Page 43 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses

She wrapped his cravat around his wrist, turned, and tugged him into her bedchamber.

He kicked the door closed, backed her against it, his lips falling to the nape of her neck. He bit gently, and she couldn’t repress her moan. “You’re sure, no servants? My coat, your cape…”

“Only three employed. It’s a small manor. They return to the village each night. Widows do not require companions.” She slipped his waistcoat from his arms and dropped it to the rug. “We’re alone.Completely. Any noise you might like to make—”

He laughed, lifting her off her feet, walked two steps toward the bed, paused, his eyes changing, darkening. With one arm, he brought her down his body, an abrasive slide that had her knees threatening to weaken and leave her in a puddle at his feet. A spear of moonlight splashed across him, throwing his features into a tantalizing mix of shadow and light.

“What’s that look, Dex?” Dear God, had he changed his mind?

He gazed at her, his collar twisted, the top two bone buttons of his shirt undone, the crisp linen parting to reveal a tantalizing smatter of dark hair. His eyes were the pale green of a lily pad, brimming with wonder when they met hers. Delighted and disheveled, he looked charmingly undone. “I’ve never…” He sighed, flexed his shoulders up and back. “Laughing, this lightness of spirit. It’s never been fun. Not like this. I’m unprepared.” He scrubbed his cheeks to hide their flooding with color. “Bloody hell, I think I’m nervous.”

Her own delight was a wild beast charging through her body, dragging her heart away from her. “That makes two of us.” She made quick work of releasing the remaining buttons and sent his shirt to the floor. “But I plan to work through it.”

They disrobed with taunting kisses, whispered words of admiration and pleasure, learning each other’s bodies through layers of wool, cotton, and muslin, then with no barriers at all. He was perfection, she decided, her gaze wandering from his narrow feet to his lean hips, flat stomach rippling with muscle, chest with a gorgeous sprinkling of hair, his entire body sculpted by his work. His career, his passion. She smiled. Maybe she could be his passion for at least one night.

“Do I amuse?” He curved his hand around her breast, cupping gently, his thumb brushing her nipple, circling, while his gaze held hers. Shifting, he blew a moist breath over the pointed tip, the pulse of visceral need catching her by surprise, darting like an arrow between her thighs. How clever, how wonderful.

Sighing deeply, she palmed his cheeks and brought his mouth closer, lifting her body, begging without words.Touch me.

“This?” he asked, his lips hovering deviously before he opened his mouth and sucked the bud inside.

“Dex…” She sagged, but he held her up, walked her back, all the while teasing her nipple into submission with his tongue, the edge of his teeth, fondling, encircling. He moved them to the bed, then startled her by turning to sit and bringing her atop him, positioning her bent legs on either side of his hips in a delicious straddle.

She sank onto his lap, his rigid length trapped between her thigh and his belly. “I’ve never…like this…” Dropping her head to his shoulder, she gasped as he nibbled on a sensitive spot below her ear. In return, she dug her teeth into his skin, the taste of him flowing into her mouth, a richness of feeling out the soles of her feet, absolute domination. His answering groan, hand tangling in her hair and drawing her mouth to his, told her everything she needed to know about how roughly he wanted to play.

About how fearlessshecould be.

Gathering her courage, she asked for more, felt his low laughter hit her cheek. “Impetuous Georgie.” But he complied, his hand traveling over her breast, hip, thigh. When he came to the moist folds of her sex, he lingered, stroking and taunting, his mouth covering hers. After a breathless moment, he broke the kiss to slide his lips along her jaw, draw her earlobe between his teeth and suck, hard.

Her legs fell open, her hips pushing helplessly against his hand. Muscles in her thighs and arms clenching, she murmured meaningless words into the curve of his neck, damp strands of his hair sticking to her cheek. His skin had caught fire beneath her, burning. Finally,yes, finally,his finger eased inside, slowly, then back again. Patient, he allowed her to find the rhythm, determine the pace. She reached between their bodies, clumsy, indelicate, caught his hard length in her hand, circled, pressed, stroked. Learning the size and shape of him, sleek and solid and long. She’d never imagined touching Arthur in this manner, never considered it.

This was intuition alone driving her.

Hunger, avarice, enchantment.

Blind need, love, desire.

Another finger joined the first as he captured her lips beneath his, his movements on the brink of awkward, too, pleasing her because he was responding to her graceless touch, her body atop him, her breath in his ear, her teeth marking his skin.

The sensation started at the base of her spine. A sizzle, a surge that had her heart racing, her breath lodging in her throat. Dex leaned her back just enough to suck her nipple between his teeth. The stubble on his jaw scraped her, roughly, wonderfully, as he whispered something low and bewildered into her rounded flesh. The sounds she was making, helpless coos of delight, would have been embarrassing in any other arena, but here, in this dimly-lit chamber where Dex was turning her body inside out, it was natural.

She ran her thumb over the rounded head of his shaft, caught the drop of liquid, and felt his body jerk in response.

“So that’s your game, is it? Two can play…that way.” Groaning, he thumbed the inflamed bud between her legs, which needed only a second’s care to toss her into a pool of decadent, haunting pleasure. The world rotated, listed, taking her with it in a dizzying spin as Dex rolled her to her back on the bed, his body flowing over hers, his weight pressing her deep into the mattress. Her vision went gray, her back arching as tremors raced through her, his fingers still claiming her, driving her, making her writhe in ecstasy.

Her cries mixed with his words of comfort and urgency.

Before she’d even landed, reclaimed her breath or reason or time, he was there, tenderly pushing inside her in gradual possession, inch by inch by inch. She quivered, the thrill of her body stretching to accommodate his sending another tiny shudder through her.

“You are,” he murmured against her brow, her hair, her ear, “the most responsive…I never dreamed…” Changing the balance, he lifted her leg alongside his hip, perfecting the fit as they fell into a relentless, sinuous rhythm. Steady strokes, a hesitation, a gradual slide back.

A primal ballet.

She whimpered, clutched his shoulders, swept her hands down his back, nails digging, palms pressing. Teeth and lips, bowing, curving. Tongues tangling. Whispered pleas and tortured apologies, skin slick, quivering muscles, racing heartbeats. Again and again, until her only link to the world was where their bodies were joined.

“Tell me what you want,” he breathed against her lips, his stroke constant, killing her with his control.

She grasped his hips, pulled him into her, fast, hard, not able to tell him what she needed, only able toshowhim. He dropped his head by her shoulder, sighed, moaned, agreed, his arms going around and under her, lifting her hips as he began to thrust, relentless, moving them up the bed.