’s sake, don’t stop,” Serena said in a broken voice he hadn’t heard before.
“Never,” he vowed, staring down at her breast.
Satiny white skin gleamed in the candlelight. He bent to draw the raspberry nipple between his lips. Her taste set his senses rioting, and he sucked hard, reveling in her cracked cry of pleasure. She sagged against the wall, and his grip on her waist tightened. His tongue and teeth teased her breast, until she was gasping and arching. She was pure flame in his arms, everything he’d dreamed and more.
“That’s…wicked,” she whispered.
He smiled into her flesh and bit down softly. A delicious shudder rippled through her. Without conscious thought—he operated on animal instinct alone—his hand clenched in her filmy skirts and edged upward. He thirsted to learn the secrets of her body. He thirsted to claim her.
When he raised his head from her breast, she leaned against the wall as if her legs wouldn’t support her. Her eyes were closed, and the erratic breath escaped between her parted, swollen lips. The glimpse of straight white teeth behind reddened lips was devastatingly erotic.
He leaned in to nip her lower lip. When she opened, he swept his tongue inside, tasting her hot, wet sweetness. While his seeking hand inched closer to the hot, wet sweetness between her legs.
The scent of her arousal made his head swim. When his fingers brushed her bare thigh, she jerked in response. He deepened the kiss until the blood thundered in his ears.
How he ached to take her. She was trembling and eager, and God knew, he’d been ready for years.
His fingers pushed up the loose drawers, tracing a silky path to bliss. She shifted to give him access. When his fingers slid across soft, intimate curls, he groaned in infinite gratitude. She gave a muffled cry, and her grip on his shoulders tightened.
Giles cupped her mound and dipped his fingers in the liquid honey of her desire. She tipped her head back against the wall and bit her lip to muffle a long moan of surrender. The urge to proceed, to discover and possess all her mysteries, beat around him like a thousand wings.
He was so close, so close…