Free Lady of Seduction by Laurel McKee Page A

glowed like dark
     stars.
    “I’m here,” he said. “I’ve always been here, even when you didn’t know it.”
    His arms slid around her and pulled her tight to his body. Her eyes closed as he kissed her temple, the edge of her cheekbone,
     the corner of her mouth, as if he would consume her. Yet she wanted to be consumed until there was nothing left except the
     feeling of it all.
    He lightly caught her earlobe between his teeth. His breath was hot in her ear, making her gasp in a shuddering rush of response.
     She grasped handfuls of his long hair and drew his lips back to hers. If he didn’t kiss her now she would surely scream!
    But he seemed happy to oblige. Grant groaned and swept the tip of his tongue over her eager lips before he plunged deep inside.
    Not breaking their kiss, his embrace tightened around her, and he turned her toward the waiting bed. She was barely aware
     of the softness of the feather mattress and the cool linen sheets against her back. She only felt him, the weight of his lean,
     hard-muscled body pressing her down onto the soft mattress.
    She reached out with hands made clumsy withdesperation to push his coat off his shoulders and throw it to the floor. The thin, fine fabric of his shirt clung damply
     to his chest, outlining every angle of his body. Moving from pure instinct, she slid her mouth from his to taste his neck
     with her tongue. The smell of his skin made her head spin.
    She touched him through his shirt, lightly scraping the edge of her thumbnail over his flat, puckered nipple.
    Grant groaned and pulled back from her touch. She whimpered and reached out for him, but he evaded her. He grasped the hem
     of her dress and dragged it up. In the flickering candlelight, she could see his gaze, heavy and hooded, following the line
     of her leg as he bared it. The naked, white skin of her thigh above the stocking, the curve of her hip—her bare womanhood.
    As he stared down at her, Caroline watched him, panting with need, trembling. She had never imagined such a moment, not in
     her wildest dreams. But here they were, and at the very point of no turning back, and somehow it seemed inevitable that they
     would come to this. Ever since that night in his Dublin library, they had been moving toward this one moment.
    And it suddenly struck her that no one had ever seen her like this before. Hartley had done his marital duty in the dark,
     under the covers, raising her gown just enough. He hadn’t seen her, and he had definitely never looked at her the way Grant
     was doing now, as if he were a starving wolf and she was a banquet laid out just for him.
    It made her feel powerful. Feminine. As if she was more than her sensible, scholarly self. She laughed and reached down for
     the fastenings of his breeches. She wanted to see him, too. She freed his erect, heavy manhood into her hand. It was soft
     and hard at the same time, velvet stretched tautover hot iron, veined and throbbing. It tightened under her touch, and he shuddered deeply as she traced its length in fascination.
     Its tip was damp.
    “Caroline, you’re killing me,” Grant groaned. His body lowered onto hers, and he pressed his open mouth to the soft hollow
     between her neck and shoulder. Her legs parted to cradle him against her body, and he tugged down her bodice to bare her breasts
     again.
    Her nipples felt heavy and aching as he rolled one of them between his fingers. He caught the other deep in his mouth.
    Caroline couldn’t breathe. She held him against her and closed her eyes tightly to absorb every single feeling. His hand roughly
     caressed the bare skin of her upper thigh, and his thumb searched out the wet center of her womanhood. She cried out as it
     slid inside her and traced the softness with an enticing friction.
    “Yes,” she whispered. “Now.”
    And then she couldn’t speak at all. She spread her legs wider, and he gently reached between them to part her with his fingers
     as he sought entry. Her head