Chapter Thirteen
Heat stroked over her legs, up to her knees and to Frederica’s inner thighs, slowly rousing her to wakefulness. The pleasure evoked from that skillful caress poured through her like molten lava. She sighed, a soft sound of welcoming. Those heated fingertips drew circles on the inside of her thigh, encouraging the ache low in her belly to build slowly. Her heart was beating so erratically that she was having a difficult time steadying her breathing.
A kiss was pressed to her shoulder before it turned into a small bite. She gasped, and at that instance, those fingers found the opening of her drawers and slipped inside to brush against her womanly sex. Frederica jolted as if she had been shocked as a burst of heat spread through her entire body, centering at her breast that suddenly got heavy and achy.
The tension in her belly tightened, and she moaned at the exquisite sensation that built. The man behind her stiffened. “Fucking hell, this is not a dream.”
The languorous feeling vanished at that shocked curse, and her eyes flew wide. “Good heavens!”
The bid dipped, and she rolled over to see the marquess jumping from its confines as if it had caught fire. He stood in the center of the room, a tight grimace on his features, his head tilted to the ceiling, his hands akimbo on his hips.
And…oh! Something was jutting out from his hips, tenting the banyan. Frederica hurriedly pushed from the bed, her chest heaving.
“What are you doing in here?” he demanded tightly, marching over to the glass he had set down earlier on his side table to take a long swallow.
“That you do not recall is says you should drink no more!”
He slashed his eyes to her and froze. “You are very rumpled, Sprite, and you were in my bed…and if you know what I wanted to do, still want to do…you would be running from my damn room!”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Have you forgotten everything you said to me?” Even her confession of falling in love with him.
“I imbibed too much,” he said impatiently, looking steadily at her. “Now, why were you in my bed?”
“We fell on it, and you hugged me to you, refusing to let me go, saying you’ve always wanted to spend a night holding me.”
The coolness disappeared as his eyes flared wide with surprise and hunger.
“I must have been more addled than I realized.”
Suddenly furious, she poked him in the chest. “Or perhaps you were honest with yourself about wanting me. Is it so wrong, Percy? To crave me. That you would painfully deny yourself and me?”
It was passionate anger that leaped into his eyes. “Yes,” he hissed. “I am responsible for you until you are married. Should I compromise my honor, my sense of duty and responsibility because I want to bed you? Your brother left you in my care with a strict understanding that I find you a suitable husband and see you happily situated. I want to be done with the obligation of finding you a husband before the season ends. That is the only thing I should be focused on. Not dreams of wanting to sheath you on my cock and rip screams of pleasure from you.”
She stood even closer to him. “And what about want, Percy? You forget that I am a woman with needs and wants of my own, and those desires are not directed or owned by someone who has not yet offered for me. Until I am wedded, do I not have the right to do what I want?”
“No,” he growled. “You damn well do not!”
Then he hauled her against him and kissed her, it seemed with all the pent-up passion he had been holding back.
* * *
When he died,Percy suspected he was going purgatory, simply for the mere truth that he was helpless to stop the hunger storming his soul for the woman wrapped in his arms. He did not want to stop. As he hauled her against his body, he gave into the tormenting hunger that had lived with him for months.
She wrapped her slim hands around his neck, stretched onto her toes, and returned his kiss with a fervor that roused him to a powerful degree. His cock was so damn hard it felt like iron. Percy lifted her and almost laughed in the minx's mouth when she hooked her legs at his hips, and he could feel every inch of her delectable curves. He wanted to debauch and ravish and also worship and cherish. Ripping his mouth from hers, he breathed raggedly, resting his forehead against hers.
Blood thundered through his veins. He cupped the curve of her cheek, his thumb smoothing over her lips. “Freddie….damn it. I have no will to resist.”
She was everything he wanted, everything he had thought of for weeks…months.
“I do not want you to resist me. My entire being seems to be filled with wanting and an almost painful hunger. No one has ever made me feel this way, Percy, no one,” she whispered, touching him. Her fingers were like a butterfly caress against his cheek.
Her voice was breathless, sensual, and it struck a chord inside him. Her face was a study in pleasure and anticipation, her eyes glittering with hunger and trust, and he couldn’t look away from her beguiling loveliness.
A wave of tenderness passed through him, and holding her to his chest, Percy took her mouth again. This time he gentled the kiss, slanting his mouth over hers with sweet carnality instead of a tempestuous passion. She whimpered against his mouth, shifting restlessly in his arms. He yearned to stroke his fingers over the soft curves over her body, feelings her reaction. Percy was also starving for the taste of her. He kissed her over and over, the hunger burning too fast and too hard. It did not feel like enough. And with a sense of shock, he realized he could kiss this woman in his arms every day, and it would still not be enough. Percy felt shaken on a level he’d never experienced before
I just might need forever with you.
Clasping her firmly, he went down on a knee on the bed and eased her down on the large, padded surface. At the base of her throat, a pulse beat and swelled. Percy raked his teeth over that spot before tenderly kissing her flesh.