Page 45 of The Rake’s Convenient Bride

God, such a sound could fell a man.

He sucked her full lower lip into his mouth, scraping it gently with his teeth before freeing it to tease her with his tongue once more.

This time she met the probe of his tongue with a curious parry of her own. Her arms curled around his back, drawing her toward him, arching against his body where his lust burned like the Spanish summer sun.

His body was on fire with longing for her, the breath caught in his chest against the thundering of his heart, and his cock was so damn hard, it nearly hurt.

“Touch me,” Elizabeth said against his mouth.

He froze. Had she really said such a thing?

She arched against him again. “Touch me, please.”

A voice in the back of his mind reminded him they were on the patio, where any person could walk out and find them in such a compromised position. But he had never been one to follow caution…

One touch.

That’s all he would do.

His mouth trailed down the slender column of her neck, to where the corset pushed her firm breasts up toward his eager lips. He ran his fingertips along the low edge of the corset, whispering against petal soft skin.

Elizabeth whimpered, pushing her generous breasts toward him.

Jasper played his fingertips over that corset, hating how it hid her from him. Wanting to see her. To taste her.

Putting his thumb against her sensual breast, he nudged the fabric down with his other hand, freeing one rosy nipple which immediately pebbled in the cold. He leaned over her, closing his mouth around it, tracing the peaked shape with his tongue before flicking it in a way that made her grip his head to her bosom.

She was a responsive lover, the type he loved the most, whose gasps and moans told him what she liked. So that he could do even more.

Her hips were arching toward him, and he obligingly eased his knee between her legs.

He knew the moment her sex grazed over his thigh for she moaned with great delight and shifted over him again and again.

How he longed to touch even more. To sample that sweet place so desperate for relief.

But instead, he straightened and carefully tucked her breast back into her corset.

Her chest heaved with her frenzied breathing and her eyes sparkled like diamonds of desire in the darkness. “Please…” she whispered.

With a groan, he captured her lips once more, unable to stop as he knew he should.

She kissed him back with enthusiastic zeal that pushed away any rational thought. He drew the glove off his right hand and caught a fistful of her skirts with the left.

He kissed her with abandon, feeling the smooth fullness of her lips on his, the warmth of her breath as she moaned into his mouth. Meanwhile, he drew up her skirt with one hand, just to the knee, just enough to slip his hand beneath.

His fingers found the smooth silk of her stockings, the glossy length of ribbon tying it just above her knee, likely a perfect match to the one in the pocket of his robe at home.

How he wished they were alone, that he could pull off those ribbons, free those stockings, and pull the dress from her body, revealing all of her to him.

But this would do for now.

Her skin was hot against his cold hands, smooth as gossamer. She panted as his fingers crept higher up her legs, seeking the source of her need.

He reached the apex of her thighs, to the cleft in between. With the lightest of touches, he dragged his fingertips over her.

She gasped against his lips and her knees buckled. He grabbed her with his left arm even as his fingertips stroked against her once more, this time more firmly.

A whimper sounded in her throat.