The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae

by Stephanie Laurens

  Her other hand had skated to his side, gripping the warm skin above his waist. Sending that hand roaming over his back, over all of him she could reach, she savored, almost purred through the ravenous, greedy kiss; his skin was smooth, pulled taut over rock-hard muscles and heavy bone.

  And he radiated heat. A heat that beckoned and tempted her—nay, compelled her to rub her body against his, to tangle her naked limbs with his.

  But no matter how she tugged, no matter the temptation she poured into the kiss, he wouldn’t lower further—wouldn’t give her the relief she sought.

  So she brazenly took it. Using his rock-solid immobility as an anchor, she tightened her grip on his nape and arched upward against him, pressed her breasts to his chest, shifted and caressed.

  Caught her breath at the sharp, lancing sensation, at the wave of intense pleasure that the black hair across his chest abrading her ruched nipples sent streaking through her.

  Their lips were still locked, but she thought he’d gasped, too.

  Then he stilled.

  And she knew she’d won.

  That she’d succeeded in convincing him to stop managing their reins and let them free.

  The satisfaction had barely registered when he pounced.

  One hard hand caught and held her face, then he kissed her—with an unrestrained ferocity that left her reeling.

  Had she thought his kisses passionate before? This kiss laid her waste, left her with wits flown and her senses rioting.

  Abruptly he broke the kiss and turned his attention to her breasts. His full, undivided, almost ruthless attention. Hard hands shaped and kneaded, weighed, seized, and claimed. His lips branded; his tongue savored and rasped, and drove her to ever greater desperation.

  Then he took the tight bud of her nipple into his mouth, suckled hard, and drove her wild.

  And she could no longer think, could only respond to the intimate pleasuring.

  To every powerful suckle, every lick, every knowing squeeze.

  The strength in his hands was undeniable, yet fear had no purchase in her brain. Anticipation did. Building inexorably, it licked her skin, lashed her flesh, shivered down her nerves.

  Yes, yes, yes.

  More, her body sang. She did everything she could to communicate that, to encourage and feed his desire, his passion, his urgency.

  Until hers became his, his became hers, and want and need and passion and desire were one blazing conflagration.

  Greedy and ravenous, aching and needy, addicted to the flames she undulated beneath him, savoring the alienness of his hardness against her softness, then she ran her hands down his back, down to slip her fingers beneath the back of his waistband, reaching further to stroke, to touch, to learn.

  Dominic bit back a curse; heat erupted, arousal geysering as her delicate fingers brushed the skin of his lower back—skin only a lover would be likely to touch.

  He didn’t need any further reminders of what role she was intent on filling; the brutal impulse to claim her was pounding through his skull, through every part of his body, demanding. He was riding the edge of passion in a way he never had before; never had the hunter within been so intent on taking absolute possession.

  On owning. On claiming. On making his.

  But she was, if not innocent, still a virgin; he couldn’t simply take her.

  Instinct and impulse had him sliding down the bed so that he could with his hands claim more of her, so he could rain openmouthed kisses over her taut belly, could lick and taste her skin there, too.

  Her breathing grew harried. She could no longer reach his lower back. Her small hands roamed his shoulders, caressed his upper arms, every touch openly inciting.

  Shifting lower yet, he dragged the covers from between them and shoved the folds aside, revealing her beauty, her bounty, baring all the feminine delights he fully intended to claim.

  It was her turn to still. He heard her breath hitch, felt expectation grip her.

  His body held one of her legs trapped; his shoulders had kept her thighs wedged wide, yet he closed one hand about her free knee and opened her wider still.

  And looked down at her ultimate delight, the pink pouting lips glistening with arousal, the tip of her clitoris just visible behind the screening curls.

  His mouth watered.

  Tracking his gaze slowly up her body, he glanced at her face.

  Caught her gaze. Watched her eyes widen, held the emerald and gold splendor while anticipation heightened and her hands gripped, nails sinking into his arms. Eyes locked with hers, he released her knee, ran the backs of his fingers down the quivering inner face of her thigh, set his hand to her flesh, and cupped her.

  Her lips parted; he felt the sensual jolt that shook her, heard her smothered gasp. Relaxing his hand, he trailed his fingers through the scalding wetness, set them to the plump lips and traced. On a shuddering sigh, her lids fell, but he continued to watch her expression, watched as she registered the novel sensations, the blatant intimacy, then he looked down.

  And explored.

  Her harried, increasingly ragged breathing was music to his senses.

  He stroked and caressed, but neither he nor she had much patience left. Aware of the tension rising in her, evident in the flickering muscles of her thighs, he tested her entrance with one blunt fingertip—and discovered just how tight she was.

  Leaving that hand where it was, he pushed back up the bed; rejoicing in the slide of his chest, skin to skin, over her sumptuous body, he settled over her again and, ignoring her faint frown, her restless questing hands, dipped his head and covered her lips, took her mouth again, filled it with a demand too rapacious for her to resist. Once she was caught in the exchange, he eased one finger into her sheath.

