Page 20 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses
“You’re killing me with that look, Princess.”
She laughed, pressing back into the bedpost. “I’m sorry, but you’re bloody beautiful, Tris. If those spitting cats had any idea you looked likethisbeneath your stylish layers, they’d break down your door.”
He smiled sheepishly, embarrassed for the first time in memory. He wasnotthe most beautiful person in the room. But a blush was lurking just beneath his skin and admitting this would unleash it.
With a knowing grin, she crooked her finger, beckoning. “Come here, Your Grace, and make it up to me for telling the world about my Serpentine battle with a swan.”
* * *
Camille didn’t know where she got the courage to laugh. To act like she had any idea what she was doing in this arena. To trade glib barbs with the handsomest man in England while he leisurely peeled off his clothing.
Now, Tristan Tierney, Duke of Mercer, naked as the day he was born, was pushing her back on his massive bed and crawling atop her. Breath short, color high, as if she’d shaken him as he’d shaken her.
Sucking her earlobe between his teeth, he settled with a groan between her thighs. “I’m too heavy.”
He was. And it wasglorious.
She wanted to chronicle this night, slap mental paint to canvas, but his hands wereeverywhere, making her lose sense and intellect. He hummed beneath his breath and slid his arm underneath her, lifting her against his turgid length. His lips capturing hers as he began to move, a surge and retreat she followed, skin to skin, going liquid at her core. He seemed to know what she needed, cupping her breast, sweeping his thumb over her nipple. Back and again, circling, leaving the nub peaked and throbbing.
Leaving her to do naught but plead for more.
Obeying, he broke the kiss and skimmed his way south, replacing his thumb with his lips. She arched off the bed at the feel of his teeth catching her nipple, the stubble on his jaw a luscious abrasion, her ragged moan frantic, her fingers sinking into his hair and guiding his movements.
“Your body is a treasure, Princess.” He suckled the curve of her breast, his hand sliding over her stomach, her waist, her thigh. “And I’m going to worship at the altar.”
His touch, when he slipped his fingers between her legs, was familiar. Like she’d known, without truly knowing, that he would be the man to introduce her to pleasure. He stroked, lightly, tenderly, warming her body and her mind. Returning to kiss her, his touch grew determined as he slid a long finger inside her and gave it a small twist…and then it was too much to document.
His weight atop her, his breath on her cheek, his tongue leading hers into a dance he echoed below her waist. The scent of them tangling with the scent of starched bedding and burning wood and winter frost. She wanted to touch, too, her hands on his shoulders, his chest, thumbing his nipple. He delighted in each caress, his groans mixing with hers until they couldn’t be separated, those raw sounds of delight. Louder than the tick of the mantel clock, than winter’s whisper shooting in the raised windowpane.
He stroked her once, the same place that had made her shatter the night of the ball, and the spiral began low in her belly. Pleading, she released a choking sound and lifted her hips.
“This?” he whispered against her lips, his voice frayed, and gave the tipped nub a harder caress.
She nodded, unable to speak.Yes.
He touched her more persistently until, her back arching off the mattress, she broke into a thousand pieces.
Then, he was there, murmuring soothing words and sliding inside her as tremors rocked her, his entry so gentle—and her body so open to him—she experienced only the slightest instant of pain. Dazed, she clutched his shoulders and lifted her hips, rising, bringing him deeper…deeper. The feeling of fullness and,ah, being transported to another world entirely was incredible.
“Cami,” he murmured into her moist skin, the tension in his body proving he was as affected, as taken, as she was. “Slow down. I can’t keep up, I can’t think. I’m losing control.”
Their pelvises bumped when he was fully entrenched, and she grasped his face between her palms, bringing his gaze to hers. His eyes were as green as a midnight forest, the dark pupils swallowing them whole. Sweat beaded his cheeks, his jaw, pooling in the hollow beneath his neck. She wanted to taste him, drink him in. Wreck him as he was wrecking her. “I don’t want you in control. I want you feral, insatiable.You. Your body, your soul. Your mind can stay behind for now. Take me, I’m begging you,” she said and dragged his lips to hers, whispering against them, “there’s always the next time for control. The after, remember?”
Palming her thigh, he raised her leg high on his hip and settled, unbelievably, deeper inside her. Slow strokes progressed to swift, pounding ones, the joining of their bodies the only sound except for choked breaths and muffled moans. The bed began to rock and creak. Slick skin and grasping hands, a frantic joining of lips, tongues, teeth. She was a bird flying through the night, and he was her guide.
On a hard pulse of pleasure, she gasped and arched, losing her rhythm and the kiss, darkness edging her vision as a wave of ecstasy, more potent than any she’d experienced, caught her in its grip. Pressing her cheek to the mattress, she watched Tristan’s hand twist in the counterpane until his knuckles whitened, and this exhibit of arousal pushed her over the edge.
“Thank God,” he whispered into her shoulder as she convulsed around him, her cry ringing through the room. He held her close as she shuddered, then he followed seconds later, his arms tensing, his groan tortured, her name spilling from his lips the most erotic sound she’d ever heard.
To think she’d done this to him, left him panting, trembling…
For a long moment, they lay still, limbs tangled, skin slick, lungs churning.
When Camille was able to open her eyes, she found Tristan braced on his elbows, staring down at her with a look of bewilderment. “I just died and went to heaven,” he rasped and rolled to his back, pulling her with him. She collapsed atop his chest, his heartbeat pounding beneath her ear, her own a dizzying rush through her veins. Head to toe, she was a quivering mass of nerve endings. And between her legs, a part of her body that would never be the same, oh,my…
“Tris, is it always—”
“No,” he said, cutting off her question. He laughed weakly and tightened his arm around her, his rough kiss dusting the crown of her head. “Good God, no. If it were, people wouldn’t leave the house. I’ve never experienced anything like this, Princess. Likeyou.”