Malia Martin (23 page)

“Are you sure you are all right?” Trevor asked, worry coloring his tone.

She just nodded.

He took her hand in his, chafing it, then putting it to the heat of his cheek. “You are still like ice, Sara.”

No, actually, she was not. She could only stare at her hand, white against Trevor’s dark, stubbled cheek.

He rubbed his own hand over hers, slowly. Then, still holding her gaze with his, he turned his head and kissed her palm.

She felt the kiss penetrate right into the core of her being. Sara’s eyes fluttered closed. His mouth was still against her palm, and she pressed it to him. He kissed her again, sliding down so that his tongue, hot and wet, tickled the inside of her wrist.

Her breath whooshed from her chest, and she curled her fingers into her palm. He stared at her, his mouth opening and then closing over her pinkie finger. He sucked, his tongue sliding down to her knuckle and then to the pad of her finger.

She was not breathing. Sara took in a deep breath to compensate, but it just evaporated when his mouth started down her arm. He kissed the inside of her elbow, and Sara swallowed hard, her entire body trembling, but not because of the cold.

She closed her eyes. She should stop him. This was not right. He was to marry another woman. She was a Dowager Duchess, for God’s sake. She was older than he. She was . . .

His lips touched her shoulder, his dark hair brushing her face. With a deep sigh, Sara turned her mouth into his hair, savoring the smell of him. He lifted his head, and she ached again. They stared at one another, faces close. She knew that he should leave her, but she could not tell him to. For, more than anything, she wanted him to stay. She wanted him to come against her, flesh to flesh, come inside her, fill her, and satisfy the ache within her.

She waited. If he moved away, she would do nothing. But, if he . . .

“I want you,” he said.

She stayed silent, watching him. He was so incredibly beautiful, in every way, all ways. And she wanted him to kiss her—oh, how she wanted it.

Sara moistened her bottom lip, hoping he would answer that small invitation. His lids dipped, heavy over his eyes, and then he bent lower. Their lips touched, barely. Sara licked
her lip again, this time tasting Trevor too, a quick slide against his mouth.

He nudged her mouth again, his own tongue coming out to slide under her upper lip for a moment, and then dart back into his mouth.

She inhaled his scent, bread and chocolate.

She giggled, suddenly giddy. “You drank some of my chocolate.”

He grinned down at her. “Had to make sure it wasn’t poison.”

“Sara,” he said, his tone turning serious. “If I stay here with you, right now, I will make love to you.”

Sara’s breath shuddered in her chest. “Should I leave?”

She had not wanted it to be her decision, but he left it up to her. Sara closed her eyes again, thinking of all the reasons to send him away. But one thought made the others scatter. If she sent Trevor from the room, someday when she was old and alone, she would think back on this moment and wish that she had kept going, that she had tasted real love for one, heady moment when she’d had the chance.

She opened her eyes slowly. “Don’t leave,” she said.

He barely let her finish the words before he plundered her mouth with his. This kiss was hungry, taking, giving, devastating. Sara moaned, opening for Trevor’s tongue, sucking it into her mouth, reveling in the wantonness of such an act.

She slid her arms around his neck as he came down next to her on the bed.

“Sara.”

She caught the word, her name, in her mouth and licked at the inside of his lip. “Yes.” She arched against him, needing to be closer, needing to feel every inch of his body against hers. The blankets that shrouded her slipped down her chest. Oh yes, she wanted the covers off. She wanted Trevor’s clothes off.

But she did not want to stop the kiss. She wanted it to go on forever. She writhed beneath him, turning her head so that she could taste all of him, feel him with her tongue.

He broke away suddenly, and Sara groaned. “Not to worry, Dearest,” he said breathlessly, as he shoved himself up and began to unbutton his shirt. One button, then the next. His muscled chest began to be revealed. But it was all too slow for Sara.

She sat up, took the edges of his shirt, and yanked them open. Buttons clattered to the floor.

Trevor laughed, shrugging from the torn shirt and dropping it to the floor. Then he stared at her, his eyes going dark like the forest at night. “You are beautiful.”

She glanced down at herself, realizing then that the blanket had fallen about her waist. In the firelight she was golden, shadows dancing about her skin.

