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Now, though? His prick was primed all right, but the rest of him was just as eager. Just as raw.

He released one arm to trail a finger down the rainbow discoloring her cheek and jaw. “Does it ache?”

The swelling was obvious. The hues had leached toward one side of her mouth. Would it hurt her if he took her lips as hard as he desired?

“N-not when you touch me like that.” A tremulous smile accompanied her words and she nuzzled into his fingers until his palm cupped her jaw.

In the cramped hallway ofChapman’s, near the back door leading to the alley, the space lit only by a couple withering candles, he drew her as close as he dared. Approached her bruised mouth with care, placed his lips upon hers and nibbled. Applied tiny kisses and lingering suction first to the bow of her upper lip and then to the plump one below. She wiggled within his embrace and his fingers drew downward from her face, wrapped around her torso and splayed across her upper back, pulling her against him.

A gentle, teasing flick of her tongue riled him faster than would have a blatant grope of his prick, the tantalizing swipe encouraging him to venture past her lips and kiss her without restraint.

Steady now, he cautioned himself.Do not frighten her off.

Frighten? Are you insane, man? Do you not feel the decadent scratches of her fingertips braving through your damp hair, gripping your scalp?

His answering moan confirmed he felt every nuance of her untutored, enthusiastic response. Every tentative foray of her tongue, meeting his—her excitement, matching his.

In moments, he was drowning, in over his head as passion engulfed caution, his arms pulling her tight against his chest, experiencing the twin mounds of her breasts plumped against his harder frame, her fervor equaling his as she opened her mouth and his tongue followed hers, their lips pressed tight together as they tasted and explored.

Who would have expected the first female to draw his eye in nearly a decade would prove combustible to his control? His impromptu visitor shredded it, of a certainty, given how his hands had started to roam. How the rest of him wanted to revel with her.Inher.

Too soon, his hips tilted, ready to grind his erection into her stomach—or better yet, lower, against the apex of her thighs. When her hips slanted, meeting his ill-mannered lurch, a blast of sensation rode up his cock and settled, heavily, in his loins. Again, he pressed into her, kissed her harder, taking the alluring flavor of her into his mouth, breathing her in, as her low moan met his ears.

The soft but ragged sound somehow bellowing some sense into his brain.

He was the one with experience. The one responsible for what came next—and it wasn’t going to behim, not inside of her. Not yet. Not this soon, no matter how much his blade and ballocks craved it. Craved her and the release she offered.

Because he wanted more than just a sensual Christmas Eve to remember.

He was starting to think he wanted it all.

Lucinda couldn’t catch her breath.

No matter. Who needed to breathe when life had given them such a boon? Her arms wrapped over his shoulders, crossed at the wrists, fingers delving through his thick hair and holding on. Keeping her steady as he plundered her mouth, stroked her tongue with his in such a way her abdomen angled toward him, found the hard ridge she’d not experienced before—

And found herself unable to stop rubbing against him.

Rubbing her fingers along his head. Her breasts, against his chest. Her tongue against his, within his mouth. Her most private, feminine self up and over, down and against, riding the firm pressure his body provided.

Had anything ever felt so good? So necessary?

Certainly, touching herself furtively beneath the covers, with the candles out and aloneness her solitary companion, had never—ever—felt so compelling, so—

Oh, you brazen tartlet, you—ruining your reputation on a whim?

She moaned, pushing away the intrusive voice, kissing him more fiercely, unwilling to relinquish—

“Luce. Lucinda,” he murmured against her mouth, the loss of his tongue a painful ache. “Lucinda, we need to stop.”

But his mouth retreated no farther, only gentled against hers, softened, pecked upon her quivering lips as his loins—and the rest of him—eased away, abandoned her needy self despite the whimper she couldn’t hold back.

“I know,” he said in a rasp meant to soothe, she was sure, though it did quite the opposite. “I know.”

His broad palms braced against her shoulders—intent on keeping them apart? His forehead rested against hers, lips withdrawing as well—and she wanted to cry. To yell that she wasn’t finished with him yet.

Her pelvis felt liquid and heavy, hollow without the press of him; her limbs pliable, as though the thick syrup of seduction ran through her instead of blood. And the insistent ache his body had roused grew stronger.

“I know, I do not want to halt either.” His lips lifted to her forehead, kissed, and made their way to her temple, the whispered words tickling her ear and causing her stomach to clench. “You make me forget myself.”