Free For Desire Alone by Jess Michaels Page A

equally approve of me?” she pressed as she glided a finger between her breasts.
    He arched a brow. “Look at how my cock strains against my breeches and tell me I do not.”
    She let her gaze slip southward and her eyes went wide. “My, that does look uncomfortable, Mr. Rycroft. Perhaps you should remove those before you lose consciousness from a lack of blood to the rest of your body.”
    He chuckled as he toed off one boot, then the other and kicked them away so that when he pulled his trousers off, he could step free of their confines. Mariah leaned forward as he snapped free the first button of his trouser fly. Then the second, and she stopped breathing. The third, and he couldn’t contain his erection as it strained to escape in the space he had created.
    “Would you like me to help you?” she asked, all breathless innocence.
    He shook his head. “Touch me now and I shall explode. Which will completely defeat the purpose. Just one more and…” He popped the last button and slipped his cock from the confines of his trousers with a sigh of relief. Then he shucked them down and away to stand utterly naked and aroused before her.
    “My God, John,” she whispered, all the teasing gone from her voice. “You are amazing. No wonder every courtesan, whore and mistress is willing to present herself to you at a simple word.”
    He shook his head. “I couldn’t give less of a thought to any of them at this moment. I am now naked, madam. And you are half-clothed. Please finish what we have started.”
    Mariah half-smiled and then shimmied from her gown to stand before him naked. He caught his breath. He had seen her this way before, of course, but lust had been coursing through his veins too powerfully to really take in every inch of her.
    She had long, willowy lines that flowed like some artist’s rendition of a woman’s perfect beauty.
    “My God, Mariah,” he breathed. “You are everything I ever imagined you to be. More than I dreamed.”
    She blushed. “But this is not a dream.”
    She moved forward and gently wrapped her arms around his neck. She lifted up to her tiptoes and kissed him. This time there was no crushing desperation, no forceful demand to their kiss. It was slow and seductive as she tangled her tongue with his, tasting him, testing the measure of his response to this or that.
    He shivered at her mastery of the kiss. He didn’t think he’d ever kissed a woman who affected him so deeply with just that caress. He cupped her backside and molded her more fully to his body as the kiss deepened and spiraled further and further into a place that could only end in their bodies joined and moving together toward release.
    She groaned against his mouth and lifted and crooked one long, smooth leg around his thigh. The motion opened her sex and he felt its humid heat against him, welcoming him, waiting for him.
    He growled his desire out and swept her up into his arms. She expelled her breath in a surprised sigh as he carried her to the bed and laid her out against his sheets. Then he stepped back to stare at her.
    Her hair had come partially down and long locks of it curled around his pillows and at her shoulders. She lounged back, utterly seductive without even trying as she stared up at him in waiting.
    He lifted himself onto the bottom of the bed and crawled up toward her, nuzzling her calf, her knee, then her inner thigh. Each time the slightly rough texture of his cheek caressed her, she let out a quiet moan of pleasure. Dear God, but she was responsive. And none of it was forced or falsified as so many courtesans did. Mariah pretended nothing. Not in her life and not in her lover’s bed.
    That fact was as bewitching as her eyes.
    He parted her legs farther and opened her sex. It glistened with readiness, pink and wet. She had trimmed the hair around it, so it was almost bare but for a thin line of red curls. He stroked a finger along the slit and she arched her back with a guttural grunt.
    “So