She looked up at Trevor, and his eyes were
hot on her. She felt emboldened, powerful. She felt her lips tug up into a smile as she pushed the blankets away from her hips and legs.

Trevor hitched in a breath as she pushed the covers away completely and came up on her knees before him. She felt no shame, just a wonderful womanly power that she had never experienced before.

John had always come to her in the dark, hiking up her gown and plunging into her until he spilled his seed. Once or twice he had touched her, her breasts, her woman’s place, and she had felt a strange stilling of her blood. And she had known with all of her heart that there was supposed to be more to making love than what her husband did with her.

There was supposed to be this.

Sara stared at the man across from her, his chest broad and well muscled, a tiny swirl of dark hair trailing from his navel to under the waistband of his breeches.

She cupped his face in her hands, then trailed her fingers down over his strong throat, his wide shoulders, his arms, Unking her hands with his. Oh, yes, there was supposed to be this.

Trevor lifted her hands and curled them behind his head, then leaned over her until she lay back down on the bed. His eyes were so dark, staring at her as he skimmed his hand along her side, down over her hip, at the top of her leg, and then back, lightly brushing the side of her breast.

Sara trembled, her hands curling into the long hair at his nape. “Kiss me some more,” she said.

Trevor smiled. “I’ll kiss you forever, if you will let me.” He came down close to her, his chest just grazing the tips of her breasts, and kissed her hungrily.

Trevor growled, his mouth leaving hers but making a shivering trail down her throat. He smoothed a hand up her side, his thumb resting just beneath her breast. Her chest heaved as she breathed rapidly. Her hard nipples brushed against him again, and she shuddered.

He kissed the valley between her breasts, then continued down, making a hot, wet trail down her belly. His tongue dipped into her navel, and she found herself panting, her skin covered with small goosebumps.

Trevor did not stop there, but continued his downward trek. He came to her woman’s mound, his mouth against the dark curls. Sara pressed her legs together, the first inkling of embarrassment stirring within her.

“Open, Sara.”

Sara glanced down into Trevor’s dark eyes. They seemed black in the dark room, with only firelight and flickering candles to light them with glinting shadows. It was as if a hundred butterflies fluttered about in her stomach when she looked into his eyes.

His brows arched, and Sara slowly let her legs fall open. She had never felt so completely
vulnerable to anyone in her entire life. Sara swallowed hard, not sure if she were enjoying the experience still.

Trevor lifted his head and kissed her knee, never taking his gaze away from hers. “Tell me,” he said, as he slid his mouth down the inside of her leg, “if you want me to stop. And I will stop.”

Sara took in a quivering breath and nodded. His mouth pressed against the inside of her thigh, and a small sound came from her mouth. She watched him still, though, his eyes dark and glittering as he hovered just over her most secret woman’s place.

Sara bit her bottom lip, her entire body trembling as Trevor finally closed his eyes and kissed her more intimately than any man had ever done in her life. He moaned, his tongue darting out to taste her. Sara dropped back against the pillows, her stomach muscles clenching and her legs quivering as Trevor worked a terrifying magic over her senses.

She clenched his hair in her hands as tension seemed to grow within her with each stroke of her lover’s tongue. It was a tightening inside her, a rigid quivering of every fiber, making her want more, need more. She could hear herself moaning and saying words, but she did not know what she said. Sara tilted her hips toward Trevor’s mouth, then retreated only to search for his mouth once more with her very core. The tension within her mounted with each
movement, each flick of Trevor’s tongue, until she felt coiled so tight, felt the strain so sharply, that she knew it would break. And then it did, whipping out and hitting every nerve ending in her body.

Sara yelled. She could feel her body clench around Trevor’s tongue again and again, the force so strong it radiated down her legs, up her stomach into her breasts, out to her very fingertips. She sucked in a breath, her body alive with the most intense feelings she had ever experienced.

And then she blew out the air in her lungs and relaxed completely against the mattress, her body limp, her woman’s place still throbbing, and her mind blank of anything but pure physical pleasure.

Trevor kissed her stomach lightly, then left her. She wanted to protest, but she couldn’t find the strength to open her eyes or speak. She heard him moving beside the bed, then felt the heat of his body as he lay down beside her, naked.

