For the first time in his life, he didn’t know if he could restrain himself. He wanted her so much. Flattening her breasts against his chest, he tugged her closer. Clothes became an unbearable barrier.
He must stop. He must stop.
With shocking suddenness, her arms snaked around his neck. She released a strangled whimper and kissed him back with frenzied passion. Her tongue stabbed into his mouth, danced with his in dizzying fervor. He growled with masculine satisfaction and dropped his hands to her buttocks, pulling her into his erection. The sensation, even through her skirts, nearly blew off the top of his head.
Their earlier kisses had been powerful. This . . . this was like being crushed in an earthquake, whirled away in a flooded river, blasted into the sky. He’d always known she was extraordinary. But what flared now promised to fling him, the famous debauchee, into a universe beyond his experience.
Reluctantly he wrenched his lips from hers. Some minuscule trace of reason yet remained. He was mad for her, but he couldn’t take her here on the ground. Not her first time. He swung her into his arms and swiftly mounted the steps. She was restless, touching him, kissing his neck, shaking and gasping with the desire that crackled between them.
It was darker inside the summerhouse. He felt a momentary yen for light. He longed to look into her eyes at this moment and know her lost to passion. As was he.
Next time. . .
His arms firmed around her and he kissed her again. His heart thundered so fast, his senses were so crammed with her scent and taste, he wasn’t sure he’d survive the night. This was what he’d perceived in her from the start. This voracious goddess. A woman who matched his passion ounce for ounce.
More by luck than calculation—calculation was beyond his ken—he bumped into the cushioned bench circling the room. With roughness born of urgency, he lowered Antonia and came down over her, shoving up her skirts as he straddled her.
The voice that insisted he take care shrieked in protest.
He was deaf to its cries. The roar in his blood swamped everything, caution, plots, even this squeak from his long disregarded conscience. He’d waited so long for Antonia. It felt like an eon. He’d have her and he’d have her now.
She didn’t lie quiescent under him. Her hands tugged and tore at his clothing, rubbed his flanks, curved around to press into his buttocks.
His hand unsteady, he stroked up her thigh to the sleek, silky cleft. To his wondering astonishment, his fingers encountered nothing all the way but hot, bare skin. Reckless Miss Smith wasn’t wearing drawers. Thank the Lord Almighty. She must have guessed hindering undergarments would end up shredded on the floor.
Reckless indeed. With breathtaking eagerness, she curled her legs around his hips. A hot drift of her musky scent made him crazy. Her body breathed its longing for him. His nostrils flared to draw her female essence deep into his lungs.
“Wait . . .” he grunted, trying to wrench his shirt over his head.
“No,” she panted, angling up toward him. “No waiting.”
She seized his shirt and ripped it down the front. Her palms flattened against his heaving chest. She pressed her mouth across his torso in biting kisses that shot his arousal higher. Her teeth scraped his nipple and he released a hoarse groan.
Hell’s bells, she really would kill him.
He stroked her deeply, thrusting a finger into creamy heat. She was so tight. The searing prospect of that snug passage closing hard around his cock made him shake. On a strangled cry of pleasure, she pushed into his hand, demanding more, demanding everything.
Slowly, testing her, he eased a second finger inside, the first knuckle, then pressing up to the second knuckle. Her passage clenched and a flood of hot desire drenched his hand.
Again he struggled to slow down. Vaguely he remained aware of the need to coax her into climax, to prepare her with his hand before he thrust inside. But he’d moved past the point where he could wait. Her womanly scent intoxicated him, made him drunk till next Sunday. Her body tensed around his fingers. Her incoherent litany as she scattered eager kisses across his chest indicated she wanted him now.
“Stop me,” he groaned, hardly aware of what he said. “Stop me before I hurt you.”
“No,” she moaned, wriggling closer to his hand with shuddering impatience. His fingers curled in a subtle caress that made her buck. “Never.”
She tangled her hands in his hair and dragged him down for another agitated kiss. He’d never witnessed such passion in a woman. Every breath emerged from her throat as a sob. Her need fed his, made it unbearable.
He stroked her once more, relishing the succulent tug of her muscles, then withdrew. She deserved better from him, but he could resist no longer. With unsteady hands, he tore at his breeches, desperate to free himself.
For God’s sake, man, go easy. She’s a virgin. You’ll split her in two if you don’t control yourself.
He was past heeding anything beyond arousal. She sank her teeth hard into his shoulder, inflicting real pain that stoked the blaze of desire. Blackness filled his head. He must have her. He tightened his buttocks, sucked a rattling breath through his clenched teeth, and thrust hard between her slender thighs.
He went deep on a perfect, smooth slide. She closed tight around him and arched on a guttural cry. He shut his eyes, the wonder of finally being inside her drowning his overloaded senses in honey.
Heat. Desire. Completion. She held him inside her as if she never wanted to let him go. Time, the world, everything he’d been before, everything he promised to become disappeared into one radiant moment of sublime communion.
She was perfect. She was everything he’d dreamed she’d be. She was his. At last.