Free Some Like It Wicked by Teresa Medeiros Page A

Catriona Kincaid herself, with her strawberry blond curls streaming over his pillow, her cheeks rosy with sleep, her breath a beguiling whisper on the back of his neck. As he stirred, she slipped one arm around his waist and drew him even deeper into the lush cup of her body, so deep he could feel the softness of her naked breasts pressed against his back. Although he wouldn’t have thought it physically possible, he grew even harder.
    Groaning beneath his breath, he sank back into the pillow. Even though all of the other bolsters and pillows had been flung off of her side of the bed, she would never believe that he wasn’t to blame for this. He glanced downward. She had curled her hand innocently against his rigid abdomen, just a finger’s breadth away from both their ruins.
    Shuddering with lust, Simon abruptly sat up and nudged her arm away from him.
    Instead of waking as he’d hoped, she simply scowled, let out a disgruntled little snort, then nestled deeper into the mattress.
    The sheet still draped all of her more pertinent parts, but in that moment Simon found the graceful curve of her throat and the delicate wings of her collarbone nearly as enticing as the dusky shadows of her nipples beneath the sheet. She smelled warm and feminine and musky with sleep. No French perfumier could have concocted a fragrance more erotic or irresistible to a man’s nostrils.
    It might astound the casual observer, but he’d always prided himself on his self-control—especially where women were concerned. Every seductive word that flowed from his lips, every lingering kiss, every deft stroke of his fingertips was carefully calculated to bring about his lover’s loss of control, not his. But here he was on the brink of losing that winning advantage with little more than an artless touch from an innocent girl.

    The lamp had gone out during the night. He squinted through the shadows but couldn’t quite make out the face of the clock on the mantel. The pearly light drifting through the window could be either moonlight or dawn. It could be minutes before they were disturbed or hours.
    He studied Catriona. Her parted lips were as lush and tempting as rose petals kissed with the first drops of morning dew.
    I promise I’ll be the perfect gentleman.
    His own words came back to haunt him. Hadn’t he told her in that barn all those years ago that he wasn’t in the habit of making promises he couldn’t keep?
    To so much as steal a kiss while she was vulnerable and defenseless just to satisfy his own carnal appetites would be unthinkable, unscrupulous…
    He leaned over, gently brushing her lips with his own.
    Unforgivable…

    ******************
    Catriona was being kissed by a man who’d been born to the art. His lips were firm yet soft, grazing hers over and over, using just the right amount of pressure to coax them apart. She kept her eyes pressed tightly shut; if this was a dream, she never wanted to wake.
    But she could not help stirring when he entered her mouth with his tongue. Her hips arched off the bed of their own volition, seeking the answer to some question she did not even have the words to ask. His tongue toyed with hers—teasing, tantalizing, stroking.
    Making wordless promises she could no longer distinguish from lies.
    Desire stirred thickly in her veins, pulsing in secret places she had dared to touch only in the dark, lonely watches of the night. His kiss promised that was but a shadow of the pleasure he could give her. He made love to her mouth with the same exquisite attention to detail she knew he would give the rest of her body if she was bold—or foolhardy—enough to surrender it into his hands.
    Hands that were even now tracing the vulnerable curve of her throat, the delicate flare of her collarbone, the aching swell of her breasts. He gently cupped one of them through the sheet, testing its weight in his palm and flicking her distended nipple with the pad of his thumb. As he did so, he sucked softly on the