The Tempting of Thomas Carrick (36 page)

This time, he dove into the exchange—as determined as she, as ravenous for control, but even more for the outcome. No reluctance, no resistance. Just need and raw desire.

She moved into him, and he hauled her closer. For a protracted moment, they caught each other, seized each other’s senses and held them immersed in the scorching duel of their tongues, the blatantly sexual mating of their mouths.

She was no longer thinking—she didn’t need to; she reacted and stroked the hard hot length in her palm, then sent her other hand skating down from his nape, tracing down the side of his chest to slide around to his back and splay over the center, holding him to her as with her other hand she played.

He groaned through the kiss. The guttural sound was music to her ears.

Then his hands, until then spread on her back, slid down, blatantly sculpting her body, her skin screened from the heat of his hard palms only by the flimsiest of silks. Those large hands swept lower, over the indentation of her waist and down, to close, possessive and greedy, over the globes of her bottom.

Her own breath shook as he gripped, then provocatively kneaded.

Although their lips were still supping, neither was any longer trapped in the kiss—they were trapped by their own desires and the sensations battering them. She could barely breathe, but by her judgment, it was her turn.

She slid her hand from his back to his side and gripped the loose waistband of his trousers; simultaneously, she eased her hold on his erection just enough to score upward with her nails, all the way to the tip.

His focus fractured. The grip of his hands on her bottom eased.

Just enough for her to wiggle and slide out of his hold and sink to her knees.

With her free hand, she held the front of his trousers open, while with the other she angled his erection to her lips.

Thomas froze. Emotions lashed him—a vivid medley of leaping passion, straining desire, disbelief, and surging expectation. Anticipation triumphed, sank its claws deep—and held him immobile. Every muscle he possessed locked; he was unable to move, barely able to breathe—all he could do was watch as, kneeling amid the pile of her discarded skirts, she closed both hands about his straining length, and gently, delicately, kissed the weeping head.

His senses teetered; she was going to kill him—slay him—if she didn’t do more. Did she know how?

The answer came in the next second. She parted her lips and took him into her mouth, and his senses rioted.

Her hair was still more or less up in the knot she’d worn it in that evening, exposing the delicate curve of her neck as she bent her head at his groin. He stared, then she suckled and ripped a groan from him.

If he watched any longer, he’d be lost. Closing his eyes, he rode out the exquisite slide of her hot wet flesh closing about him. He reached for her head, needing that anchor—needing that pretense that he had some control, when in reality he had none. She’d razed his defenses.

She proceeded to reduce every last barrier he had to ash.

Every lick set him quaking, clinging desperately to fast unraveling sanity; every time she sucked, he teetered on the brink of losing all control and simply ravishing her.

If she realized that, sensed that, she didn’t stop.

Her hairpins pinged and scattered on the floor as, his head tipping back, he desperately clung to some semblance of sophistication while she, with her hot mouth and her wandering hands, hands that ultimately came to close about and lightly knead his heavy balls, tried to cinder even that.

Bit by bit, suck by lick, she succeeded.

Life. I will always bring you life.

But some part of him was dying. Under her committed, direct, and determined ministrations, that part of him that was not truly him was withering and falling away.

And all that was left was the true him—nothing like the Thomas Carrick the ladies of Glasgow knew, but a man of even stronger passions, of needs that went so much deeper than any of them had ever known, ever touched, much less satisfied.

Under her hands, under the touch of her lips and the wet heat of her mouth, the true him burned.

Then she shifted her head and took him deeper yet.

And he knew beyond question that he wouldn’t last.

“Enough.” He forced the word out, could barely make it out himself, but she heard and paused—he seized the moment to slip his thumb between her lips, to spread his fingers and grip her head and, as he drew free of her mouth, haul her up.

Against him. He held her head clamped between his palms and pressed a searing kiss on her swollen lips.

