Regency Scoundrels And Scandals. Louise Allen

hazily began to suspect, could be hers with this man.

      Shockingly she felt Ashe grow harder as she clung close, and deep in his throat he growled softly, the sound vibrating against her lips, a masculine signal of need that should have terrified her. Instead she felt powerful, amazed that she could have this effect upon him despite her ignorance and his experience.

      Bel slid her fingers between their bodies and began to unbutton his shirt. Impatient with the mother-of-pearl buttons, she tugged and pulled and then, as her fingertips met skin and the rasp of hair, she froze. ‘Go on,’ he said huskily in her ear. ‘Touch me Bel. I want your hands on me.’

      ‘I do not know what to do,’ she whispered. But it seemed her hands did know, sliding under the parted front of the shirt. She felt the tickle of hair on her palms and then hot, satiny skin as they slid over his ribs. Back to the centre, then down over ridges of muscle to the flatness of his stomach where the hair seemed to focus. Her thumb found his navel and dipped in, wiggled experimentally, provoking a gasp of laughter.

      He was moving his hips against her as he held her, signalling his need, yet he controlled it for her. It seemed impossible that this big, powerful man would let her explore like this, would seem content for her to set the pace.

      Ashe lowered his face into the angle of her neck and began to lick slowly up until the tip of his tongue found her ear. The caress brought back memories of lying crushed beneath him on the floor, his mouth hot and moist as he explored her, and all she could think about was feeling his body over hers again, his heart against hers, his mouth taking hers.

      Bel’s fingers slipped lower, into the waistband of Ashe’s trousers where the tantalising trail of dark hair vanished. ‘Yes. Bel, yes.’ The fastenings were tight; he sucked in his breath so she could twist her fingers round and open them, then her hand was curling round the hard, hot, terrifying length of him. A moment later and she was on her back on the bed, Ashe was shedding the remains of his clothes and she was staring wide-eyed at the first naked man she had ever seen in the flesh.

      And what flesh. Bel swallowed. He was beautifully made, the candlelight flickering over smooth muscle and long limbs and…Suddenly she was nervous, her eyes closed tight. She was very aware of how flimsy her own garment was, how she must look to him, sprawled wantonly on the bed.

      ‘It’s all right, Bel, don’t be frightened.’ His weight dipped the bed beside her and Ashe began to stroke her quivering body, his hand running softly over the fine silk. It whispered against her skin. ‘I won’t do anything until you want me to, I promise.’

      ‘I do want you to. To do everything. Anything. But I do not know what those things are that I want.’ Bel opened her eyes and smiled ruefully. ‘That is what is so scary.’

      ‘Then, Bel, let’s find them together.’ He smiled back, then bent to kiss her breast just where the edge of the nightgown ended. ‘Belle, bella, bellissima.’ His lips fastened over one nipple and he began to suck it gently through the gossamer fabric, sending shock waves of sensation through her. She writhed, gasped, clutched his head, uncertain whether she wanted him to stop at once or never stop at all. It seemed he intended never to stop. Perhaps she would simply die of the sensation. Tongue, teeth, lips combined to send her into a fever, reduced her to a helpless, panting puddle of longing and desire.

      Just when she was certain she could bear it no longer she felt his hand caress up under her skirts, his fingers slide into the secret folds that were hot and wet for him, slip between them to find the entrance to her body and then, as she arched in shock against his mouth, into the heat. Bel sensed her muscles clasp around the intrusion as his thumb found the single aching focus of her straining body and she felt his weight over her, his mouth on hers as she screamed in agonised delight and collapsed, shuddering, under him.

      She wondered hazily if she had lost consciousness for, as she regained her senses enough to differentiate between the parts of her own body and his, she found the nightgown was gone and she was moulded, flesh to flesh, heartbeat to heartbeat with Ashe.

      ‘Let me take you, Belle,’ he murmured and surged into her on one powerful thrust. Always before she had lain rigid under such an onslaught, enduring the meaningless, effortful, mercifully short male striving towards release. Only now Ashe seemed quite as concerned to bring her to that peak of ecstasy again as to reach his own, and it seemed that the beautiful body dominating hers was quite capable of going on for as long as it took. She wanted it to last for ever because it was so wonderful, and yet to be over at once, because she wanted to share that storm of completion with him.

      She felt the tension twisting into unimaginable heights, felt a change in his body, heard his breath rasp in his throat and curled her legs around his hips, pulling him in. ‘Ashe! Ashe, please…’ He gave one more thrust as she lost herself, then she was conscious—just—of him leaving her, holding her tight, gasping into her hair as they fell together, down into darkness.

      Ashe rolled on to his back, bringing Bel with him to lie cradled against his chest in the curve of his arm. She gave a soft whimper of pleasure and snuggled close as his groping hand found the corner of the sheet and pulled it over their damp bodies.

      He gazed up at the underside of the curtains as he let the aftershocks of their lovemaking shudder through his body. It had been beyond anything he had imagined and he could not understand why. Bel was lovely, sweet, eager. But she had come to him completely untutored and repressed—as close to a virgin as a woman could be after sleeping with a man. She had none of the tricks to pleasure him his mistresses had known—and yet the tentative wonder of her hands on his body, the awe in her eyes, the total trust with which she had given herself to him were powerfully erotic. And humbling, he realised.

      ‘Bel?’

      ‘Mmm?’ She snuggled in closer, rubbed her cheek against his pectorals and found his nipple with her lips. ‘Mmm.’

      ‘Stop it, wicked woman. Let a man catch his breath.’ She released the tense flesh and he saw her ear go pink at what she must have thought was a reproof. ‘I like it too much,’ he explained, mentally cursing her husband again, and she relaxed. ‘Are you—are you all right?’

      He had expected her to be shy at the question, to answer hesitantly. Instead she wriggled up until she was sitting, her knees curved into his hips, and smiled at him, the sheet pooling around her. Glowing, that was the only way to describe her. Her skin was flushed pink, deeper across her breasts. Her hair tumbled wantonly around her shoulders and her eyes, fixed on him, were wide and wondering. ‘All right?’ She shook her head, the curling locks shifting in the candlelight. ‘That phrase hardly seems adequate. I had no idea it was like that. Is it always like that?’

      It seemed he had not disappointed her. Ashe felt himself relax. He had not been conscious of a tension, but now he saw what a responsibility he had accepted and how hurt Bel could have been if she had chosen a man who did not live up to the trust she had placed in him.

      ‘I find it hard to believe that it would ever be like that for me again,’ he said seriously. ‘It can be as good—it will be—but that was special.’

      ‘Oh.’ Bel considered this, equally serious. ‘But I did not know what I was doing.’

      ‘You didn’t need to; you did what came naturally and that was…wonderful.’

      ‘Oh,’ she said again, dropping her lashes. ‘May we do it again? Soon? I mean, of course, when it is a convenient evening for you.’

      ‘It is very convenient now,’ he said smiling.

      ‘But—’She glanced down to where her wriggling had pulled the sheet away from his loins, and her mouth opened slightly in surprise as her gaze had the predictable effect on him.

      ‘You see what you can do just by looking? If you would like to explore,’ Ashe suggested, lifting her hand and placing it on the flat plane of his stomach, ‘we can see just how soon that convenient moment will arrive.’

      Bel was woken by the pressure of Ashe’s lips against her temple. ‘Sweetheart, I must go now. What do you