Page 54 of A Bride for the Heartless Duke
“Eager for me, sweetheart?”
Sweetheart.
The tenderness of the endearment struck more deeply than it should have. Isadora refused to mistake lust for affection, even as her heart strained toward both.
“Please,” she managed.
“Please, what?”
“Touch me.”
He pinched one nipple and took the other into his mouth, sucking until white-hot pleasure flared through her. His body was a furnace above hers, and she felt pleasantly unmoored, asthough she had consumed far too much wine and wandered into a world where nothing remained but Nicholas, his mouth, and the hands that seemed to know every way to unmake her.
Oh heavens—and how they unmade her.
He leaned back a little, allowing the golden candle flame to spill across them both. He still wore his breeches, which seemed a terrible injustice when she was so very naked. The delicate skin of her inner thighs and the damp curls between felt cool in the air. Shivering, she tried to close her legs.
He stopped her with a hand, his eyes feasting as though he meant to devour the sight of her.
“You are utterly beautiful,” he breathed, his voice husky with emotion. “Let me see you.”
Reluctantly, she relaxed, allowing him to open her legs with one hand and see everything that lay between. He spent an inordinate amount of time just looking until Isadora forgot her shyness and instead writhed, hungry and aching.
No longer did she worry that he might not like what he saw; rather, she was eager for him to stop with his perusal and finally touch her again.
“Nicholas,” she whined.
He started as though surprised, and a new light danced in his eyes. “What do you want, sweetheart?”
She couldn’t bring herself to utter the words, and so she spread her thighs farther, hoping he might get the hint. He grinned, pinning her down with both hands, and brought his mouth to her inner thigh. He inhaled, then groaned, sounding a little as though he was in the depths of torture. Or perhaps merely just the depths of the deepest delight.
“You smell divine,” he told her, his voice guttural. “May I?”
“…May youwhat?”
“I want to kiss you.”
She shivered. “…There?”
His lips grazed across her thigh, traveling slowly upward. “Everywhere,” he murmured. “I want to taste you.”
How could she deny him when the words awakened precisely the same hunger in her? He had made her ravenous for pleasures she had never known existed.
Perhaps all women felt this way.
But she suspected it was Nicholas.
When she looked at him—so handsome, so proud, so…remote, except in those unguarded moments with her and Sophia—she had visions about what it might look like to make him melt. She longed desperately to break down every single wall he had erected and devastate them to rubble.
She wanted to know what he looked like when there was nothing but Nicholas in his eyes looking back.
His mouth pressed against her core, and all thoughts fled. His groan rumbled through her, and she pressed the back of her hand against her mouth in case she should make any sort of embarrassing noises. Then again, she fancied it was too late for that already; he compelled licentious moans from her with every swipe of his tongue.
He feasted on her like a man starving, demanding pleasure from her with every long, drugging kiss. Isadora had no choice but to comply—she had no wish other than to comply. Everything he did to her made her feel like she was a being of sensual power.
The crest of pleasure built, and she reached down to slide her fingers into his hair, tugging slightly. He glanced up at her, his eyes scorching, and hummed, the vibration in the sound almost enough to tip her over.
Just as she thought she could wait no longer, that she must reach her peak or she would die, he withdrew from her, surged up her body, and placed his length at her entrance. His finger found that same point of pleasure, and he stroked just as he pushed inside.
