His arm felt so hard and strong under her thighs and she wiggled against its sinewy length as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, indulging the very impulse she’d been denying herself. She burrowed her nose into his neck with a force that sent him stumbling. He stopped when he hit the book-lined walls.
“What—” he stammered, “are you—”
She growled, tightening her arms around his shoulders and nuzzling deeper into the crook of his neck, breathing him in. He smelled so good.
His hand at her back tightened, fisting into the fabric of her nightgown. “What are you . . .”
Her tongue darted out, tasting him.
All of him froze. Air hissed out from between his lips.
That didn’t stop her, however.
Her outrageous behavior didn’t even bother her. There were stronger things at play right now. Greater forces. Gale-wind forces she could not resist.
She tasted more of him, licking, then closing her lips and sucking, pressing against him, seeking pressure.
Her throbbing body needed the weight of him, against her, over her, in her.
She didn’t understand it, but she knew. Intuitively, she knew.
Rubbing against him made it both better and worse. Worse because the more she rubbed, the more pressure she needed. She couldn’t stop.
It wasn’t enough.
She twisted and writhed against him. He let go of her legs. She slid down his length with a sigh. Better. All of her could feel him now. His bigger, taller body was aligned with hers.
She pinned him in place, moving and grinding against him wildly, her hands clawing at him. He wasn’t wearing his jacket. Only his waistcoat. She growled in displeasure and seized it in both hands, ripping it open, sending buttons flying.
He cursed, but she kept moving, a fury of motion, her hands sliding under the fine lawn of his shirt so that she could feel his skin.
“Bloody hell. You’re in heat, woman.”
The words didn’t give her pause.
Nothing did.
Nothing could.
She was all frenzied motion. He slid to the floor and she went with him, straddling his lap.
Ahhhh. Yes. This.
She wrestled her nightgown up to her hips until her bare sex was sitting atop his crotch. His manhood bulged beneath the fabric of his trousers.
“Christ,” he gasped, his eyes wide on her. “You’re wet.”
She didn’t know what that meant.
She only knew that her womanhood felt swollen, and she might perish if she didn’t answer the pulling throb.
She flattened a hand against the edge of a bookshelf near his ear and pushed herself down on his hardness with a strangled sob. Yes. That helped.
She moved more, grinding against him until she was riding that bulging swell.
Clumsily. Without skill, but hard and fast and with the single-minded purpose of alleviating the hurt. Feeding the ache. Although it was a good ache now. A sweet pain. A beautiful torment. She understood that now. She knew how to satisfy it, and it was by doing this.
He cursed again, watching her in awe. His hands settled on her hips and she covered them with her own hands, forcing him to squeeze her through the nuisance folds of her nightgown.
Her body didn’t need gentle. It needed satisfaction, and gentle wouldn’t achieve that.
“What are you?” he muttered in an awe-tinged voice.
She arched, pressing her breasts into his chest, loathing the barrier of clothing between them. Her skin burned and demanded skin-to-skin contact. The graze of material on her breasts aggravated, chafed and irritated her, taunting and stinging her flesh.
She let go of his hands and went for the wide neckline of her nightgown, wrenching the fabric low so that her breasts popped free.
His eyes glowed with a feral light as they feasted on her, gazing at her like she was a five-course meal and he a starving man.
He groaned as her hands molded to the small mounds, squeezing and fondling as she worked her hips over him. She found her nipples, noticing with a sharp gasp that the distended tips were tender. She seized them and twisted the tender peaks. A rush of moisture sprang between her legs directly where she most pulsed and she released a keening cry.
His hand flew to her mouth, his long fingers covering her lips. “Shh.” His gaze darted for the library door.
Even the hard hand on her mouth excited her.
She bucked and rocked on his bulging crotch, reveling in the friction. The harder and faster she moved against him, the greater the ache grew, pulsing, clamoring, demanding relief.
A full-body tremble started to overtake her.
“That’s it.” He nodded once, his voice tight, as strained as his expression. “You’re close, sweet girl. Take what you need.”
His words were like their own caress—touching something hidden deep inside her.
She let go then, screaming into his palm, the sound muffled as she shuddered over him, all the coiling tightness in her body snapping.
She slowed, stilling over him, her scream dying against his hand.
He eased his hand from her mouth, his fingers trailing down her throat in a fiery burn.
Their eyes were on perfect level with each other, and even in the shadows she could see the gold flecks in his brown eyes, peering so deeply at her. The astonishment was still there—as it had been ever since she first started climbing all over him.
Oh, no! What had she done?
To the duke’s stepbrother, no less!
She was betrothed to be married . . . and she’d just attacked a strange man as though she were an animal in heat, just as he had claimed.
Heat swamped her, but this time it was shame and not the ache of desire. Bone-deep shame.
She’d never kissed a man—not even Billy—but she had just mounted this man and rode him like a well-seasoned female. Goodness! Her breasts! Her hands shot to her gaping neckline, tugging it back up over her bared and tender breasts.
He glanced down and then looked away, as though he, too, were embarrassed. And that only made her feel more shamed.
“My a-apologies,” she muttered, clambering off him in horror, lifting her hands away so as not to touch him again. Her gaze dropped to his crotch and she froze, a fresh wave of mortification rippling through her as she saw the evidence of their tryst in the form of a wet spot directly over his crotch.
It was all too awful. A living nightmare. No. Worse than a nightmare. She’d lacked the knowledge or experience to even dream up such a thing. She had no idea the pleasure that could be had between a woman and a man in such a way. That it could be so profound. That it could shatter her so completely.
Such wicked abandon had only just now been revealed to her.
Naturally Billy was too much of a gentleman to attempt anything improper. And up until tonight she had been too virtuous to engage in licentious activities.
He followed her gaze, looking down at himself where she’d left her mark on him.
She didn’t wait for him to look back at her face. Hopefully she would be gone before she had to endure that.
She shot to her feet, smoothing her nightgown down her shaking legs and tossing back the loose strands from her face. Her plait had come loose and the long strands were a wild nimbus about her.
Her body hummed pleasantly. A dull throb remained, but nothing like before. Nothing like when she had attacked him, mounted him and worked herself to a shuddering climax.
The torment had subsided and the pulling, persistent ache had fled. Vanishing like smoke. There was that at least.