Page 30 of Sir Hugo Seeks a Wife (Cinderellas of Mayfair #1)

She completed a charged head-to-toe inspection, which did nothing to cool the rising fire in his blood. “I want to please you.”

He smiled at her. “You do that already.”

“No,” she said with a hint of impatience. “I want to please you.”

The blatant hunger in her gaze made him suppress a groan. She looked like she wanted to gobble him up like a piece of birthday cake.

He liked that she’d lost all shyness. But this overt boldness was new.

He’d kissed her everywhere, but he was loath to admit that when she kissed him, he got so excited that they usually ended up fucking.

He’d been mad for her on first sight. Several licentious days had only deepened his insanity. “You want to take your time?”

“Yes.”

He rested back against the pillows and smiled in encouragement, even though the next little while promised to test his willpower to its limit.

The tension in her expression eased as she returned his smile. “Thank you.”

“I think I’ll be thanking you before we’re done. I like that you’re so brave.”

“Good.” She still ate him up with her eyes. He felt like one of Sylvie’s bonbons. A lemon drop, by Jericho, not one of those filthy violets.

Mmm, perhaps licking might be involved.

In one breathtakingly graceful movement, Athene straddled him and stooped to nibble a tantalizing path along his collarbones.

His balls tightened on an explosion of excitement.

He closed his eyes and scrunched his fingers into the sheets so he didn’t grab her.

A shuddering inhalation filled his senses with her earthy female scent.

He always loved how she smelled when she woke up, all warm, sleepy woman, tinged with the sensual traces of what they’d done during the night.

When she dipped lower, her breasts rubbed against his chest. He bit back another groan and fought the urge to cup that sumptuous roundness in his hands.

Athene took her time tasting him, stretching Hugo on a rack of tantalizing pleasure.

He felt the pressure of her lush lips. The scrape of her small white teeth.

The flicker of her curious tongue. By the time she reached the waistband of his breeches, she’d become familiar with every inch of his torso.

When she sat up, her glowing glance stoked the flames inside him. “Take them off,” she said in a gruff voice that he hardly recognized. The thorough exploration aroused her, too.

With a clumsiness born of overwhelming need, Hugo hoisted up his hips and wriggled to shuck off his breeches. The damn things seemed to have grown ten extra legs.

As he wrestled the garment halfway down his thighs, he caught her eyes. “You’re enjoying this.”

Her lips twitched. “Of course. I love having you at my mercy.”

“Witch,” he said with audible fondness, as he at last got rid of his pestilential breeches.

She devoted a charged moment to contemplating his breeding organs. Her concentration only built his craving. He swallowed to moisten a throat as dry as the Sahara. “Are you going to ride me?”

She enjoyed that position. So did he. He could fondle her breasts and watch the way her face reflected her quest for pleasure.

“Not straightaway,” she said, an answer both frustrating and encouraging.

“Am I allowed to touch you yet?” he asked in a suffocated voice. This suspense while he lay before her in all his naked vulnerability drove him manic with desire.

Another twitch of those full red lips. “No.”

“Athene…” he protested on a long, pained exhalation.

“You’ll survive.”

“It doesn’t feel like it, you hard-hearted wench.”

When her smile intensified, so did his arousal. “My mother always said if you haven’t got anything nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all.”

“Bully for her,” he said. “Will you at least take off your nightgown?”

She still ogled his rampant erection, as if it was the most arresting sight in the entire world. “Will that make you feel better?”

“No,” he groaned. “Not if I can’t touch you.”

She curled her hand around him. He jerked in reaction as warmth tormented his hardness. “Dear God, Athene…”

Her fist slid up and down with a leisurely movement that had him grinding his teeth as he battled for control. At last he knew what she meant to do. He’d spilled into her hand several times.

Hugo didn’t want to rush her, despite his balls contracting in agony. But by heaven, if she was too slow about it, she’d suffer the consequences.

“I love touching you,” she murmured, watching what she did. “It’s like holding all the power in the world.”

