The Countess Misbehaves. Nan Ryan

When his fingers encountered the ruffled border of her knee-length pantalets, he gave the lacy trim a playful tug, then urged her knees apart.

      Madeleine inhaled anxiously as his warm fingers moved steadily upward along the inside of her thigh.

      “Kiss me,” he coaxed and she eagerly obeyed.

      Wildly she kissed him, cupping his lean cheeks in her hands, anxiously moving her questing lips against his and thrusting her tongue deep into his mouth. During the fervent kiss she felt his lean fingers move all the way up between her legs to touch her in that most intimate spot.

      Through the soft cotton of her pantalets he slowly, expertly caressed her until the fabric, which was the only barrier between his moving fingers and her tingling flesh, was damp from her body’s response.

      Sucking anxiously at his lips, she sighed and squirmed and became more aroused with each passing second.

      “Feel good, sweetheart?” Armand murmured against her lips.

      “Mmm,” was all she could manage in reply.

      “I want you to feel even better,” Armand told her, and with the speed and wizardry of a trained magician, he deftly relieved her of her pantelets.

      Naked now beneath the skirts of her damp dress, Madeleine held her breath, waiting expectantly for him to touch her again. Armand made her wait. But only long enough to unhook her lace-trimmed camisole and remove it.

      “I knew it,” he said, when she was bare to the waist.

      “W-what?” she asked, trembling.

      “That you don’t wear those horrible corsets. You have no need for them. Your waist is naturally small and your breasts—” his eyes lowered to the twin mounds of pale flesh topped with satiny pink nipples “—are full and need no stays to enhance or lift them.” As if to punctuate the sentence, he bent his head and kissed the rising swell of Madeleine’s left breast.

      After that, everything became an electrifying blur of sheer ecstasy to the highly aroused Madeleine. While the storm raged on with winds so forceful that the couple was at constant risk of being dumped onto the rolling, pitching floor, Armand de Chevalier made passionate, prolonged love to Lady Madeleine Cavendish as if they had forever.

      Madeleine wiggled and sighed with pleasure as Armand’s warm hand again stole up under her skirts to touch and tease and toy. His fingers slid easily in the silky wetness flowing freely from her, as he leaned to her and brushed a kiss to her right nipple. Instinctively Madeleine arched her back, thrusting her breasts more fully against his hot, handsome face. Armand kissed her, then opened his mouth and gently nibbled on her rapidly stiffening nipples.

      Dizzy with desire, Madeleine hugged Armand’s dark head to her while he sucked on her responsive nipples and his fingers gently circled that ultrasensitive button of pure sensation between her parted legs.

      Armand felt her climax beginning even before Madeleine realized it was happening. He gave her nipple one last plucking kiss, raised his head, and watched the changing expressions march across her beautiful face as she ascended steadily toward total release.

      And all the while she was pleading, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, please, please.”

      “Never, my love,” he assured her, not rushing her, patiently taking her all the way, carefully guiding her to an all-encompassing climax.

      “Armand! Armand! Armand!” she cried out at last and dug her nails into his muscular biceps as she reached the shattering zenith.

      “Yes, baby, yes,” he soothed, continuing to caress her until he was certain her powerful orgasm was totally completed.

      Frantically she grabbed his arm to stay his hand, then went limp against him, shaking and trembling with emotion. He pressed her head onto his shoulder and kissed her parted lips, her closed eyes, her flushed cheeks.

      Gale-force winds continued to buffet the sinking ship and the bunk upon which the two were strapped rose and fell with the high, tossing waves. It had little effect on the pair. Hot for each other, determined to fill their last minutes on earth with abandoned carnal joy, they ignored the roar of the wind, the rolling of the ship.

      When Madeleine had calmed a little and had caught her breath, Armand finished undressing her. He managed the pleasant task as she continued to sit on his right knee. And as he disrobed her, he lovingly caressed each portion of bare skin he exposed. She was like malleable clay in his artistic hands, stirring to the slightest touch of his fiery fingertips.

      When she was as naked as the day she was born, save for her silk stockings and leather slippers, Armand placed a hand behind her right knee and raised it, lifting her foot up onto his own left knee. He took the slipper from her foot and dropped it to the floor. Then he smiled at her, slipped a hand under her lace-trimmed, blue satin garter and peeled it down her leg.

      Madeleine watched, puzzled and amused, as he slid the garter up his bare right arm, and released it when it tightly encircled his biceps.

      “A keepsake from you,” he explained and she nodded.

      He stripped the silken stocking down her bent leg and tossed it aside. She suddenly felt very foolish and awkward. Here she was, naked, sitting on his knee with one of her legs bent and raised, her bare foot propped on his knee. She shuddered when he cupped her foot in his palm, raised it slightly and bent to kiss her instep. Then she giggled uncontrollably when she felt his tongue go between her ticklish toes.

      He laughed, raised his head and lowered her bare foot to the floor. She waited for him to remove the other stocking. But he didn’t do it and she didn’t complain although she was sure she looked quite silly wearing nothing but one stocking and one garter.

      He didn’t think so. “God, you’re desirable,” he murmured, his hand sweeping down her silk-encased leg. “I want you to leave this one stocking on for me.”

      “Whatever you want,” she said, unhampered by conscience or inhibitions or thoughts of tomorrow, “I want.”

      “I want you,” he said. “I want you to give me every kind of love you can possibly express. I want you to tell me everything you’ve ever wanted to do and never did. I want you to reveal to me every secret yearning you’ve ever had and never told. I want you share with me every craving you’ve ever experienced. I want you to give yourself to me completely and let me love you as no one ever has. I want you. I want you, over and over again.”

      Already aroused, his bold words further awakened Madeleine’s innate sensuality. The things he said excited her, made her want to give him all she had to give, to lose herself in him and his love-making, to actually do all the forbidden things she had never done with anyone.

      Armand kissed her, took her hand, and placed it on the waistband of his dark trousers. Her lips fused with his, her fingers found the buttons of his trousers and she hastily undid them. Then, without his urging, she laid her hand against the ridge of hard flesh restrained by his white linen underwear. As the probing kiss continued, Armand made a half-strangled sound that Madeleine easily interpreted.

      She pulled the white underwear out and away from his flat belly, freeing his straining masculinity. Her hand was back on him then, stroking, caressing, arousing.

      Until Armand could stand it no more.

      He clasped her fragile wrist, stayed her hand and said, “I can’t wait any longer, sweetheart.”

      In seconds he was naked and Madeleine was stretched out on her back on the bunk with Armand lying atop her. The restraining straps were buckled loosely behind his back. His weight supported on stiffened arms, Armand lay between Madeleine’s parted legs, kissing her, murmuring shockingly forbidden words of passion, arousing her to a fever pitch by carefully positioning himself so that his heavy, pulsing erection was warmly cradled by her open female flesh.

      Madeleine lay squirming beneath him, gazing into his eyes and clutching his upper arms. His handsome face, broad chest and muscular shoulders filled the entire scope of her vision. She could