“Delicious.”
“Do you often lick icing from ladies’ fingers?”
“You are my first.”
Her eyes glowed with mysterious heat. “I very much like the sound of that…oh, you missed a spot.”
He flicked his tongue over her knuckles. “Do you know what happens to ladies who tease rakes?”
The laughter vanished from her eyes and her breath hitched. “They are mercilessly ravished?”
Bloody hell. She was a beguiling blend of beauty, passion, laughter, and warmth. And he wanted her with him…forever. Nicholas reached for her, and she willingly tumbled into his arms.
“Are you certain you want this?” he asked gruffly, silently pleading for her to say yes. If she refused, it would damn near kill him, but he would let her go.
“I want you, Nicholas,” she said on a breath that trembled. “More than I have ever wanted anything in my whole life.”
Groaning, he crushed her mouth under his, and her lips opened under his, hot and wet and urgent. And so damn perfect she slayed his soul.
CHAPTER12
“So sweet,” Nicholas groaned against her mouth. “By God, I want you.”
Cressida twined her hands around his nape into the silky curls above his collar. “It is the cake,” she whispered, hugging him closely to her. Nicholas tasted of everything she had not known was missing from her life and heart.
He kissed her deeper, gliding his tongue overs hers in a sensual exploration that was tender and arousing and wildly exciting. His deft fingers slid under her back and began unfastening her gown. A wild yearning broke open inside Cressida. She helped Nicholas remove her clothes in between kisses that intoxicated her senses and left Cressida shaking with nerves and need.
He broke their kiss and stepped back. She stared at him helplessly while he removed his waistcoat, cravat, and shirt, dropping them casually on the carpeted floor. He held her stare as he removed his shoes and trousers. Nicholas was powerfully built, with broad shoulders and firmly muscled thighs, stomach, and chest. His manhood was thickly erect, and she bit her lips against the virginal uncertainty that tried to rear its head.
“I have never wanted with such fierceness, Cressida. I do not say those words frivolously. The need I feel for you damn well scares me because it is for far more than your passion. Far more.”
The naked hunger in his gaze warmed her. She stepped toward him with an incoherent whisper of need. When their mouths met again, it was as if they were in perfect unison. Nicholas tumbled her to the bed, and she laughed against his mouth, willingly falling with him against the soft depths of the bedding. His thumbs brushed over her nipples, and they pebbled hard. She arched toward him, pressing her aching flesh more firmly into his palms.
He kissed every inch of her skin. The care he took to rouse her senses was beyond anything Cressida could have imagined. Somehow she had anticipated the pleasure he had introduced her body to on that chaise. This felt different…deeper…and she did not understand it. Inside the lust, tenderness sparked and expanded within her chest. It urged her to reach for him, and touch his body, a sense of awe filling her at his male beauty.
His head dipped, and his lips caressed fleetingly along her jaw to her ear, where they lingered. He worshiped at the underside of her breast, never touching her nipples until she arched against him in tempestuous demand. Nicholas’s kisses surrounded Cressida. She was enveloped by warmth, taste, and scent. Heat pooled low, a throbbing ache rising between her legs and in her breasts.
She nearly shot off the bed as his tongue swirled over her belly, then against the hot flesh between her thighs. Nicholas had promised that to linger over her body he would need hours. She hadn’t understood and merely thought he flirted. Her mind hazed under each lick and nip of his mouth over her skin. It felt like fire, searing away her sense of propriety and what a lady should or should not do. Naked, she was splayed before him, sweat slicking her skin, the sheets tangled in her fingers and his dark head deep between her legs as he ate at her sex with decadent greed. His clever, wicked tongue ignited a pulsating ache between her thighs.
He rose above her, his eyes gleaming with lust and tenderness. “Touch yourself.”
“Where?” she asked, pretending her heart wasn’t thudding wildly against her ribs.
He flicked a finger over the folds of her sex and up to her pearl.
“Right here, on your clitoris.”
“Surely that is too wicked,” she whispered.
He guided her fingertips to her nub, working her finger over it in a slow, circular motion, and she gasped at the deliciously wanton sensation.
“Do not stop,” he growled. “I want you to soak my cock with your passion when I enter you.”
Her cheeks flamed but she did not let up on her ministrations. Fire seemed to race over her skin, and Cressida felt swallowed by desire. The wetness he wanted pulsed from her in waves and his low laugh was rich with carnal satisfaction.
Cressida sobbed. Nicholas’s fingers were everywhere on her body, touching her breasts, stroking down her stomach, at times joining her fingers to rub over her clitoris with raw friction that had her shaking and crying out his name.
His heavy weight blanketed hers and the hot, swollen tip of his arousal pressed against her, and he surged heavily into her body. Nicholas caught her startled cry in a kiss that soothed and gentled her enough so that she relaxed against his fiery invasion. Where they connected ached and hurt, but he reached between them, sliding his fingers over hers once more to work over her nub. Pleasure swept through her in a hot, unrelenting rush, and she mewled against his mouth.