Dangerous in Diamonds - Madeline Hunter [48]
Dazed now, existing in a sensual stupor, she could only follow when he stood and guided her by the hand away from the table and settee and down some stairs. In the dark, on the side deck, the lanterns barely illuminated the spot where he stopped beside a pier of the tilt house. The silhouette of one pavilion could be seen near the stern.
You must stop him now, because he will not stop later. The warning barely whispered in her mind. Tonight it sounded like a lesson memorized to no purpose, not some hard-won truth. He pressed her against the pier and passionately kissed her neck and demolished the small foothold her common sense had managed to find.
He set her arms to her sides and took her two breasts in his hands. Despite her garments, his touch found the tips and teased until she would not have stood but for the wall at her back. She could not believe what it did to her, the way desire taunted her to distraction.
She opened her eyes so she might not go insane from it. The light from the nearest lantern made him barely visible to her, but she saw his face, taut and hard, while he watched her.
Firmly, he turned her so she hugged the wall. He covered her with his body, and his arm circled her shoulder. His hand slid below her dress’s edge so he touched her naked breast.
She had thought it could not be worse, but now she truly suffered from pleasure. Her body silently cried and begged and screamed. He caressed her freely, shockingly, everywhere, her hips and bottom and thighs, while his body pressed hers and his hardness taunted her even more.
A new coolness flowed on her legs. She realized her skirt was rising. Higher now. The shock gave her a jolt of sobriety. She looked over her shoulder, alarmed.
“No,” he said quietly. “Not here, although later tonight I will be cursing my deference to your need for discretion and privacy.”
“Perhaps I will be too,” she muttered. The bottom of her dress was at her thighs now. The wickedness of that rising hem made her shiver with anticipation, even with his reassurance that this would not go too far.
Suddenly his hand was on her down there again, beneath all her garments, skin on skin, stroking her thigh, and higher.
“You will be cursing no one, I promise. If anyone suffers for this inopportune passion, it will be me. Again.”
His hand firmly followed the curve of her bottom, startling her. The anticipation became a yearning throb. She was in much deeper than she expected, and her vulnerability alarmed her.
Castleford stepped closer, so he pressed her to the wall, his one hand tantalizing her breast and the other caressing her bottom in the narrow space between them. “You will do as I say now. You will move one foot to the side a bit. Then you will let pleasure have its way with you and not deny yourself or me the experience of that wildness.”
He touched her then, before she even absorbed what he said. Touched her so intimately that she gasped. She moved her leg as he had commanded, allowing a new exposure. Then he stroked her so effectively that she barely swallowed a moan.
She surrendered completely. She had no choice, no will, no desire to stop any of it. His odd embrace kept her standing or else she would have collapsed, she was sure. She could not feel her legs or anything except the excruciating tease at her breasts and the exquisitely carnal demand that intensified until she wanted to beg for mercy.
Something broke in her, split and burst. Deep where he touched a painful barrier fell, and a new pleasure crashed through her. The shock made her essence scream, first with shock, then with relief. The waters of that flood were so beautiful that she had the urge to weep. They filled her so completely that for a timeless spell nothing else existed.
She could not speak afterwards. She had no strength. He turned her into his embrace and