He did not stop until she was bare to him and the lick of the silvery moonlight. She did not struggle, held captive by something wild and wicked.
The lemon ice was now little more than a tangy, sweet slush. Watching her intently, Theodore slowly and deliberately dipped the china vessel so the liquid drizzled out.
It dripped across her collarbone, painting the voluptuous, upper curves of her breasts where they swelled above the corset, and finally gilded the tips of her nipples. Theodore placed the empty bowl aside, his hands now free to grip her waist and hold her in place.
Lauren gasped at the sensation, shivering as the icy stream trailed over her heated flesh. Hearing the sound, Theodore growled deep in his throat, bent his head, and chased every rivulet with the scorch of his tongue.
“I want you, my wild, sweet Lauren. I want your fire. Your bite. Your passion. Everything.” The words were murmured against her skin, his lips moving over her, tasting and nipping every exposed piece he could find. The furnace of his mouth closed over the tip of her breast, his tongue swirling about the hardened peak like a lick of flame, contrasting exquisitely with the frost of the lemon ice. “I cannot get enough of you.”
She should have pushed him away, but for some reason, her hands clasped his head tighter to her, her fingers raking through the thick waves of his hair. A satisfied, yet unfulfilled moan trembled in her chest as Theodore’s teeth captured, then gently rolled her nipple. The sharp nip that chased it made her heart nearly explode.
“Theo… Theo, please…” Her whisper was mindless. She did not know what she begged for, but Theodore did.
“Yes, love. Yes. I’ll please you… I shall devote my life to pleasing you.” With leisurely wantonness, he trailed kisses to her other breast, lavishing the same attention and dedication upon it until she writhed, helpless in his arms.
“What do you think happened here?”
“It looks like a kissing bough fell and someone tried to repair it. Stupid buggers left the chair in the middle of the corridor, didn’t they?”
The unexpectedness of two male voices in the hallway nearly sent Lauren into a panic. She froze in place, her hands stilling in Theodore’s hair as she registered the fact two other people stood on the other side of the thick velvet curtain.
Theodore’s head raised, his eyebrow quirking high as he recognized the danger of their predicament.
“Too lazy to fetch a ladder, I suppose,” one of the men offered.
“Here, I’ll fix it.”
“Leave it for morning,” the first one said in a bored manner. “After all, the downstairs maids are responsible for that. I say we tell Mister Collins and let him handle it.”
“At least we can move the chair back.”
Raising a finger to his lips, Theodore made a “shh” signal then, with his other hand, lightly pinched Lauren’s nipple into a stiff peak of arousal. When it seemed she might cry out from the onslaught, he brushed his lips over hers and slyly whispered, “If we are caught like this, you in my arms like this, your breasts exposed like this, and my mouth exploring you like this, you can be damned sure I shall have you as my wife before the sun sets tomorrow. So be still, my darling, else you make that particular dream come true.”
Then he fully claimed her mouth, lashing his tongue at hers as if daring her to expose their hiding place.
While the two servants went about setting the chair in its rightful place and discussed how much trouble the downstairs maids might be in, Theodore pressed his advantage and Lauren kept her silence. Her head became muddled, so dazed by the swirl of emotions he evoked that she forgot why she fought being his. He kissed her so voraciously, so tenderly, and so completely that Lauren wasn’t sure if there was a good reason not to allow him his way.
Between kisses, he nipped and licked her flesh, soothing one instant and setting her afire the next. He shifted his body as well, pushing between her knees, forcing her legs wider until one large muscular thigh thrust between her own.
There was something terribly primal and basic about that. Something that made Lauren push against the stone-like hardness of his limbs. Something that made her rub against him, searching for relief for the unsettling sensation flowing through her body. Something that made her want to never let him go.
“That’s it, my darling,” Theodore crooned, devouring the sensitive area behind her ear. “Whatever you want, I will give you…”
One huge hand curled around her throat, urging her chin heavenward so more of the tender flesh was exposed. He sucked and bit the smooth column of her neck with that one hand controlling her breath while the other molded her breast to fit his palm, tweaking the nipple until it pebbled almost painfully, sending Lauren down a fathomless vortex of lust.
Her body rocked back and forth, using Theodore’s silken steel muscles as an instrument to send lighting sparks of excruciating pleasure twirling along every nerve ending. She was so close to an amazing discovery. Pressure built inside her veins. Inside her bones. Her blood. Between her thighs, behind the thickness of her skirts and her flimsy undergarments, it was there. There.
Theodore ground harder against her, his growl reverberating until it echoed in her head. A whimper of need, of confusion, of want and frustration fluttered between her lips.
A plaintive, desperate cry for release.
Theodore responded with quicksilver speed. One moment his hand was on her breast, the next it was up and under her skirts. His leg eased away; his palm replaced it. The heat of him burned through her undergarments. The unyielding pressure as he pressed exactly where she needed him was blissfully exquisite, his hand cupping her sex until she thought she might dissolve like a sugar cube dropped in hot tea.
The hand around her neck tightened the slightest bit, but she wasn’t frightened. If anything, she felt more secure as he held her in place. A crazy thought flitted through her mind at that moment and was gone the next instant.
His hands, so strong, so hard and so tender, kept her anchored to the world and would be there to gather her and make her whole if she flew apart.
She needed those hands to fill the empty spaces inside her.
“Come for me, Lauren,” Theodore commanded roughly. “Come for me and give me your heart.”
A firm revolution of his wrist, and Lauren melted, the sensation so overwhelming and unexpected she grew dizzy. The quickness of the orgasm, her first by another’s hand, obliterated anything before it. Every splinter of ecstasy was painful, true, and addictive.
She wanted more.
Theodore immediately swallowed the cry hovering on her lips, his mouth consuming hers with an animal-like intensity. It seemed that he kissed her forever, guiding her through the heights of the climax, slipping in and out of the pulsating pleasure of the waves, and finally allowing her to drown in the giddy, dreamy aftermath of the descent.
When it was over, when she was boneless and complacent, Theodore gently withdrew his hand from beneath her skirt.
He tucked her body back into her corset, tightened the bodice ribbons, straightened the elbow-length gloves she wore, and smoothed stray tendrils of hair behind her ears.
Lauren watched him silently, allowing him to move her as he wished as if she were a boneless doll. There was no hope for her at that moment, anyway. After that jaw-dropping, earthshattering experience, she could hardly string two words together to form a sentence.