  Angelica lost her breath—suddenly discovered she could only breathe through the kiss, through him. She clung to the exchange, to its heat, to the lifeline it provided while her senses spun. While her mind was overwhelmed by the sensation of him slowly, carefully, sliding just one finger into her.

  His fingers were large, but courtesy of her earlier endeavors she now knew just how large the pertinent rest of him was. If this was how one finger felt . . .

  With that finger finally buried inside her, he stroked.

  And something within her quaked.

  She pulled back from the kiss and hauled in a huge breath. Head pressed back into the pillow, eyes closed, she followed every flexion of his hand between her thighs, every press, every pressure, every subtle, knowing, repetitive glide of his fingers.

  Heat flared, even hotter, more hungry, than before. It flashed beneath her skin, raced down her veins, pooled, welled, and swelled low in her body.

  Compelling. Demanding.

  She shifted beneath him, restless and needy; his lips returned to hers in a gentler kiss. He drew back, murmured, his voice gravelly and grating, “One step at a time.”

  If she’d had any doubt that he was as captured—as captive—as she was, his tone would have dispelled it. The harshness spoke of raw need, ruthlessly restrained, yet impossible to deny.

  In her case, she couldn’t—and saw no reason to—suppress her escalating need, but while she was determined to experience the full clamor of desire, his and hers, both unleashed, she could only be thankful that he retained sufficient wit and control to ease her through this, her first time.

  Then he withdrew his finger; she sensed him glancing down. A protest forming in her brain, she clutched his shoulder, but then he replaced one finger with two, pushing both past her entrance, slowly yet deliberately working them deep and she forgot . . . everything else.

  Forgot to breathe.

  She remembered, and heard her shallow, ragged, desperate pants, but then he stroked again, more definitely, more heavily, and her senses expanded, then soared.

  Her body grew hotter; tension
coiled, tighter and tighter. She suddenly wanted something, needed relief. She arched beneath him, hips lifting, rising, riding the now regular, repetitive thrusts, reaching for something, searching for yet more—

  Desperate, she reached for him, blindly caught his nape and pulled his lips back to hers and kissed him with wild abandon—with her own brand of command and demand; with her other hand she clutched his back and held tight, urged him closer.

  Dominic kissed her back, met her and matched her, fought and battled for supremacy, for once a battle he couldn’t seem to win.

  She wanted, needed—so he gave.

  Gave her what she—her body—was clamoring for.

  With long, sure strokes, he brought her to the peak, to the point where her nails sank into his arm, her back arched and her sheath tightened inexorably about his fingers.

  He broke the kiss, dipped his head, caught one of her nipples, took it deep into his mouth, simultaneously thrust his fingers deep. Suckled hard.

  And she screamed.

  And shattered. Shifting, his mouth still at her breast, he watched the glory flow across her expressive face—the wonder, the amazement, of her first climax.

  Ripples of release washed through her; he stroked within her, prolonging the delicious pleasure, waiting until she eased.

  Gradually, her body relaxed, all tension erased. The hand that had locked in his hair released, and slid to his shoulder.

  He took advantage and shifted lower in the bed, settling his shoulders between her bent knees. He was hard and aching, but he had time for this. Had a need for this.

  Splaying one hand over her belly, grasping her knee with the other and holding it wide, he bent his head and tasted her.

  Licked, laved, and savored her.

  Angelica came back to life on a shuddering gasp, on a shaft of intense, erotically intimate pleasure. For several seconds, her mind refused to accept what her senses were conveying—then she levered up her lids, glanced down her body, and watched him lap at her.

  He felt her gaze, glanced up, and watched her watching him. His next long, slow, rasping lick shot pleasure so sharp through her that she gasped, eyes closing, spine bowing, as she rode the wave out.

  But the wave didn’t end. The pleasure built, and built.

  Until she was writhing under his hand, her panting breaths just short of sobs, her head threshing, her hands fisted in the covers as he drove her relentlessly on.

  This time the peak was higher.

  Wielding an expertise that was little short of damning, he drove her straight to the pinnacle—then held her there.

  Kept her there, her senses straining, her mind awash, nearly drowning in intimate sensation.

  When he finally consented to thrust his tongue into her and let her fly, the soaring release propelled her so high she felt she’d touched some sensual sun.

  For a moment, she knew nothing, could sense nothing beyond the blinding brilliance.

  Dominic eased up from his position between her widespread thighs. For an instant, balanced on his knees, he looked down at her—at the sumptuous female flesh, rose-tinted with desire, spread before him like a feast. Well-pleasured and ready for the taking.

  Her taste was on his tongue, fresh, tart, an undeniable lure.

  One that had sunk barbs into his hunter’s soul.

  His fingers went to the buttons at his waist, slid them free. Seconds later, he’d wrestled his trousers off; he flung them away.

  Returning to her, as he stretched over her, then lowered his body to hers, all he knew was a raw, driving, primitive urge to join with her.

  To mate with her.

  Courtesy of her actions and his reactions, passion now rode him so unforgivably he was close to blind with need. Close, very close, to losing all control. Desire was a raging torrent in his blood, more primal, more ravenous, more powerfully ungovernable than he’d ever known it. He had no option but to appease it, to sate the burning need.

