Page 52 of Secrets of the Marriage Bed

Somehow she lifted her head and closed her teeth on his shoulder.

On a hiss of breath he raised his head, his eyes dancing with fire. The flames of lust.

‘Now, Alistair,’ she demanded.

He shook his head at her. ‘Oh, no, my dear.’

She swallowed at his sensual tone.

His lips curved in a smile. Still holding her hands in his large one, he moved off her body, denying her his weight, and kissed his way down her ribs and her stomach, amid the crisp triangle of curls.

She gasped in shock at the strangeness and the delicious searing pleasure of the feel of his warm breath against her most private place. ‘Alistair, you cannot—’

He blew out a breath that caused her hips to jerk. He came up on his knees, pushing her thighs apart, his erection hard against the ridged muscles of his lower stomach.

She smiled at him as he looked at her with raised brow. Now he would enter her. She let her eyes flutter closed in anticipation of that beautiful hot hard length pressing into her.

He released her hands and, leaning forward, he licked.

Panting, breathless, she could not move for the shock of it.

The soft wet slide of his tongue was a sensation like no other. His tongue circled that spot at the source of her pleasure, the rasp of his stubble against her inner thighs a counterpoint to his tongue, circling and licking in swift little passes that caused her hips to buck and her limbs to go boneless. He toyed with her until there was nothing left but that hot sensation of his tongue. And then his lips pressed against her, his tongue stroking with delicious delicate little tastes that racked her body and drove her out of her mind.

A little pause. She inhaled a breath. He suckled.

She shattered.

Hot darkness enveloped her for long, long minutes, her breathing rasping in and out of her lungs, her blood a rapid thump in her ears, her body suffused with heat.

He held her against his chest with such tenderness wetness pooled at the corners of her eyes.

Gradually, her brain began to function. Awareness stole into her mind and she realised that not only was he holding her sweetly, he was still aroused, the hot blunt head of his erection pushing at her hip.

‘Alistair,’ she said, trying to look over the broad forearm holding her close. ‘You did not...’

A deep breath filled his lungs, lifting her, and he slowly exhaled. ‘Do not be concerned.’

‘But surely—’ She frowned. While he had not moved, the hardness she had felt was no longer there.

‘Sleep,’ he said.

She didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to give him pleasure.

He stroked her head and down her back. Soft sweeping caresses that sweetly lulled her. This man was beautiful. Loving. Gentle.

But he was also the dissolute Duke.

Which was real?

Sleep pushed at her mind, dragging her down into warm darkness. She opened her mouth to object, but yawned instead.

‘Shh...’ was the last sound she heard.

* * *

The tenderness Alistair felt for the woman in his arms was dangerous in the extreme, yet he continued to hold her while her breathing slowed and her body relaxed.

And still he did not move, needing to ascertain her sleep was real and deep. Finally, her laxness, the evenness of her breathing, told him she truly had succumbed to Morpheus.