Page 26 of The Intergalactic Duke's Inconvenient Engagement
Chapter 7
The touch of her mouth went through Raz like fractured laser light: no heavier than a photon and equally, incoherently devastating.
Her hand slipped down his chest to brace over his heart, and he was excruciatingly aware of the erratic pounding of his pulse, thrilling to her inadvertent caress. It had been too long…
Maybe for her too, judging by her soft moan and the almost desperateway her fingers fisted in his tunic, drawing the tight fabric up over his belly. Desire seared along the pathways of his nerves, igniting infinite bright pinpoints of excitement, as if all the stars of the universe were rushing back together to their first moment of existence.
If he wasn’t careful, the Big Bang would come too soon and so would he.
Needing to slow down, he cupped her cheek, anglingher head slightly to take control of the kiss. The sonic-smoothed silk of her hair tickled his knuckles, sending another flare of sensation cascading through his hungry body.
With a hunger of her own, she opened her mouth under his and traced her tongue across his lips.
The slick, wet heat stunned him to the core, and he gasped, inhaling the taste of her, a hint of pixberry and coffee and, underthat, pure lust. So much for taking control!
She must’ve felt his shock—or maybe that startled gasp had given him away—because she pulled back, her dark eyes wide. In the glow of the astro chart, hectic color played over her cheeks. “Do alien dukes not kiss?”
“Ouch,” he murmured wryly. His little honey-bird had a sharp peck.
“Oh!” She patted both hands on his chest, as if soothing him. “DidI hurt you? It was just a kiss. I’m so sorry. Us Earth girls like it, and I was just… I don’t know what I… Oh fuck. You save me from Blackworm and then I jump you like—”
He brought his mouth crashing down on hers, anything to muffle her apologies.
It was her turn to make a startled noise. Plunging his fingers into her hair to hold her in place, he slanted his lips across hers, delving for moreof that elusive flavor of lust. Sweet and tart like the berries, dark and energizing like the coffee, he thought hazily, and he would never get enough of it. He shifted his grip to the back of her neck, bending her to his mouth, bending her whole body backward into the crook of his arm so that she was half sprawled on the bench, their bodies nearly parallel, just a few precarious degrees fromfalling. With a wordless moan, she grasped at his backside, maybe to stop herself from tilting off the bench.
Maybe to fall faster…
But he angled his hips sideways, not quite ready for that final descent, even if the swirl of lights behind his closed eyes felt like the whole known universe urging him onward.
When they were both breathless, he raised his head. Her lips were soft and swollen,still parted. Irresistible. He brushed a gentler kiss across plumped flesh, reveling in the sensitive quiver as she exhaled on a sigh.
Her eyes were dazed when he looked down at her with satisfaction. “Sooo…alien dukesdokiss?”
Releasing his grip on her nape, he brushed his knuckles over her flushed cheekbone. “Now I understand why the Intergalactic Dating Agency had a wait list.”
Her browfurrowed charmingly. “Are you implying Earth girls are easy?”
“And alien dukes are hard.” With a leer, he shifted his hips against her belly.
Her dark eyes flared wide. “Ooh, promises, promises, Your Grace…”
He laughed. “Iamthe avatar of the God of Oaths.” With effortless strength, he lifted her and spun her around to lounge across him. Yes, he was showing off; he was delighted he’d justfinished his exercises when the message from the Earther envoy about her sister had arrived from his mother so his physique was in fine form, not to mention a form-fitting tunic.
Although he could’ve done without his mother’s critique of said physique and the value—rounded down to the nearest galactic credit—of its likely effect on females. Eesh.
He banished the thought as Rayna reached up tofeather her fingers through his hair.
She combed into the long strands. “What does it mean to be the avatar of a god? Besides longer, harder erections, I mean.”
He grinned and turned his head to brush a kiss across her inner wrist, relishing the rush of satisfaction when she shivered. “Mostly it means boring ceremonies and various other onerous duties, the more esoteric burdens of bodily symbolizinga divine entity, plus the extra syllables to my title, of course.”
“But the longer, harder erections too,” she said with a solemn nod.
“Thatisone of the burdens,” he agreed with equal seriousness.
She laughed aloud, her eyes sparkling up at him.
He told himself it was just the reflected starlight—staring at a sun could be blinding—that dazzled him.