Page 51 of More or Less a Countess
He opened his mouth.
And that was when everything changed.
Chapter Thirteen
“In case it’s not yet apparent to you, Miss Somerset,” he whispered against her lips. “The answer is yes. Iamaroused, and becoming more so every moment.”
Violet let out a startled squeak when his tongue darted out and brushed against the seam of her lips. It caught her by surprise, and her first thought was to draw away from him, but his hand moved to her neck, and he sank his long fingers into her hair and held her still for his mouth. His grip was careful, but even as he held her gently his mouth was relentless, his tongue seeking entry with an insistence that left Violet dizzy and breathless.
“Open your mouth for me, sweetheart.”
His tongue swept over the seam of her lips again, and this time she opened for him—responding instinctively to his demand without a thought of denying him.
He drew back just a fraction—far enough so his lips were no longer touching hers, but so close she could feel the warmth of them still, a mere breath away.
“Do you feel that?” His voice rasped across her nerve endings like a cat’s tongue over sensitive skin, and a strangled laugh left his throat as she tried to catch his lips with hers again.
“That ache inside you, that makes you want my lips on yours? You feel it everywhere, don’t you, and it makes you wild. That’s arousal, desire, and when it’s like this, it sweeps everything before it. It’s not something an innocent young lady like you should trifle with, especially not with a man like me.”
His hands closed over her shoulders to ease her away from him, but Violet curled her fingers into his coat and held on with white knuckles, her mouth seeking his, until he gave up and let his hands slide to the arch of her back, pressing her tight against him with a helpless groan.
He took her lips harder then, his hands restless in her hair, tugging her closer as he opened his mouth over hers and surged inside. And oh, the taste of him, the sensation of his hot tongue wrapping around hers, invading every corner of her mouth. The lazy, languid feeling weighing down her limbs exploded into frantic heat, and the next thing Violet knew her own tongue had darted out to lick his bottom lip.
The moment he felt the tentative slide of her tongue, his entire body went rigid against hers. His chest vibrated with another groan, and his big hands wrapped around her waist again, tugging her closer. Violet was still on her knees on the carriage seat, and she lost her balance and fell against him, her boneless body sprawled on top of his, her breasts tight against his chest and her knees between his thighs.
He let out a quiet laugh, and Violet felt the reverberation of it low in her belly. “Well, that wasn’t quite what I intended, but now that you’re here…” He slid his palms from her waist up her back, his movements slow and deliberate. He paused to stroke her vertebrae, shaping the delicate grooves with sensitive fingertips, each caress more maddening than the last, until he reached the back of her head and tangled his hands in her hair. He was gentle, but he held her firmly, keeping her still as his desperate mouth took hers again and again.
Violet whimpered, her body driving her on, urging her to squirm closer to him so she could feel the hard expanse of his chest against the enflamed tips of her breasts. She slid her arms around his neck and pressed tighter against him, hardly knowing what she did as she was tugged into a relentless current of desire. There was no defense against it, no way to fight it—there was only him and his mouth against her neck, her throat, his panting breath as he nipped at her ear, then licked his tongue over the abraded skin.
Some ancient instinct in the dimmest, most primal part of Violet’s brain whispered a warning: this was something far more powerful than she’d ever imagined, and much too far out of her experience and control, but she could only let it sweep over her, toss her about until she either came out of it, limp and shaking, or drowned in it.
She didn’t even want to fight it. She only wantedhim.
His mouth and hands seemed to be everywhere at once, stroking, teasing, and caressing, and his hard body was shaking against hers. “I want you, so damn much.” He gripped her hips in his hands and shifted her on his lap so her legs were on either side of his splayed thighs. “Do you know what that means? Can you feel me?” He held her hard against him and made a subtle movement with his hips.
It was a restrained thrust only, but it was enough.
Violet’s breath caught in her throat as he moved against her, and she felt the hard length of him between her thighs, even through the heavy layers of her cloak and gown.
“Does that satisfy your curiosity about arousal, sweet? Or should I lower my falls so you can take a sketch for your book?” He sounded half angry, but even as he reproached her he moved his voracious mouth over her, licking and sucking at her neck.
“Or if that’s not good enough, I can keep thrusting against you until I reach the height of my pleasure, and you can take a sketch ofthat, so all the bluestockings in London will know what it looks like when a man becomes so lost to desire he forgets his honor, and shamelessly lets an innocent ride him until he comes.”
Violet bit back a plea, becauseyes, God help her, she wanted that, to feel him become frantic, to watch his face contort with pleasure.
She dropped her hands to his chest and leaned over him, fusing her lips to his as she twisted and writhed over his lap, gliding against him until he seemed to lose all control, one ragged breath after another catching in his throat as he whispered to her in broken words, begging her for…what?
For everything, and all of it at once. “Give me your mouth, sweet…yes, now touch me…” A harsh moan fell from his lips when her hands slid into his hair. “We can’t…we can’t…tell me to stop, sweetheart. Push me away…”
But Violet couldn’t push him away. She could only hold onto him, the one solid thing in a world that had suddenly gone dangerously atilt. She dug her fingers into the hard, tense muscles of his shoulders and back, and nipped hard at his bottom lip.
He groaned, but in the next moment he tore his mouth from hers with a gasp, and his head fell back against the carriage seat. “This isn’t…we have to stop.” But even as he said the words, his hands tightened on her hips to keep her on his lap, as if he couldn’t quite bear to release her yet. “I was trying to warn you not to tempt a man…but I didn’t know I’d…I had no idea I’d want you so much.” His eyes softened as he gazed at her. “I never should have touched you.”
Violet touched a finger to his lips. “You didn’t. I touched you.”
He gazed at her for a moment, with eyes such a dark gray now they were nearly black.
Violet continued to trace his lips, and something tugged hard at her chest as she watched her fingers stroking him. It felt like…
