Page 40 of The Governess’ Unlikely Suitor (The Dashworth Brothers #2)

His tongue swept over her centre in a delicious lick that made her scream.

‘Yes, that.’ She was moving, pushing her hips towards him, uncaring if she seemed wanton.

She thought she babbled words but was too far gone to know what she said.

The swipe of his tongue was like nothing else, the press of his fingers so strange she would have laughed if she’d had any sense.

As it was, her heels scrambled against the mattress, trying to push him deeper, further.

It appeared he did not need words from her; he responded anyway, urging her body into ever higher forms of bliss.

Her hands clutched at the sheets, his hair, his shoulders, anywhere she might get a hold.

‘Edward,’ she called as her world fractured, her body arching from the bed.

He kept moving against her, sending the tension higher, spiralling until she did not know which way was up.

When it was over, he pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh, her stomach, his fingers still between her legs, lightly rubbing against the sensitive skin, which had caused her to lose her mind.

Pleasure still whipped through her veins, like fireworks beneath her skin.

His lips brushed the underside of her breast, the dip in the middle and closed over her nipple once more.

She clung to his shoulders as sensation began to build again, his clever fingers applying pressure, the more she moved against him.

‘More,’ she whimpered, as his mouth travelled back down her body, unsure if she’d issued a question, a plea or a demand.

Knowing what to expect this time, it was no less shocking as her body reacted to his once more, the splintering, shattering explosion bringing her to the edge of what her body could bear.

This time when he moved up her body, she caught his head in her hands before he could start kissing her neck. ‘What is this?’ she garbled. ‘This thing you make my body do. What…?’

His fingers continued to move between her legs, lightly at first but with more pressure as she lifted her hips to meet him.

‘It is what happens between a man and a woman, but you…’ He grunted as she arched against him.

‘You are so responsive. I cannot…’ His mouth captured hers once more and for several delicious moments they stayed as they were, their moans intermingling, but she did not forget she wanted to ask him something.

He stilled as she pulled away. Shifting against him, she silently urged him to keep moving; the curve of his smile against her jaw as he obliged had her smiling into the darkness.

‘What about you?’ she managed to gasp as the intense feeling began to coil in her once more.

‘Huh?’ he grunted.

‘You. Do you feel this?’

‘This?’

‘The fireworks.’

‘God, you are so…’ his lips ran along her jaw ‘…lovely,’ he murmured. ‘Utterly lovely, exquisite too. I will feel them, but not yet.’

‘How? Is it to do with this?’

He let out a strangled cry as her fingers curled around his length. ‘Yes, that, but you do not have to…’ Despite his words, he was thrusting in her hand, moving in imitation of his fingers between her legs.

‘I want to.’

His mouth came down on hers then, not with the practised kiss of the music room but almost desperately, like he could not get enough of her.

She answered with a fire of her own, learning the rhythm that made him buck against her, his groans filling her mouth.

Her world broke again and he growled, pulling her tightly against him as something warm splashed against her stomach.

They lay for a moment, slumped against one another, their breathing loud and heavy. Sweat cooled against her skin, his or hers she could not say. He rolled from her and she mumbled something in protest, words deserting her once more.

‘I will be back.’

He did not go far, climbing almost immediately back onto the bed. There was the press of a cloth against her stomach, the swipe of it moving across her, cleaning her, the rustle of the cloth being folded before he placed it between her legs, drying the skin.

She felt rather than saw the brief flick of his arm as he threw the cloth away from them.

‘Did you just throw the washcloth on the floor?’

His laugh was a deep rumble in his chest. ‘It turns out I can cope with the mess when my body is completely satisfied.’

If she’d had the energy, she would have preened. As it was, she merely slumped into him as he lay back down. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. Their skin was sticky, but she did not want to be parted from him and she pressed herself closer.

He stroked her hair from her shoulder. At some point, it must have come loose from the bun. It was probably horribly tangled, but it was a problem for tomorrow. She was too exhausted to care about it now.

‘I have never done that with a man before,’ she told him. Somehow, it was important for him to understand he was her first.

‘I know.’

‘How?’ She squirmed against the bedsheets. ‘Did I do something wrong?’

‘You were absolutely perfect. But you mentioned how you had never done anything like this, once or twice. Or possibly several hundred times.’

‘I did not. I said nothing.’

His body shook with laughter against hers. ‘I do not think you stopped talking.’

She had no recollection of saying anything of sense at all. She’d been consumed by sensation, incapable of speech. ‘I am sorry.’

‘Do not be. It drove me out of my mind. I have never experienced anything as intense before. And the way you… three times. I think if I had not lost control, there could have been more.’ She felt him shake his head.

‘Your delight made it all the more pleasurable for me. There are no words to explain it, or if there are, my mind has been turned into a jumble, but trust me when I say, nothing, nothing, has ever compared to what just passed between us.’

She smiled, sliding her hands around his waist so she was holding him as tightly as he was her. ‘Are you sure I said things?’

‘Many, many things.’ His body was getting heavy against hers and another surge of triumph shot through her. He was about to fall asleep again and for the second time in one night, she could claim responsibility.

She pressed a soft kiss to his shoulder. He mumbled something, but the words were unintelligible and then he was gone, snoring softly into her hair and she knew there would be no marriage for her, for no man was as good as this one.