Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 02]
Page 27
Except … it wasn’t meaningless at all.
SOPHIE FROZE AT the brief touch of Graham’s lips on hers. So did he.
Time hung there, sweet and long, each unwilling to move away, unable to think or protest or do anything but stay.
The little room was a haven, the gathering outside growing more distant with every heartbeat, the sounds faded and misted beneath the pounding of two hearts.
When she inhaled, taking in the heat and scent of him, it was as though he breathed some of his own life and vitality into her spirit. Suddenly nothing was to be feared, nothing was to be hidden. There was no one in the world but the two of them, and she reveled in that isolation.
He was here and he could be hers. All she need do was reach out—
His solid pectoral muscle flexed beneath her palm and she realized she already had.
It was all he’d needed, it seemed, for in the next instant she found herself pulled roughly into his arms, against that rock-hard chest, into the circle of his scalding sexuality.
She made no sound of protest, not even a gasp of surprise, for there was no surprise here. He was precisely as he ought to be and so was she, quivering for him, on fire for him—
Willing.
Nay, eager.
It was so easy to let go it made her doubt she’d ever held on. She slid both hands up to lace them around his neck, moving slowly as if in a dream. He exhaled harshly at her voluntary embrace and she was ashamed of how much she’d held back from him. She vowed she would show him herself, in such a way he might never forget it.
She twined her fingers through his hair gently, then tightened them. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to speak.
“Shh.” It was stunning how sure she was, how she knew just what to do. She’d never kissed him, but she knew just how to tilt her head to make their lips fit just so. She went up on tiptoe, sliding her body slowly up his hard stomach and chest, making no attempt to hide her enjoyment of the sensation.
He swallowed, hard. She felt the power surge through her, raw feminine power older than time itself. She claimed her seductress self, allowing her to well forth and play out the moment with slow, sure enticement.
He waited, his jaw tense, his eyelids heavy with unexpressed desire. He hardened against her. She smiled slightly and rotated her hips to press the softness of her lower belly into his rigidity. A rocky shudder went through him and the cords of his throat throbbed, but he kept his silence, still pinned in place by her entangled fingers in his hair.
He could have broken free, but Graham was finally in the place he’d dreamed of since … how long? Just this week … or for months?
He dared not so much as breathe too hard, although he could be panting by now if he allowed himself. She was so innocently, wickedly sensual—this was not his careful, restrained Sophie. This was the woman who had fought for him, the woman who had stood fiercely between him and Lilah’s vicious insults.
Then there was no more time for memory, there was only now, for she kissed him at last.
Her lips were soft, her nipples were hard, her fingers in his hair causing him pain he would not have forgone for a thousand nights of heartless pleasure. She was the one. She had ever been the one. He’d known, in some place he’d never investigated inside himself, he’d known since the first time he’d rescued her from running into a wall.
He stood there, taking her closemouthed kiss for as long as he was able to bear it, for he savored the innocence he tasted in it. She would never kiss so again.
Then he violated that sweet virginity with the tip of his tongue, a slow careful penetration that made her stiffen in surprise.
She wasn’t one to quail. No, not his Sophie. At once she was back in the joust, her own dainty tongue slipping into his lips, the soft sounds of her pleasure vibrating through his mouth.
God, so sweet, so strong, so powerful—
He couldn’t get close enough to her. In two steps he had her down on the fainting couch, her willing body at last pressed completely to his. Beneath his …
Soft and pale, her breasts emerged from her bodice when he pulled the neckline. The gift of her flesh in his hands as he impaled her mouth again and again with his tongue. There were other things he would do with that tongue, things she would enjoy, things he would get to in just a moment, just as soon as he’d had enough of fitting his hands around her small, high, perfect breasts.
Oh, the things he would do to his magnificent Sophie …
Outside the alcove room, the audience broke into applause. Jarred, Graham broke the kiss.
“Oh God.” Not Sophie! He was a monster. He was a rotter, through and through. “Oh, bloody hell!”
He backed off her, turning away—tearing himself away, in fact, an act that cost him more than he could ever articulate. He rubbed both hands over his face, straining for sanity through the aching, heart-pounding lust … and need. Need like nothing he’d ever felt before. Need that nearly had him turning back and flinging himself upon her once again, just for one more minute of that sweet, pure hearthfire light …
He forced himself away, as far as the tiny room would allow. Leaning his forehead against the wall, he clenched his eyes tightly shut and beat back the aching loss until coherent thought returned.
Mostly.
Losing himself in Sophie … when had she become a pool of cool clean water? When had she become the unpolluted air in his lungs? Why hadn’t he seen it sooner—why had she kept it from him, like a secret, like a treasure hoarded away for someone more worthy, someone less blind?
Too late.
No. Never. He needed this—needed her—needed—
You need Lilah’s pile of gold.
No. He could not trade this … this pure, clean creature for a tainted harpy like Lilah!
Then trade her for the folk of Edencourt.
The pale, sunken faces … the blank, enduring eyes that held no faith in his promises … the rot and the waste and the damned, squandered years he’d walked right by …
Trade Sophie for his people? That … that he could do. Must do. To live without kissing Sophie would be torture. To live with destroying Edencourt … that would be hell on earth.
Resolute, he turned his heart to stone. Only then did he dare to turn back to her.
She was upright and dressed again, although her hair was down from its elaborate coil, falling untamed and coppery over her delicate ivory shoulders as she sat tensely on the fainting couch, her hands knotted in her lap.
He was an idiot. Looking at the girl before him, the most lucid, non-babbling thought he could form was just that.
I am an idiot.
She gazed at the floor, her cheeks bright with a flush. “This was not a mistake. Don’t you dare say it was a mistake—I couldn’t bear it.”
“Sophie …” He wanted her but he couldn’t. “That was a mistake.”
He would not be his father. He would not please himself at the cost of Edencourt’s people. He was only glad he’d managed to stop before he’d gone too far.
No, you aren’t. Too far is precisely where you want to be.
“So that is all, then?” She raised her chin and gazed at him evenly. He steeled himself against the stain of disappointment and hopelessness in her expression.
He gazed back at her solemnly. “Did you expect more?”
“Of course not. Who am I to expect anything in this world?” She lifted her chin proudly and stood. Shaking out her somewhat the worse for wear skirts, she moved to the door. “My congratulations on your imminent engagement, my lord.”
With a dip and a careless tilt of her head, she was gone, striding back into the noise and crowd of the musicale as if she had more important business kept waiting.
Worry slithered through Graham’s relief. Her gray gaze might seem calm and disinterested to others, had, in fact, seemed so to him once upon a time, but he now knew what raged beneath that still surface. His Sophie was a hard-headed, fiery, unpredictable creature.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE DUKE NEXT DOOR
Copyright © 2008 by Celeste Bradley. Excerpt from Duke Most Wanted © copyright 2008 by Celeste Bradley.
All rights reserved.
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eISBN 9781429976565
First eBook Edition : March 2011
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St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / April 2008