Page 75 of The Devil in Her Bed

He couldn’t exactly read her expression now, as the light from the one lamp lit her from behind. It created a brilliant ruby halo around her ruined braid, but left her features mostly in shadow.

She scooted to the very edge of the desk and, once again, wrapped those long, lovely legs around him.

With a lithe roll of her spine she brought her body against him, threading her arms around to pull him close.

Chandler stilled. For all of their frenzy… the clutching, seizing, bruising desperation of before, this was something else.

An embrace, perhaps.

She put her head on his shoulder, and then rooted around for a moment, finally landing with her face pressed firmly into the crook of his neck and her hand sliding with an almost anxious repetition along his back.

He wasn’t ready for whatever tender thing rose from the void within him, the thing that wanted to hold her back. That wanted to soothe and smooth, to nuzzle and croon.

That wasn’t him. It wasn’t them.Thiswas them. Wet, hard, straining sex.

Christ, he’d barely made peace with her strength, he wasn’t sure he could bear her softness.

And so did the only thing could think of.

He drove his hips forward, shoving his full, hard length inside of her heat.

Past a barrier he hadn’t expected, eliciting a gasp of pain he’d never forget.

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

Francesca bit back the raw cry just as soon as she’d uttered it, cursing herself. She’d known it would hurt, of course she had. She just… hadn’t realized how much.

She was grateful she knew a bit about combat, and that her training had taught her to fight through the pain, or she’d never have been able to stick to Chandler like a burr as he attempted to jerk back.

His hips levered enough away that he withdrew, and she couldn’t deny that her straining body found it a relief.

“Wait,” she said. “Wait. Don’t stop.” They needed to do this. For so many reasons.

“Jesus. Christ. Jesus.Fuck.”

She waited patiently as he worked through every curse she’d heard in the queen’s own English, and a few new ones, as well.

She breathed in the warm scent of his skin, linen,soap, and something a little earthy. Like cedar maybe, or pine. Christmas. His scent reminded her of Christmas. Unable to help herself, her tongue escaped her lips for a little taste.

I just licked Christmas, was her absurd thought. Followed by the fact that she wanted to do it again.

He tasted good. He tasted right.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Francesca, did you justlickme?”

She drew in a few more lungsful of his scent before she gathered the strength to draw away. “To be fair,” she ventured, “you licked me first.”

Did he ever.

She’d known of the deviant acts one could perform upon another, being friends with two very adventurous, very well-pleasured women. Also, she was no stranger to a climax, having given herself more than a few.

But she’d never known… could never have imagined in any of the many meanderings of her imagination that a man’s mouth could be so incredibly wicked. That the euphoria he elicited could be so absolute as to be unbearable at the end.

Not just any man’s wicked mouth. Declan Chandler’s.

“Let go,” he commanded in an impatient tone, one bordering on panic. “I have to make certain you are—”

“No,” she said, pulling him closer, teasing her pebbled nipples against the swells of muscle on his chest. “No, we’re not finished.”