Linda Needham (28 page)

“You were good, Caro. You are, my love.” So good, so lush, so unbridled with her fingers and her heart.

“And you are very sturdy here, Drew.” She looked into his eyes as she fondled and caressed, measured and moaned along with him, until he was breathing like a horse and his head was light from lack of air. “Thick and soooooooo long.”

“Oh, Caro, that’s…too…enough!” He grabbed her hands and kissed her palms, the thrusting, grinding pleasure too great at the moment to give her free rein to unfasten the button at his waist.

“Enough, Drew? Oh, but I could touch you there
forever.” She looked up at him, truly confused. She really didn’t know. “And with your trousers off—”

“I would lose complete control, my love!” Would haul her to the thick carpet in front of the hearth and drive himself into her, into the sweet oblivion of her softness.

“You, lose control, Drew?” She still cooed and arched against him, gripping his bare shoulders, riding the length of him with her mons, her face golden in the light of the fire, this wanton woman who would always be his princess.

“Lose control completely, love.” She had rid him of his shirt and now he was doing the same for her, his fingers quaking to be rid of her buttons, to be sliding his tongue across her nipples. “Do you know what a temptation you’ve been to me all these weeks?” The top button came easily open, her skin tasted of clear water and her lavender. “Sleeping just on the other side of a not-very-secret panel from you.”

She gasped and moaned. “Only proving, my lord, that you would never lose control, would never…oh, Drew, I like your mouth there, and your hands. Right there…yesssss!”

He was cupping the undersides of her breasts through the linen of the nightshirt, rubbing their tightly erect tips with his thumbs, dazzled by the passion in her eyes, in her throaty whimpers.

“I love you, Caro!”

And they would marry the moment he could rouse his ravenous bride-to-be from the cottage. Which might just be a few amazing days from now.

“Oooooooooh, Drew!

Caro knew she needed something deep and mystical from her magnificent earl, was sure she would die
of the pleasureful wanting of it long before he could give it to her.

Sex. Copulation. She knew that was it, the end product. That he would somehow manage to thrust his huge, glorious ramrod of a penis inside her, in the place where all this delicious yearning was coming from.

The technical
how
of it all was the question, the delicious anticipation that seemed to steal her breath away as if she’d been running alongside him at the edge of the sea cliff.

That made her knees weak, and keeping her balance on the hearth stool a bit precarious.

She held tightly to her extraordinary protector, the man who loved her for not being an empress.

His chest was broad and dark gold, lightly furred with silky dark hair that she loved to run her fingers through.

And now he was tantalizing her with his mouth, his fiery tongue, nipping along her collar bone, at the base of her throat, and across her shoulder, until the nightshirt drooped to her elbow and slipped below one breast, exposing it to his smiling, hungry gaze.

“My beautiful Caro.” He ran his tongue across his lips as though he hadn’t eaten in weeks. “May I taste you, love?”

“Taste? Oh, myyy yessss!” He was slow and taunting, the touch of his mouth dizzying her as he came ever closer to that point of sensation, until he was teasing at her nipple, licking softly, flicking his tongue, crimping with his astounding fingertips, lighting a fire so deep inside her she was sure it could never be quenched.

“I wonder, does the other taste as sweet, my love.”
He gave a soft tug to the nightshirt, and it slid down her arms, catching at her wrists for a moment, and then at her hips. Then the linen slipped right on down to pool at her ankles, leaving her standing before him utterly naked and exposed to his wolfish ogling.

He wore a smile that said he’d just won a prize. Or learned a secret.

“If you’ll allow me, Princess.”

“Anything, Drew.” Her heart, her soul. He caught her chin, kissed her deeply, brought her closer until her aching breasts were bobbing against his warm chest.

And then he started nibbling his way across her belly, his hands sliding down her back, to her bottom, kneading there as he made love to her breast, making her sway and thread her fingers through his hair and pull him closer.

And then the marvelous man, who was out of breath and quaking beneath her hands, started nuzzling beneath her breast and kissing her ribs, her waist, traveling ever downward toward her belly.

Toward all that gathering heat, making her feel warm and ripe and wanting to open to him completely.

“Drew?” She gasped when he turned his head and pressed his cheek against her belly, his broad hands still spread across her bottom.

“Mmmmm…my love.” He made a long, thrilling growl in his throat. It rumbled out of him and into her, loosening her knees and making her quiver all over.

“Oooohhhh, Drewwwwwww!” His steaming breath played out against her bare hip, his mouth a
moist heat against her waist and then ever lower to that place where her thighs met her body.

“Yes, love?” He was kneeling right in front of her as she stood there on the upholstered stool looking down at him, his mouth just inches from—

“Ohhhhhhhh!” The amazing man was kissing the insides of her thighs, making love to them, one side and then the other, teasing, nibbling, moving ever closer as though he might—

“Drew, what are you do—” But he gripped her bottom with his hands and lifted her hips closer to him.

To his mouth.

He was nearly growling again, breathing like a stag in rut. “I’m going to kiss you, Caro.”

“Oh, but—” And then he did kiss her.

And she must have died, because this feeling was heaven! Floating and pricked with bits of light.

His darting tongue seeking the depths of her, finding places she didn’t know existed, brewing up a storm of sensations inside her that she had never felt before.

“You taste fine here, too, Caro,” he whispered between his dizzying, plunging kisses.

Kisses that she was shamelessly thrusting toward with her hips, unable to get enough of him, of his delicious madness, until the room began to swim and her head grew light.

“Drew, I think I’m going to—” Her knees sagged but her champion caught her up in his powerful arms and carried her to the warm carpet and the firelight.

