A Regency Lady's Scandal: The Lady Gambles / The Lady Forfeits. Carole Mortimer

shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘Endeavouring, I hope, to show you there could be certain … benefits to becoming my mistress.’

      Caro’s knees felt weak just at the thought of what method this man intended using to demonstrate those ‘benefits’. She so easily recalled the feel of that hard and uncompromising mouth against her own the night before, the feel of his hands as they ran the length of her spine to cup her bottom and press the hardness of his body intimately into hers. ‘This is most unwise, my lord.’

      He made no answer as he moved to rest back against the edge of the desk, taking her with him, those strange, silver-coloured eyes fixed caressingly upon Caro’s slightly parted lips, the warmth of his breath stirring the tendrils of hair at her temples.

      Dominic was standing much too close to her. So close that she could feel the heat of his body. So close that she was aware of the way that he smelt; the delicate spice of his cologne, and a purely male smell, one that appeared to be a combination of a clean male body and musky heat, uniquely his own.

      Caro made every effort to gather her scattered senses. ‘Dominic, I have no intention of allowing you to—oh!’ she gasped as he encircled her waist and pulled her in between his parted legs, her thighs now pressed against him, as her breasts were crushed against the firm muscles of his chest. She placed her hands upon his shoulders with the intention of pushing him away.

      ‘I think not,’ Dominic murmured as he realised her intention, his arms moving about her waist to hold her more tightly against him, quelling her struggles as he looked to where her hair was secured in that unbecoming nunlike bun. ‘Remove the pins from your hair for me, Caro.’

      She stilled abruptly. ‘No!’

      ‘Would you rather that I did it?’ He quirked dark brows.

      ‘I would rather my hair remain exactly—oh!’ She gave another of those breathless gasps as Dominic reached up and removed the pins himself. It was a breathless gasp that he found he was becoming extremely fond of hearing.

      ‘Better.’ He nodded his approval as he reached up to uncoil her hair and allow it to cascade in a wealth of golden curls over her shoulders and down the length of her spine. ‘Now for the buttons on this awful gown—’

      ‘I cannot possibly allow you to unbutton the front of my gown!’ Caro’s fingers clamped down over his, even as she glared up at him.

      Dominic found himself smiling in the face of this display of female outrage. ‘It has all the allure of a nun’s habit,’ he said drily.

      ‘That is exactly what it is supposed to—’ Caro broke off the protest as she saw the way those silver eyes had narrowed to shrewdness.

      ‘Do … ?’ Dominic finished softly for her. ‘As no doubt the wearing of that unbecoming bonnet was designed to hide every delicious golden curl upon your head?’

      ‘Yes,’ she admitted.

      He shook his head as he resumed unfastening the buttons on the front of her gown. ‘It is a sacrilege, Caro, and one I am not inclined to indulge.’ He folded back the two sides of her gown to reveal the thrust of her breasts covered only by the thinness of her shift above her corset.

      Caro had no more will to protest as she saw the way those silver eyes glittered with admiration as Dominic gazed his fill of her. Indeed, she found she could barely breathe as she watched him slowly raise one of his hands to pull aside that gauzy piece of material and bare her breast completely. Her cheeks suffused with colour as, even as she watched, the tiny rose-coloured nub on the crest of her breast began to rise and stiffen.

      ‘You are so very beautiful here,’ he said huskily, the warmth of his breath now a tortuous caress against that burgeoning flesh. He looked up at her enquiringly. ‘I wish to taste you, Caro.’

      She found herself mesmerised by the slow flick of Dominic’s tongue across his lips. Mesmerised and aching, the tip of her breast deepened in colour as it became firmer still. In anticipation. In longing, she knew, to feel that hot tongue curling moistly over it.

      Where had these thoughts come from? Caro wondered wildly. How was it that she even knew the touch of Dominic’s lips and mouth against her breast would give her more pleasure than she had ever dreamt possible? Woman’s intuition? A legacy of Eve? However Caro knew these things, she surely could not allow Dominic to—

      All thought ceased, any hope of protest dying along with it, as he gave up waiting for her answer and instead lowered his head to gently draw the now pulsing tip of Caro’s breast into the heat of his mouth. His hand curved beneath it at the same time as he laved that aching bud with the moist heat of his tongue, and sending rivulets of pleasure into her other breast and down the soft curve of her abdomen to pool between her thighs.

      Caro was filled with the strangest sensations, her breasts feeling full and heavy under the intimacy of Dominic’s ministrations, the muscles in her abdomen clenching, that heat between her thighs making her swell and moisten there. She discovered she wanted to both squeeze her thighs together and part them at the same time. To have Dominic touch her there and ease that ache, too.

      Her back arched instinctively as his hand moved to capture her other breast, the soft pad of his thumb now flicking against that hardened tip in the same rhythm with which he drew on its twin.

      Dominic’s lovemaking had been intended as a way of showing Caro that she did not belong here in London, that she was no match for him or other experienced men of the ton. Instead he was the one forced to recognise that he had never tasted anything quite so delicious as her breast, the nipple as sweet as honey as he kissed her there greedily, the hardness of his erection pulsing in his pantaloons testifying to the strength of his own arousal.

      He drew back slightly to look at that pouting, full nipple, stroking his tongue across it before moving slightly to capture its twin, drawing on it hungrily before looking up at her flushed face and feverishly bright eyes. ‘Tell me how you wish me to touch you, Caro,’ he murmured against her swollen flesh.

      Her fingers dug into his shoulders. ‘Dominic!’ she groaned a throaty protest.

      He took pity on her shyness. ‘Do you like this?’ He swept his thumb lightly over that pouting nipple.

      ‘Yes!’ she gasped, shuddering with pleasure.

      ‘This?’ He brought his mouth down to her breast once more, even as he allowed his hand to fall to her ankle and push her gown aside and began a slow caress to her knee.

      ‘Oh, yes!’

      ‘And this?’ Dominic ran his tongue repeatedly over that swollen nipple even as his hand caressed higher still to weave a pattern of seduction along her inner thigh, the heat of her through her drawers, her dampness, telling him of her arousal.

      Nothing in Caro’s life had prepared her to be touched with such intimacy. How could it, when she had never realised that such intimacies existed? Such achingly pleasurable intimacies that she wished would never end.

      ‘I would like you to touch me in the same way, Caro,’ Dominic encouraged gruffly.

      She swallowed hard. ‘I—’ She broke off her instinctive protest as someone rattled the door handle in an effort to open the locked door.

      ‘My lord?’ Drew Butler sounded both disapproving and concerned at this inability to enter his own office.

      Dominic turned his head sharply towards the door. ‘What is it?’

      ‘I need to speak with you immediately, my lord.’ The other man sounded just as irritated as Dominic.

      He scowled his displeasure as Caro took advantage of his distraction to extricate herself from his arms before turning away to begin fastening the buttons of her gown with fingers that were shaking so badly it took her twice as long as it should have done. What had she been thinking? Worse, how much further would she have allowed these intimacies to go if not for Drew’s timely intervention?

      ‘Caro—’