Page 69 of A Remarkable Rogue

To her delight, he shrugged it off his shoulders and tossed it away. She yanked his shirt out of his waistband and slipped her hands beneath it. She explored the hard ridges of his stomach, and his muscles rippled beneath her seeking fingertips.

“Good,” she purred.

His breath came fast and shallow, and his heartbeat raced beneath her fingers as she reached higher up his front to touch his chest.

“Now remove your shirt.”

Pulling down his braces, he tugged it off over his head and dropped it to the floor. He was bare from the waist up, with his arousal very evident from the waist down.

Unable to touch him enough to satisfy the growing need inside her, she rubbed her hand over his chest and stroked the warm skin stretched smooth over the hard muscles beneath. She paused to flick her fingertips over his flat nipples and reveled in the tremor that pulsed through him at such a simple touch.

“Verygood, Captain.”

“Sydney.” Her name was a warning growl at his lips.

She was pressing her luck, she knew, by poking at a sleeping lion. But the temptress inside her was enjoying this too much to stop. “And my next order…you will let me kiss you. Everywhere.”

He shuddered his acquiescence, and with her pulse racing, Sydney leaned forward to place her mouth against his chest. He trembled beneath the delight of her lips on his body, of her tongue tasting his flesh. She followed with her mouth everywhere her hands had caressed him before. Then she dared to close her lips over his nipple and suck.

He buried his hands in her hair but didn’t set her away. Not even when she kissed lower across his abdomen, then lower to swirl her tongue teasingly inside his navel, and then lower still…

She unfastened his fall and freed him from the tight material. Sweet Lord, he was magnificent, and she shamelessly licked her lips at the sight of him.

“Sydney.” This time, her name emerged as a pleading groan.

She brushed her fingertips along his hard length, mesmerized by the combination of soft skin and steely hardness. Her thighs clenched at the memory of having him inside her last night, stroking her from within, and filling her completely with man and heat and need. When he’d driven himself to release inside her, the exquisite sensation had simply torn her breath away.

She moaned and lowered her head to close her lips around him.

Gently but persistently, she drew him deeper into her mouth and swirled her tongue around his engorged tip. Soft groans came from him and encouraged her to be even bolder, even more wanton and free, so she fluttered her fingertips along his shaft in a teasing caress as her mouth increased the intensity of its sucking.

He rolled back his head and whispered incoherently. His hands tightened in her hair, tangling her strands around his fingers and fisting her waves against his palms.

Excitement pulsed through her, and she thrilled with the power she held over him. Her hand tightened around his length and stroked, and each caress made his body shake harder until a bead formed at the tiny slit at his tip. She licked it away. He tasted of masculine salty sweetness.Delicious.

But it was only a small taste, and she craved more.

She took him deep into her mouth. A moan of aching arousal rose from her throat when his cock flexed against her tongue. She suckled hard, her lips firm and relentless around him, as her tongue flicked and swirled over his swollen tip.

He groaned with each strong pull of her lips. He was close to release, and so was she from simply having her mouth on him. Her own body quivered, and evidence of her arousal for him soaked the throbbing folds between her legs. She felt the restraint in him begin to give. He would lose control at any moment and come inside her mouth, surrendering control to her.

As if reading her mind, he took her by the shoulders and pulled her up onto his lap. She fell against his bare chest as her legs straddled him.

He placed his hot mouth against her ear and rasped out in a half order, half warning, “You first.”

Oh yes! Love me…please love me…But before her trembling lips could moan out the words, his large hands encircled her waist and pulled her forward against the tip of his cock. He thrust his hips up hard and buried himself deep inside her.

“Nate!” she cried out as she was swept up into the sweet, rocking rhythm engulfing them. She pulsed her hips against his to meet each exquisite rise and fall beneath her.

He grabbed the hem of her shirt and lifted it up her body, over her head and off, baring her breasts to him. His mouth swooped to capture one, and even as she continued to buck her hips against his, he suckled at her nipple with the same determined ferocity that she had sucked at him.

She shuddered with a gasping breath as she arched in his arms. So close…her body was so close to shattering, her heart so close to breaking.

He’d sworn to protect her, but who could protect her from him? All her life, she’d opened her heart and been hurt. To Rowland, who promised in front of the bishop always to love and honor her only to degrade her with his prostitutes and insults, sometimes with his fists. To her parents, who sold her for a title. To Michael, who told her he loved her but then hurt her most of all by dying and leaving her behind.

After all that, if she gave her heart to Nate and he broke it too, how would she ever survive?

She wrapped her arms around his neck so she could raise and lower herself against him in her own rhythm, her own controlled pace. He wanted her to surrender, but despite digging her fingernails into his shoulders with want and need, she simply couldn’t. She would surrender her body but never her heart.