Tasted a trace of himself in her mouth and plunged deeper, forcing her lips wide, sweeping his tongue over hers, claiming every inch of her softness anew. Then he released her head and caught her instead, crushed her to him and, angling his head over hers, holding her trapped in the kiss, proceeded to conquer the rest of her.

Lucilla wasn’t about to be conquered—at least not so easily. Especially not now that he’d finally dropped his shields and was interacting with her as just him. She hadn’t realized what a difference there was between this inner man and the other, the one she’d known until now. This man was harder, more demanding—even more inclined to command.

She didn’t care—
he
was the one she coveted. Her true lover, her true husband, her true mate.

His hands shaped her body, ruthlessly pressing fire beneath her skin.

She returned the act with interest, then pushed things even further, touching, tracing—teasing and taunting. Passion thudded in her veins; desire surged through her even as delight coursed down every nerve.

She was burning, almost as hot as he; his skin was like a brand wherever she touched, sinking into her senses. She could feel urgency building in them both, in the tension in their muscles, in the desperation driving each caress and in their fractured breaths, yet still they battled, waging a sensual war of sorts, neither willing to surrender even though both were reaching the limit of what they could withstand… They were racing flat out toward that threshold beyond which passion wouldn’t allow them to hold back.

He reached that breaking point first.

A guttural sound escaped him, then he swung around and backed her against the bed. The high mattress met her thighs.

His arms eased from around her, but instead of gripping her waist and lifting her—either to the bed or against him—he closed both hands in the open collar of her chemise. The eyes that met hers were burning gold. Then he ripped.

In one violent move, he stripped the fine garment from her.

Cool air washed over her flushed skin, and she rejoiced.

Dragging in a shallow breath, she reached for his trousers, still hanging open from his hips.

Her fingertips had barely touched the material when he caught her shoulders and spun her to face the bed.

She caught only a glimpse of his face, of his eyes, as she turned, but what burned there was so powerful, so passionately alive, she lost what little breath she’d managed to catch.

Then his hand pressed heavily between her shoulder blades, and she had no choice but to bend over the bed.

Turning her head to one side, she tried to peek through the fall of her hair, tried to reach back, but he caught her hands, anchored them in one of his in the small of her back, and leaned enough of his weight on that hand to keep her in place.

Then with his feet, he pushed hers apart, and touched her.

He caressed the bare globes of her bottom, then he dipped his long fingers into the hollow beneath.

He found the slick wetness between her thighs, spread it over her sensitive lips, tracing and caressing. He found her entrance and circled it with one broad fingertip, then he pressed his fist between her thighs and thrust that finger into her, as deeply as he could.

She squirmed, but he held her down.

He stroked, and she panted.

Then he added a second finger to the first; she moaned as he slid both fingers deep.

She could feel his hand flexing between her thighs as he worked his fingers in and out of her sheath. Gasping, burning, she rolled her hips, riding the repetitive penetrations.

Her lids fell. She caught her lower lip between her teeth in an attempt to hold back the scream she knew would come…

The nameless peak of passion had risen before her and she was almost at its lip—teetering on the brink of ecstasy—when he abruptly drew his fingers from her.

Before her raging senses did more than register that fact, he’d released her hands and taken her hips in an unforgiving grip, then with one long thrust, he drove into her to the hilt.

Her scream was forced from her lungs and half muffled by the comforter. Passion sizzled down her veins, and she clamped tightly about him.

As he rode her. Through the moment of unraveling control—through that first surrender.

And straight on into the next.

She hadn’t thought the peak could get any higher, but it could—it did. He made it so. Made her nerves unravel further yet, made her senses unaware of anything beyond the earthy evidence of their joining—the slap of his belly against her bottom, the brush of his balls between her thighs, the hard grip of his fingers anchoring her before him, the repetitive push as he filled her and the slide of her cheek against the silk of her comforter, the scent of her arousal and his, the weak, panting breaths that fell from her lips, and the unrelenting heat that had her writhing on the bed.