  Without haste yet with no hesitation, he wedged his hips between her thighs, set the blunt head of his erection at her entrance and, hanging over her, arms braced so he could watch her face, he pushed into her.

  Slowly.

  Her lids fluttered, then rose, and she looked up at him.

  As the scalding wetness of her sheath closed around the head of his erection.

  A heartbeat later, he met the expected obstruction, but she was already stretched to the limit by his size; one short, sharp thrust, and he was through.

  She’d started; pain had flashed through her eyes, but one blink and it was gone . . . superseded by amazement and wonder.

  Jaw clenched, muscles starting to quiver, he used what little control he had left to hold himself back from simply thrusting home.

  Her gaze raced over his face, returned to his eyes, then her expression softened. She shifted, hips lifting, tilting, pressing nearer. Easing his way as best she could.

  He fell on the wordless invitation and pressed deeper. Further. Halfway in, he halted and closed his eyes on a shudder. She was so damned tight.

  She eased further beneath him, a welcome and an encouragement impossible to misconstrue.

  Opening his eyes, he looked down into hers—and saw her welcome, her acceptance, and her need reflected there.

  She reached up, caressed his cheek, then ran her fingers back into his hair.

  Locked in her eyes, he pressed on, forged steadily deeper—until at last he was sheathed to the hilt in the hot, wet, wonder of her body.

  And she sighed.

  A sound of delight, of inexpressible sensual pleasure.

  Her eyes a medley of emerald and gold, she used her hand at his nape to rise up enough to touch her lips to his jaw, then brush them across his mouth.

  Holding herself there, meeting his eyes at close quarters, the curve of her lips deepened, and she whispered, her breath warm across his lips, “Now ride me. Take me. Show me.” The last word he heard as her lips closed on his was “All.”

  And then her mouth was there, offered and surrendered, and he plunged in and plundered.

  Withdrew and plunged into her body, and plundered there, too.

  And surrendered to her fire and their flames.

  Desire beat at him; passion raked claws over and through him, and shredded what remained of his control.

  Some impulse even more powerful wiped his mind of all thought—and left only raging hunger behind.

  But she was there—there to sate him, to take him in and mate him. To join with him and hold tight as their world spiraled into a frenzy of heat and passion.

  She was there, as one with him in their greedy hunger, in the maelstrom they had together unleashed; hands grasped and clung and fingers sank deep as their breaths sawed and passion ignited and burned—all around them, in them, through them—cindering wits and searing their senses.

  Until they raced up a peak impossibly high, until their hearts thundered and their senses turned inward and they knew nothing beyond the world bound by their locked bodies.

  By their joined desires.

  By their linked souls.

  Wills aligned, wits long gone, they rode through the flames and headlong into ecstasy.

  She shattered beneath him on a breathless scream.

  He followed her over the edge, holding her close, reveling in the unprecedented glory as on a hoarse shout, his body emptied into hers.

  For long moments, ecstasy held them, bright, sharp, overwhelming.

  Then they fell. Into oblivion. Into a sea of boundless satiation.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dominic woke to the sensation of a warm female body snuggled against his.

  And knew, instantly, even without thinking, who she was.

  He tried to tell himself that it was because she was in his bed at Glencrae House, where he’d nev
er brought any other woman, so who else would she be, but that was a lie. His knowledge had leapt from some instinctive place; something inside him recognized who she was. Not Angelica Cynster so much as his mate.

  He’d always understood his primitive side, had worked with it all his life; it was the talents of that less civilized self that made him such an excellent hunter. He valued the heightened instincts; they’d kept him alive too often to count.

  While that other side had naturally played some part in his previous sexual conquests, never before had that more primitive self stepped forward to claim a woman—to possess her as his. It was usually just the chase that mattered, not the claiming itself.

  With Angelica . . . nothing had been all that “usual.”

  Certainly not the depth of satiation that later had held him in thrall.

  He’d collapsed half on top of her, but she hadn’t seemed to mind. Eventually, however, he’d lifted from her, untangled their limbs, found the covers and dragged them over their cooling bodies.

  Without a word, she’d crawled back into his arms and settled her head on his chest; he’d fallen asleep with her hair caressing his chin.

  She must have stirred and turned during the night. Her back was now to him, her curvy, heart-shaped bottom snuggled against his groin. One of his arms lay over her waist, his hand relaxed beneath her breasts; he could feel the tip of the rose-pink crystal touching the top of his hand.

  He breathed in, and the scent of her wreathed through his brain.

  Revisiting what had occurred after he’d surrendered and kissed her . . . throughout the engagement, he and she had fought for control, but neither had won. Instead . . . he wasn’t entirely sure what had happened instead.

  His instincts had warned him that being intimate with her would be different, and, as usual, his instincts had proved correct. That left him . . . not understanding what was going on. Not knowing the pertinent factors, the relevant parameters, not knowing how to exert control.

  He was accustomed to controlling virtually everything in his life, and in all things he most assuredly controlled himself. Yet last night . . .

  He focused on her red-gold head. Wondered if, the next time he slid into her body, the engagement might be more amenable to his customary mastery.