LITMIR.BIZ

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as ever being gentlemen! But being dismissed by Mariah, as if he were of no more importance to her, that he was no better than any of them, was beyond endurance.

      His nostrils flared as he looked down at her between hooded lids, his senses aflame, flooded, filled, with both the sight of her and the increasing smell of that insidious and arousing perfume.

      Her eyes were a deep and drowning turquoise, her skin creamy smooth, with that becoming blush to her cheeks. Her parted lips were so plump and tempting! The bareness of her shoulders made him ache to touch them, the hollows of her throat begging further investigation, with his lips and tongue. And her breasts moved, swelled enticingly beneath that thin lace barrier, as she breathed shallowly.

      And all the time Darian gazed down at her hungrily, the very air about them seeming to have stilled, the intensity of that erotic perfume having deepened and swelled, engulfing him, enslaving him and threatening to destroy his last shreds of resistance.

      Why had her perfume deepened now? How was it possible?

      ‘Mariah, do you stroke your perfume across and between your breasts and between your thighs?’ he prompted gruffly.

      ‘Darian!’ she gasped breathlessly.

      ‘Do you?’ he pressed raggedly.

      ‘I— Yes. Yes!’ she confirmed achingly.

      And telling Darian that, for the perfume to have become stronger, Mariah’s body heat must have deepened, and so increasing the perfume escaping from those secret, hot places.

      He closed his eyes briefly, hoping it might aid him in holding on to his fast-slipping control. But closing his eyes only intensified his sensitivity to her perfume. He slowly opened half-raised lids, his heated gaze immediately homing in on the soft pout of Mariah’s parted lips. Lips he had been longing to taste again since she climbed into his carriage earlier today.

      An ache he found he could no longer resist as he held her gaze with his own, his arms on the wall beside her keeping his body from touching hers, as he slowly lowered his head to run his lips lightly across her slightly parted ones.

      They were soft and hesitant beneath his own, tasting of sweetmeats and brandy as he ran his tongue gently along and between them, running lightly across the ridge of her teeth, stroking along the moist length of her own tongue, before retreating to start the caress all over again, their ragged breathing becoming hot and humid between them.

      Mariah had never been kissed so gently before, so slowly and so erotically, her pulse leaping, and her heart beating loudly beneath breasts that had become swollen and sensitised, just the gentle brush of that lace across them causing her nipples to harden and ache as they became engorged and swollen almost to the point of pain. Just as she was aware of a similar swelling, heat, between her thighs.

      Her neck arched as Darian’s lips now travelled across her cheek, teeth nibbling her earlobe before moving lower still. Her hands moved out to grasp Darian’s shoulders as she felt his lips against her throat, gently sucking on that flesh, tongue lathing moistly to ease the pain before moving lower still, the brush of that hot and moist tongue now dipping into the deep and sensitive hollows at the base of her arched throat.

      ‘Darian!’ Mariah was so beset with new and unfamiliar emotions that she had no idea whether her gasp was one of protest for him to stop, or a plea for him to continue.

      The response and heat of her body felt so strange to her. Not an unpleasant strange—far from it! She had never felt such pleasure before, or this deep and yearning ache she had to press closer against Darian’s body, to rub herself against him, in an effort—a plea—to find relief for this hot and burning need, both in her breasts and between her thighs.

      She groaned low in her throat, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her as Darian’s lips and stroking tongue now explored the tops of her creamy breasts. Sighing her pleasure as she at last felt the heavy weight of Darian’s thighs against her own as he leant inwards to prevent her fall, allowing her to feel his own long and engorged arousal pressed against her softness—and giving instant lie to his earlier claim!

      Mariah should have felt trapped, should have felt awash with the usual panic she suffered whenever a man attempted to touch or kiss her. That need she always felt to escape. To free herself.

      And yet she felt none of that with Darian, wanted only to press herself closer still, to rub herself over and against him, anything to be able to somehow alleviate the burning ache in her breasts and between her thighs.

      ‘Darian!’ Mariah gave a helpless gasp as she felt the moist stroke of his tongue across her bared nipple, the first indication she had that he had pulled down that delicate lace barrier and bared her breasts.

      That stroke of his tongue was quickly followed by the hot and deliberate brush of his breath over the sensitised tip. The stroking of his tongue again, followed by that soft breath, her nipple standing erect and begging for more as he moved to lavish that same attention to its twin.

      It was pleasure like nothing Mariah had ever known before, had never guessed existed.

      ‘After you for a taste, if you don’t mind, Wolfingham?’

      Mariah had frozen at the first sound of that intrusive voice. She now turned her head quickly, her gaze stricken as she saw Lord Richard Nichols standing just feet away down the hallway, his face flushed with arousal, eyes fevered as he gazed unabashedly at Mariah’s completely bared breasts.

      That fevered gaze remained fixed lasciviously on her bared breasts as he took a step forward. ‘I’ve long wanted a taste of this particular beauty.’

      Mariah was barely aware of Wolfingham moving, aware only of the loss of his heat pressed against her as he strode ominously down the hallway towards the other man, allowing her time to pull the lace quickly back in place before looking up again as she heard Richard Nichols’s squeak of protest and seeing that Darian now had the older man pressed up against the wall of the hallway, Nichols’s feet dangling as he was held several inches above the floor by Wolfingham’s hand about his throat. Darian’s expression was one of cold fury as he looked at the other man.

      ‘I do mind, as it happens, Nichols!’ he grated harshly. ‘In fact, I would mind very much if I were ever to learn that you had come within six feet of touching Mariah.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘Do I make myself clear?’

      ‘Very—very clear.’ The other man appeared to be having trouble breathing, let alone speaking. ‘L-leave off, do, Wolfingham!’ Nichols choked out, his hand about the younger man’s wrist as he struggled to free himself.

      Darian gazed contemptuously at Richard Nichols for several long seconds more, his gaze glacial as he conveyed a stronger, more silent threat to the older man. One of violence and retribution such as Nichols had never seen before.

      ‘Darian?’

      He was so angry, so filled with a need to shake the older man like a rag doll, like the insufferable cur that he was, that for several long moments Darian could think of nothing but the desire he felt to beat this man to within an inch of his life. He was so angry that he could not respond to Mariah’s pleading.

      ‘Darian, please!’

      He heard the sob in Mariah’s voice this time, causing him to break his murderous gaze away from Nichols in order to turn and look at her. She looked so pale, so tiny and vulnerable, in the softness of the candlelight, her shadowed gaze holding his with that same pleading he had detected in her voice.

      His expression softened slightly as he continued to look at her. ‘Do not worry, Mariah, I do not intend to kill Nichols. Not this time,’ he added harshly as he turned back to look challengingly at the other man.

      His reassurance did nothing to alleviate Nichols’s obvious panic, the other man’s face having become an unpleasant puce colour—much like the unpleasant colour of his wife’s bedchamber!—his pale eyes bulging.

      Perhaps

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