He peeled them from her body. She ought to feel embarrassed or self-conscious, but she didn’t have the room for it beneath the burn of desire. He was too lovely to look at, too lovely to touch. And when at last, he tugged down her dress and removed her corset and touched the bared skin of her décolletage, she felt as though she were flying.
“Thaddeus.” His name came to her lips on a gasp.
He lifted his head from her neck, where he had been trailing kisses. “Yes, lass?”
She clutched at his shoulders. “Don’t stop.” She hadn’t meant to say his name, hadn’t meant to halt him.
He took her mouth again, this kiss victorious and hungry. She helped him wiggle her dress off her hips and lay it haphazardly beneath her. Her chemise went over her head, necessitating an end to their kiss, but the moment it crested her hair, he returned, pressing his body full against hers.
It felt marvelously wicked. His hard chest abraded her nipples, making something inside her coil tight. She clung to him, feeling his breeches still between them covering the hard length of him. He started to rock into her as they kissed, pressing his length against her sex. She saw stars across her vision. She lifted her hips to match him. She needed more.
“Thaddeus.” This time, his name was a plea.
He ran his hands and lips over her body. Cupping her breasts, teasing their peaks. She was going mad for want of him.
“Thaddeus.”
He chuckled and raised his head, a satisfied grin on his swollen lips. “Yes, lass?”
“I need more. Please, I…” She didn’t have the words to describe it. She might die of mortification if he made her ask further.
He caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. The day’s stubble tickled her sensitive flesh. She squirmed beneath him, rubbing up against that insistent bulge that made them both gasp for breath. He caught her gaze and held it, holding himself aloft on one hand. Gently, he brought her fingers to the button of his fall. He left them there and leaned forward to brush his lips across her collarbone.
“You are so sensual and beautiful.”
His voice was rough, almost indecipherable, his brogue was so thick. She started to pluck at the buttons, fumbling until she loosened them one by one, and his fall gaped open. His length was restrained by his drawers beneath, but she was emboldened now. She slipped her hand beneath the cloth until she found and freed him to the air.
He shut his eyes and held himself still. His jaw was clenched, the muscles in his arms bulging as he held his weight off of her. Perdie was entranced. She explored his velvety length, never once taking her eyes off of his face. This part of him was thick and hot. He looked in torment, but he didn’t ask her to stop.
“Thaddeus?”
He cracked open his eyelids.
“Now, I think.” Her words barely escaped above a whisper. He caught them on her lips, tasting her as he slid his hand in between their bodies. This kiss sent the pit of her stomach into a wild swirl. Perdie felt it then, that this moment would change her…them forever. A hot ache rose in her throat, but instead of pushing him away, she hugged him closer to her body.
His fingers seared a path over her belly and lower. Perdie’s thighs trembled at the heated trail of his fingers over her aching sex. She started to close her legs instinctively, but his thumb brushed over the bud at her apex. She fell back against the chaise, arching her hips to meet him as pleasure coursed through her. When he stopped, she whimpered. She was beyond words.
He lowered himself down her body, and she rose onto her elbows in confusion. She drew in a harsh breath, then released a moan filled with need when he kissed her in a place she hadn’t dare dreamed could be kissed so carnally.
Perdie twisted beneath the teasing flicks of his tongue. Then screamed when he sucked her nub of pleasure, gently then strongly. Hot and wicked pleasure coiled in her belly, almost frightening in its intensity. With a jolt, Perdie realized her thighs trembled fiercely as if her body could not contain such ecstasy.
Perdie’s elbows collapsed when he did something with his teeth…and then his tongue, and then his fingers. She cried out, hips arching into his mouth. Finally, the tight band of terrible pleasure low in her belly shattered, and waves of bliss flowed through her.
As he spread her legs wider, she reached for him. Pulling him to her lips for another kiss. Her taste on his lips was sweet and intoxicating. But it didn’t distract from the press of his member poised at her delicate flesh. His breath hissed from his teeth as he slid into her inch by inch, a slow, torturous invasion that made her breath catch at the sharp, painful feel. She felt full and stretched in a way Perdie did not think she liked. Perdie whimpered, closing her eyes as her body stretched to accept his steady penetration. But Thaddeus’s thumb was still doing wicked things between her legs, and she couldn’t bring herself to protest.
It felt too wonderful…crazily, recklessly wonderful.
Then with a twist of his hips, he was buried deeply. Perdie stilled. And he paused with her, a welcomed respite as she grew accustomed to the feel of him inside of her.
With her chest heaving and her breathing heavy and uneven from the assault of pleasure-pain, he cupped her face and peered into her eyes. Passion, longing, and an emotion she could not place seared her before he kissed her, adding another sensation. This kiss was hungry, but slow and savoring. It sent waves of heat straight to her core, which contracted around his member with each pulse. He responded to that by undulating his hips. She clung to his shoulders, digging her fingers into his back as he quickened his pace. It felt good. Unspeakably good. She lifted her hips on instinct, trying to urge him faster.
“God, Perdie, you’ll undo me.”
The words, whispered brokenly into her ear, pierced her with heat and want. She watched the play of emotions across his face—such arousal and tenderness.
“Is that bad?” she whispered, touching his mouth with shaking fingers. “For you have perfectly unraveled me.”
“No, not bad at all.” He captured her mouth for a rough kiss as he thrust faster. When he broke away for breath, he groaned. “No. God, you’re perfect.”
He leaned forward onto one forearm and adjusted the angle of one of her legs, lifting it higher. As he drove deeper into her—over and over, suddenly, she didn’t have the breath for speaking. She strained against him, searching for something elusive that lay just out of reach.
And then she found it. Her entire body tightened, and she thrust her hips up higher as she convulsed with pleasure. She cried out, holding him tight until he joined her—only Thaddeus pulled from her body at the very last minute, muffling his groan against her neck.
His body was heavy on hers, pressing her into the chaise longue padding. It ought to have been an uncomfortable position, but the heat of his body and the warmth of satisfaction combined to lull her toward sleep. She was nearly there when his breath evened out, and he pressed a tender kiss to her neck.
Thaddeus shifted to lay alongside her, rather than atop her. When she shivered at the loss of his heat, he found her chemise and enfolded her in the cloth. Then he tucked her close to his side, his arm around her waist and his chest like a furnace at her back.
Neither spoke, and the lull of the steadily falling rain pulled Perdie into slumber. Ravishment was exhausting, she thought with a silly smile curving her mouth.
Just before she fell asleep, he gave a muffled whisper. “Dinna worry, lass. I’ll do right by you and marry you.”