Page 35 of A Scandal In July
“You’re not just offering to marry me because I’ve been compromised, are you?” she murmured with a laugh, pressing feverish kisses along his jaw, his neck.
“Nobody except our families knows we’re here,” he panted between kisses. “So obviously not.”
“Pity,” Lenore sighed. “Because I’m not at all averse to being compromised, you know. In fact, I think I’d quite like it.”
He stopped kissing her and rose up on his forearms to study her. His eyes were almost black with desire. “Are you sure?”
Lenore nodded. She’d never been more certain of anything in her life. She wanted him with a desperation that was a fire in her veins. And she trusted him not to love her and leave her.
“I’ve been dreaming of you kissing me, touching me, for months,” she breathed. “Every time you looked at me from across a crowded room, I wanted to know what it would be like to have you make love with me.”
“Wicked girl,” he said softly. “But you deserve silk sheets and a feather mattress, not grass and—”
Lenore arched her neck and kissed him again. “I deserve you,” she murmured. “All of you. Right now. I don’t want to wait.”
He shook his head, but his lips quirked in that teasing way she adored. “Oh, love. Your wish is my command.”
He lifted his body off hers and she frowned in confusion, only to smile as he caught her hand and pulled her away from the shore and into the privacy of the trees.
“Just in case they decide to come and rescue us, after all.”
As soon as they were safely hidden, he caught her in his arms and pulled her against his body for a kiss that set her heart racing all over again. The mossy grass was soft beneath her as he lowered her to the ground, his hands roving over her body as if he was searching for a flag hidden on her person.
Lenore gasped as his lips slid down her throat and over her collarbone, then lower, over the curves of her breasts. The slight stubble of his jaw raised goosebumps on her sensitive skin and her belly clenched in excitement.
His tongue swirled over her nipple a moment before he took it in his mouth, and she grasped his hair as his wicked tongue laved and circled, teasing it into a tight little bud.
“Rhys!”
“God, you’re so beautiful,” he murmured against her skin, his hand cupping her other breast, so she arched up into his touch like a cat. “I’ve wanted you from the very first moment I saw you, and I haven’t stopped for a single day since.”
His mouth nipped and teased.
She’d suspected making love would be nice, but she’d never dreamed it would feel likethis. Hot and cold, like a fever, a clawing hunger in her belly and a pulsing throb between her legs.
“Please,” she panted, not entirely sure what she was asking for, but desperate for more, all the same.
His low chuckle made her shiver. “Patience, my sweet. I don’t want to hurt you. We’re not going to rush.”
He sat up and tugged off his jacket, then his cravat, and tossed them aside, and she ran her hands greedily over his shoulders, then stroked his chest, loving the twitch of his muscles beneath her palms.
“Shirt off,” she demanded, and he laughingly obliged.
His chest was even more impressive than his brother’s, all muscled curves and intriguing ridges thanks to his boxing regimen, and Lenore couldn’t resist pressing her lips to the flat plane of his pectoral. She flicked her own tongue playfully across his tawny male nipple, reasoning that whatever he’d done to her would feel equally nice to him, and was rewarded with a deep groan and another ravenous kiss.
He untied the lacing at the back of her dress with deft fingers, then undid her stays, and his reverent gaze roved over her body as she wriggled out of the fabric.
Lenore’s cheeks heated in embarrassment to be left in just her sheer shift, but the hot look in his eyes as he looked down at her made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
“One day I’m going to take you swimming in this, just so I can see you looking like a mermaid,” he breathed, his hands skimming over her ribs and down the outside of her thighs.
She arched restlessly. “And I’m going to make you work for me in the butterfly house without your shirt, just so I can ogle you in the most shameless manner.”
His brows quirked. “How scandalous.”
He moved down her body, his palms skimming her breasts, then shaping the curve of her waist. Lenore opened her legs, desperate for him to touch her there, and his deft fingers slid up under the hem of her shift against the smooth skin of her thighs.
His eyes were almost black as he looked at her in wonder. “When you were up on my shoulders, all I could think about was pressing my mouth right here.”