“Don’t go anywhere, Princess.” He left her with a smile, but only long enough to collect a nest of pillows and a counterpane from another room.

“Your trousers, sir!” she said when he returned.

“As you wish, my love.” They were gone a moment later and her bronze god was lowering himself to her, smoothing his palm down her ribs and then spreading his fingers over her belly.

“Oh, Drew! I don’t know how else you can torment me.” And then she knew.

She met his hand with the tilt of her hips, dizzied by the throbbing sensation as he slid his fingers along her folds and then delved inside with two fingers, filling her with quicksilver, yet only making her want more of him.

“More, Drew!” She wanted him to hurry with his secrets.

“All in good time, my love.” He was masterfully slow, drawing gasps from her with his fingers and his tongue and his nibbling, tugging at her pulse, sending her spiraling upward toward the sky, but never getting there.

Until he finally rose up on his elbows, his hard, hot penis pressed against her belly, a stunning, raw sensation that made her wrap her legs around his hips, want to take him deeply inside her.

“Come to me, Drew. Fill me.”

“With all my heart, Caro. For all my days!” But he lingered exquisitely over her, drawing out her pleasure as though on another mission. Though she could see his own restraint tearing at him, bringing them both ever closer to the edge of something.

And then she felt the thick, pulsing tip of him against her slick heat, so near all that leashed and breathless pleasure.

He was smiling down on her, encompassing her fully, wild and dark, the goodness of his great heart in his eyes.

“No going back from here, Princess.”

“Only forward, Drew.” Like the rhythmic tide that pulled at her, that pushed her to finish this. She tilted her hips and took the tip of him into her, wanting more. “Oh, my husband! My dearest love!”

“Wife!” His handsome face grew taut and impassioned as he pressed more deeply, and then swiftly, surely. A rolling, riotous pleasure that seemed to have a force of its own, that grew and blossomed.

“I can’t seem to stop, Drew.” Her hips pushed up against his, mindlessly, taking his propelling thrusts as fiercely as he gave them.

“My love!” His rhythm changed, deepened.

“Oh, Drew, I…ohhhhhhhh, myyy!” And then suddenly soaring, searing explosion began where they were joined, a radiance in her belly, a splintering lushness that overtook her heart and her limbs and made her hold tightly to him, and hold and hold. “I love you, Drew! My dearest hero!”

Drew felt the beginning of Caro’s release and finally let go of his own, riding the skyrocketing pleasure, the shuddering force that rocked him to the core. The crests rose and rose, with Caro’s name on his lips and his mouth on her breast, her eyelids, her neck.

His princess.

His love.

His life.

And as he finally drifted with her back to earth, he gathered her fiercely against him in the flickering orange of the hearthlight, delighting in her kisses as she clung to him. She was still shuddering against him, breathless and sleek-muscled, whimpering her pleasure against his mouth.

“What a wondrous thing you do, Lord Wexford,”
she whispered as she caught his face in her hands. “I think I’ll enjoy being your valet.”

“Not nearly as much as I’ll enjoy being your husband.” Drowning every night in her warm eddies, his senses unraveling beneath her fingers, in the wake of her gentle laughter.

In the bliss of the wily grin she was wearing just now. “Kate will certainly be pleased about all this, Drew.”

“
This
?” He rolled up onto his elbow. “Because you and I made love on the floor in front of the fire?”

“Because she’s won a wager from Jared.”

“That I would bed you, Caro?”

She laughed low in her throat and touched her fingertip to the end of his chin. “That I would bed
you
, my lord, before midnight. And I have. With two hours to spare.”

“Bloody hell, woman. You mean Jared bet against me?”

Her brow furrowed. “I don’t think he was very serious. The wager was for a dance with Kate in the Abasanti moonlight.”

“Ah!” Drew laughed and sifted his fingers through her hair. “From what I know of the Abasanti, love, that would make them both winners. But I have a wager of my own for you.”

“That I might bed you once more, before midnight, do you mean?” Her eyes glinted as she slid her palms over his backside, boldly kneading him, exploring, as wanton as the desert wind.

“I’m wagering, my love”—a wave of ecstasy rose in him again, made him rock hard and aching to plunge deeply into her sweetness—“that you’ll marry me in the village tomorrow.”

“You win that one straight away, Drew!” She kissed him fully, deeply, then lifted her starry-lashed eyes to his. “Now it’s my turn to offer a wager, if you dare take it, sir.”

Skeptical as hell, but so profoundly, madly in love with the woman that he nodded gladly. “Go on, Caro.”

“I wager that you, Andrew Chase, first Earl of Wexford, and I, the Once-Empress of Boratania, will live happily, joyfully together, in a house full of children, forever and ever.”

His heart filled with unimaginable bliss and the promise of a splendid future with his extraordinary wife, Drew laughed and gathered her into his arms. “Until the end of time, my love, my life.”

Sometime later, in the moonlit darkness of their bedchamber, Caro heard the mantel clock strike midnight and smiled against Drew’s shoulder.

Happily forever after, my prince.

LINDA NEEDHAM
credits her bachelor's degree in Theatre Arts, support from her fellow writers, and her hero-husband for her publishing achievements. Winning the RWA's Golden Heart as an unpublished author and joining Avon Books two months later are among the highlights of her Fabulous Forties. Seven books, two stageplays, three musical revues and the
USA Today
and Waldenbooks bestseller lists later, Linda has entered her Fantastic Fifties with brazenness, exaltation, and an RWA Top Ten Favorite Book of the Year award!

Visit her at:
www.lindaneedham.com.

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