His response was an incoherent grunt. Anything else was out of the question when her clever hand stroked and squeezed him. She bent her head. As her veil of hair drifted across his skin, he waited for her to kiss his belly or his chest.

She lowered her hand to the base of his cock. Then he watched in disbelief as she kissed him. Where she’d never kissed him before.

The glance of sleek lips across the tight head slammed through him like gunfire. “Athene…”

To his relief – to his overwhelming regret – she lifted away and met his stare. “Don’t you like this?”

Only with the greatest effort had he managed to keep his hands off her. Now he couldn’t resist catching a handful of her hair. “You don’t have to.”

Feminine awareness sparked in her dark eyes. “So you do like this.”

So many times, he’d imagined her taking him in his mouth. “Only if you do.”

When she licked her lips, the top of his skull nearly blew off. “Let me try.”

“Do you know what to do?”

Her eyelashes fluttered down with a bashfulness that chimed oddly with the brazen grip of her hand. “George wanted this, but I found it…unappealing.”

Hugo would give his soul to have his dick in her mouth, but he couldn’t bear to disgust her. Or worse, frighten her. “Only do this if you want to.”

“With you, I want this.” Athene raised heavy eyelids and met his gaze. “It seems…it seems a way to take your essence.”

Her brown eyes were so intense, they were almost black. Shock barreled through him. By Jupiter, she intended to swallow his seed. The idea was so overpowering that his vision faded. His hand clamped hard in her hair. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Then clearly seeing his doubt, she spoke with more conviction. “Yes, Hugo, I want this. I want this so much.”

So did he. “Stop if you want to,” he said, wishing he meant it.

Athene rolled her eyes. He couldn’t blame her for finding his offer unconvincing. “You’ve given me such unselfish pleasure. Let me return the favor.”

“Very well,” he muttered, wondering why he fought her on this when he wanted it so much.

Athene squeezed his dick and even as arousal jolted him, she lowered her head. Her soft, wet mouth enclosed him. With endearing tentativeness, she sucked. Tentative or not, the pressure threatened to incinerate him. Her hand slipped down to cup his aching balls.

As he drowned in sublime sensation, his fingers tangled in her hair. He loved moving inside her, but there was something so damned glorious about her doing this. He closed his eyes and surrendered to the storm. “Yes…” he hissed, as her tongue flickered.

With more confidence, she drew harder. He gritted his teeth against the urge to spill.

She developed a stirring rhythm where she used her hand and her mouth together.

As her head bobbed, his shaking hands clutched her skull.

Hugo struggled to keep from shattering. Under this onslaught, drawing air into his lungs was a problem.

His heart raced so fast, he feared that it must burst. His blood was so hot, it threatened to evaporate into steam.

He bore it as long as he could, but in the end, everything became too much. “Athene, I’m going to…”

He waited for her to shift away, but instead she took more of him than she had. The change of angle smashed through his last barriers. He couldn’t stop himself from lifting his hips and pumping into her mouth on a long groan of repletion.

Through his release, she kept him in her mouth. When he could think again, he realized that he’d expected her to balk at swallowing his seed, whatever she said. But she closed her lips around him and took every drop.

It was an experience that he’d never forget.

When he was drained to the lees, she ran her tongue across the head as if to bestow a final kiss then shifted away. He still strained for air and his eyes were bleary, as he strove to focus on her face. He needed to discover whether his uncontrollable masculine need had repulsed her.

Through the blur, he watched her wipe her mouth and smile at him. “I loved doing that.”

Relief shaded his exhaustion. Now his vision cleared, he saw that she looked flushed but happy. There was no trace of reluctance, thank the Lord.

He was so weary, raising a hand to clasp her arm nearly undid him. “I don’t deserve you, my darling.”

“Of course you do, Hugo. You’re the finest man I’ve ever known.”

Before he could respond to that accolade, she left the bed and went behind the screen.

So in love with her, he couldn’t put two thoughts together in his head, he stared after her.

Memories of that volcanic encounter swamped his mind.

More than that, the loving warmth in her voice echoed in his ears.

Athene might never admit that she loved him, but what she’d just said – hell, what she’d just done – told him that she did.