Page 36 of A Scandal In July

He bent his head and kissed her on the inside of her leg, just above her knee, then higher.

Lenore grabbed his hair to try to drag him even closer, and felt the warm puff of his laughing exhale against her thigh.

“I wanted to taste you so badly,” he groaned, his breath fanning her most intimate place.

He kissed her again, even higher, and she squirmed at the delicious sensation. She’d seen such scandalous acts depicted in erotic engravings, but the reality was even better than the theory. Her eyes rolled back in her head as his fingers slid against her folds, teasing and circling, and when he leaned forward and added his tongue, she arched into his touch, trying to find some relief from the coiling tension inside her.

He made a hum of pleasure against her and the vibration made her shudder, and then his finger slidinsideher, and she gasped at the strange sensation.

“All right?” he breathed.

She nodded. “Yes. It’s just . . . different, that’s all.”

And then his hand began to move, slowly, sliding in and out of her, and the heat and the tension increased even more.

“Oh! That’s very nice.”

He rose up and took her lips again, and his tongue delved into her mouth in the same wicked, insistent rhythm as his finger. Every inch of her body felt hot and restless, and she held her breath, tensing, moving against him, reaching for something just out of reach.

“Let go, Lenore. That’s it. Come for me,” Rhys growled against her neck, and the pleasure burst over her like a great wave. She tilted back her head and groaned in astonishmentas pulses of blissful relief suffused her whole body, happiness exploding like fireworks behind her closed eyelids.

“Rhys!”

He chuckled against her temple at her astonishment, and she relaxed against the grass, entirely spent. She’d never been so relaxed, so boneless in her life.

So that was the mysterious ‘crisis’ she’d read about in books. How glorious.

A satisfied smile spread across her face, and she opened her eyes to find Rhys gazing down at her, a pleased, tender expression on his face.

“I had no idea,” she breathed. “It was like running and jumping off a waterfall, and then splashing into the most glorious pool of happiness.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you sure you’re not secretly a pink river dolphin in disguise?”

“Just a man.” Rhys pressed a kiss to her flushed cheek, then another to her lips. “Who happens to love doing that to you. Do you think you can bear any more?”

Lenore widened her eyes. She knew he hadn’t found his own pleasure yet, and to her surprise her body tingled with renewed excitement at the thought of him joining his body with hers.

“I want you, Rhys Davies. Body and soul. Make me yours.”

Her words seemed to release some pent-up spring inside him, because he groaned and pressed a passionate kiss to her lips. “God, I really want to be gentle, to make this good for you, but I’ve wanted you for so long. I don’t think I can wait.”

She stroked her fingers through his hair. “Then don’t. Show me what to do.”

“Let me see you. All of you. Please.” His voice was hoarse, and wonderfully desperate, and her heart sang at his indisputable desire.

With fumbling hands she helped him pull her shift up and over her head and she lay back, unashamed to lie before himnaked. The cool breeze peaked her already-sensitive nipples and the dappled sunlight made shifting patterns across her stomach and chest.

He swallowed, then rolled to his back and discarded his breeches, and she sucked in a breath as she finally saw him naked.

He was beautiful, an animal in its prime, as sleek and as lean as a panther. His skin was tawny, and his limbs all flowed in muscled lines. His cock stood to attention against his flat belly, and when he wrapped his hand around it and gave it a squeeze, Lenore reached out, desperate to touch him herself.

She’d never seen an aroused man before, and she was intrigued by the difference between his body and her own. Men were such strange creatures.

He let her fingers close around him, and the contrast between velvet-soft skin and iron-hard muscle was fascinating.

“That’s enough of that,” he half groaned, half laughed, when she gave him a little stroke. “Or this will be over far too soon.”

He settled himself over her, taking most of his weight on his elbows on either side of her head, and the sensation of his big body against hers, his ridged belly and strong thighs pressing her down into the earth, made her breathless with excitement.

She widened her legs to let him in, but when his cock nudged against her entrance he paused. “Still sure? We can wait until we’re wed, if you like.”