She didn’t think she could reach the pinnacle, not a second time—not so soon. But he drove her up and over, thrusting deep and rolling his hips, then pushing deeper yet, and she screamed again as blinding ecstasy took her and frazzled every last nerve.

She was boneless, utterly boneless, but as he withdrew from her, she realized that he hadn’t yet sought his release.

Quite deliberately, she assumed, and wondered. Waited.

She heard him dispense with his shoes and remaining clothes. Then he scooped her up, lifted her against his chest, and crawled onto the bed.

He laid her down with the huge mound of pillows at her back; that left her half sitting, but that seemed to be his intention as he followed her down. Settling his hips between her thighs, he planted an elbow beside her shoulder, angling his chest so he could look at her—at her body lying supine beneath his.

Her wits long gone, operating on instinct alone, she studied his face. There was a hardness, an angularity that hadn’t been there before, as if the moment had stripped away all superficial softness and left only the true bedrock behind.

That sight—what she could see revealed—fascinated her. Raising one hand, she lightly trailed her fingertips down one chiseled cheek.

He’d been surveying her body; he turned his head and met her eyes.

His were gold in amber, and they burned with a passionate, possessive flame.

His lids lowered. He turned his head a fraction more and kissed her fingertips. Then he caught her hand and pressed a searing kiss to her palm.

Raising his eyes to hers again, he held her gaze—and set his other hand to her breast.

And plunged them back into the fire—theirs, born of their desires, of their passionate natures, and fueled by a need neither could deny.

He moved one thigh up and wide. Holding her open, he pushed deeply into her. Anchoring her as he wished, sinking deep between her thighs, he filled her.

Closing his eyes, he gave himself up to the moment, to her.

She raised her arms, wrapped them about him, and drew him closer yet. Until his body was truly riding hers; the friction of his hair-dusted limbs and chest against her skin was beyond exquisite.

She surrendered and claimed, opened her arms and embraced him—this, all.

Thomas bowed his head and, in the final desperation, found her lips, covered them with his, sank into her mouth, and let the pounding need of their combined passions have its way as he raced them up and on—and then over the final, impossibly high and jagged peak.

She was burning beneath him, as ferocious in her passion as he as they soared into that critical moment of heightened need—of shattering oneness.

Of true intimacy.

Glory beckoned and she fell. She came apart, and he drank deep, drank in her cry, let his greedy senses draw her passion and total surrender deep into his soul—then his thoughts disintegrated. He was dimly aware of plunging into her body, of the clinging rippling clutch of her sheath, of his own body finding an elementally shattering release—but as ecstasy painted a sunburst on the inside of his lids, what he was most deeply conscious of was the incredible peace.

The sense of rightness and belonging that filled his soul.

He was too wracked by passion to fear it, too deeply exposed to do anything other than recognize just how precious such a feeling was.

He accepted it, let it stretch.

With her pinned beneath him, he let himself slump into her arms, and let her hold him as they and their senses tumbled over the edge into satiation, into the pleasured oblivion of their sensual sea.

CHAPTER 14

In his chamber below Lucilla’s room, Thomas washed and got ready to face another day of ambling about Casphairn Manor.

Until Lucilla had got him into her bedroom, the previous evening had been a
subtle
seduction; in many ways, the day had been, too. Once she’d shut her bedroom door behind them, the seduction had turned blatant, yet…while on one level he wasn’t entirely at ease with how far into uncharted territory they’d ventured, most of him was still reveling in the aftermath—a curious sense of freedom.

She was the only bed partner—the only female of any sort—with whom he’d openly been simply himself. He’d adopted the façade of a gentleman of society so long ago, he’d forgotten what it was like to set it aside and simply be him.

He’d forgotten a lot about being simply him. About what he truly liked, about what appealed to the real him.

So many of the previous day’s interludes had reminded him of what he had, in his early years, liked about living in the country; those moments had reawoken a forgotten appreciation for the minor mundane occurrences that made up the heartbeat of country life. In this sort of country.