He pulled her into his arms, cradling her head against his chest, their bodies molded together.

“You did not ask me to stop,” he said, with a laugh in his voice.

“No,” she said on a sigh, nuzzling closer to him as he lifted a blanket over them. “I may ask you to do it again, actually.”

He chuckled, the sound reverberating
through his chest and against her ear. “How wicked of you, Duchess.”

“How wicked of
you
, Duke.”

“Ah, and I know how you have grieved of my wicked ways.”

Sara opened her eyes. Tilting her head back, she could not help the grin that tugged at her lips. “I grieve no more, your grace.”

Trevor laughed, his head back, his mouth open. She liked to watch him thus. When his laughter subsided, he looked at her again. She followed the line of his upper lip with her eyes, the full curve, then the dip in the middle. Then she lifted her gaze to his eyes. His pupils dilated, darkening his gaze so that she remembered how he looked as he kissed her so intimately only moments before.

“Are you asking already?” he said, his voice rough.

Sara moved against him, feeling his need hard against her stomach. She slipped her arms around his neck, filling her hands with his silky hair. “I am asking you to share the ecstasy with me this time. I want to feel you inside of me.”

Trevor’s lids dropped, shading his eyes, then lifted halfway. He moved lower on the bed so she looked directly into his face and butted her hips with his.

Sara gasped when she felt his manhood against her.

“I want to be inside of you, Sara,” he said, then took her lips softly in the most tender and
gentle kiss she had ever experienced.

Sara shivered, meeting his tongue, dancing with it, twirling her own into his mouth and tasting him. His hands slid down to cup her bottom, pulling her even closer to him. She could feel the head of his manhood against her slick woman’s entrance, and she bucked forward, wanting him closer, wanting him to be a part of her.

He deepened his kiss, his mouth open over hers, and she groaned into him. He nudged her private opening, touching, retreating, then touching again until Sara felt she might go mad.

She reached between them, taking him in her hands. He was smooth, but hard and hot, so very hot. “I need you,” she said, as she lifted her outside leg, hooking it over his hip, and placed him against the source of her moistness.

He growled against her lips, nipping her, then taking his kisses down her neck to the top of her breast. He sucked her there, and she moved her hips against him. “Please,” she moaned.

He nuzzled her breasts, his hair tickling the underside of her chin, and she plunged her hands into his hair to keep him there. His mouth was hot against her skin, hot and wet as he kissed the underside of her breast. Her nipple tingled, turgid and sensitive as it brushed against his cheek, his chin, and then, finally, his tongue.

Sara arched forward, a deep sound emanating from her throat as he tugged on her nipple with his teeth. “Oh, yes,” she heard herself moan. “Oh, yes.”

It was as if he had suddenly awakened every wanton sense of her being, and Sara arched her neck, tilted her head back, and thrust her breasts toward Trevor’s wonderful mouth.

He gripped her buttocks, kneading them and pulling her toward him. And then he entered her, slowly, inch by inch. Sara curled her leg tighter about his hip, glorying in the fullness of him. He sucked hard on her breast and sheathed himself in her completely at the same time. Sara let out a shriek of pleasure.

“You
are
wicked, Duchess,” Trevor whispered in the ensuing silence. “The entire inn now realizes that I pleasure a woman in my room. Including that very young and impressionable squire.”

Sara moved against Trevor a bit impatiently, but she laughed at his statement. “Ah, but the squire thinks you have a young man in your room.”

Trevor tilted his head, his eyes round and blinking.

Sara giggled, her entire body shaking with the sound, her woman’s place clenching against Trevor’s shaft. She ended the girlish laugh on a long and yearning sigh. “You say the inn realizes you pleasure a woman.” She shoved her hips into Trevor’s. “So pleasure me!”

Trevor chuckled, his own hips beginning to
move with hers. “That poor squire,” he said. “He shall be on his knees this night, I should think.”

Sara laughed, then gasped as Trevor opened his mouth against the turgid peak of her breast. He licked her, then met her eyes again. “Come over me,” he said, holding her hips as he turned her so that she straddled him. As they moved, Trevor’s hard manliness pushed up inside of her so deeply, Sara felt it to her very navel. She groaned, when she sat astride him, her knees bent at his waist.