Page 79 of A Relentless Rake

Oh, his touch was wonderful! No…it was wicked. So wickedly good. She moaned as a hot shiver rained through her and made her shudder with need. When she kissed him, she boldly mimicked with her tongue between his lips what his hand was doing between her legs.

This was what came with trust, she knew. Happiness, daring…freedom.

With a light push to his shoulder, she lowered him onto his back, still straddling him. His heart pounded beneath her fingers as they rested on his chest, but only for the length of a lingering kiss before she unknotted his cravat. A gentle tug freed it from around his neck.

“You won’t be needing this.” She held it out and opened her hand to let it spill to the floor.

Her pulse spiked when the corners of his mouth curled into a grin. She’d never done anything so bold to a man in her life. And she liked it. A great deal.

His hazel eyes gleamed with equal parts anticipation and amusement. “You’ll have to let me up to remove the rest.”

She smiled sinfully in answer to his challenge. “No, I won’t.”

She undid the buttons of his waistcoat and spread it open wide, then yanked down his shirt and lowered her lips to his bared neck. He tasted delicious, and she couldn’t stop herself from taking long, greedy licks across all the soft skin that her seeking mouth could reach.

When she sighed with pleasure, a low laugh rumbled through him that emboldened her to test their newly established trust even further. She slid off beside him to the mattress and reached for his waist.

“Olivia,” he warned quietly, but that didn’t stop her from pulling his shirt out from his waistband. “You don’t…” Or unbuttoning the fall of his trousers. “…have to…” Or gently pulling his manhood free and placing a delicate if slightly nervous kiss to his tip. An incoherent groan fell from his lips. “Ahh…”

He was large and heavy in her hand, steely hard beneath smooth flesh, and he flexed against her lips when she took a tentative lick. She knew women did this—how could she have run a school for young ladies for so many years without hearing their whispers of rumors and curiosities about men? But she had never done anything like it before. Yet this was Alec, and if they were going to place their trust completely in each other, then she couldn’t imagine any act that required more trust and exposed more vulnerability than this.

So she closed her lips around him and sucked.

“Olivia…” He dug his trembling hand into her hair.

Encouraged, she deliberately took him deeper into her mouth before slowly pulling back in a long, slow glide. A shudder of pleasure raced through him, so she did it again…and again. A bold and wanton idea gripped her, and during one of the steady but slow plunges and retreats, she swirled her tongue around him as she would a dollop of sweet cream from a spoon.

“Olivia!”

His hips bucked beneath her, and she reflexively tightened her lips around him. Shivers and shudders gripped him, and his nails scraped her scalp from the intensity of the pleasures she brought him.

Feelings of empowerment and joy pulsed through her. She’d never felt its like before! But then, she’d never been so emboldened before, so wanton. Sofree. She knew that he would allow her to do whatever she wanted to him tonight. The panther had been tamed by the mouse. A laugh of happiness bubbled up inside her at the irony and surely vibrated down his length because he flexed in her mouth, and she tasted the first salty drop of his essence on her tongue.

She moaned as desire throbbed through her and landed in that space between her legs that he’d teased to a burning ache. She ached now for a completely different reason—need…the need to have him inside her, to be filled with his strength, to join together bodies and souls. A need to be completed.

She lifted her head and let him slip away from between her lips. Keeping her eyes firmly locked with his, she climbed up his body to straddle him again. But this time, she rose onto her knees, then slowly lowered over him to bring him inside her.

She stilled and perched unmoving on top of him for several heartbeats as her body adjusted to his. A faint discomfort at having him inside her vanished as a delicious tingle shivered out from her core. She placed her hands flat on his chest and began to move.

“Do you like this?” she whispered as she rose and fell over him in slow, controlled movements, doing with her body what he’d seemed to enjoy so much from her mouth.

“Yes,” he panted out. His hands clasped her hips and urged her to move harder and faster against him. “Sweet Lucifer, yes…”

With each rise and fall, tension coiled tighter inside her, and her body clenched around him as she stroked him as deeply inside her as possible. Flames licked at her toes, and her fingers dug into his chest muscles as she strained toward release.

“You’re so beautiful…so brilliant,” he murmured. He leaned up to capture her mouth with his in a hot, openmouthed kiss that tasted of possession and a yearning so fierce that it stunned her. “My sweet angel.”

Pleasure shot through her, and she bit her lip to stifle a cry as her breath ripped away. Her body arched above him, and she welcomed the sweet bliss that overcame her.

Alec pulled her down onto his chest and slipped himself free of her tight warmth. His hand dove between them and positioned his still-hard erection between their bellies. Breathless and boneless, Olivia had the strength to do nothing more than lie on his chest as he wrapped his arms around her, gave a shuddering growl, and jerked against her belly. A wet warmth spurted between them, and he relaxed beneath her with a groaning sigh, all of his body suddenly limp and satiated.

Olivia lost all notion of how long they lay there together like that, with his arms around her, with her head on his shoulder and his heartbeat pounding into hers. But she knew she never wanted to move, never wanted the clock to start ticking and move the night toward dawn. She wanted nothing more than this man at this moment for the rest of her life.

Twenty-One

Olivia lay on her side with her arm tucked beneath her head and stared at Alec in the shadows as he faced her, staring back. Around them, the school was still and silent, the room cast into shadows as the last of the coals in the grate faded into darkness.

Heavens, she’d never realized before how small her bed was until he was in it, his muscular form large and absurdly masculine against the lace-edged pillows and pastel bedding. The effect only served to make him look even more handsome, even more rakish and dangerous.