Regency Society Collection Part 2. Ann Lethbridge

the tremble of her full lips.

      ‘My father,’ she choked out. ‘How do I know he’s not some dreadful criminal? A murderer?’ A tear rolled down her face.

      ‘Ahh, sweetheart, is this what saps at your courage?’

      ‘It is like some macabre tale,’ she whispered. ‘You have to know the outcome, but you know it will be terrible.’ She dashed the tear away with the heel of her hand. ‘I’m such a coward.’ Her voice broke and she started to sob.

      He cradled her against his chest, held her close and listened to her soft little choking sounds, felt her body shiver and shake and had nothing to say except, ‘Hush.’ Over and over, he whispered the same sound, rocking her against his chest.

      At last her tears stopped and she took a deep breath.

      Finally he dared speak. ‘No matter who your father is, you are you. A talented and wonderful woman.’

      ‘Nothing good ever comes from bad. What if I’m tainted by two evil parents? My mother and my father?’

      ‘Good God. You are tormenting yourself.’

      She shook her head and looked up at him with a smile so sad it sliced right through the wall of his chest to carve a wound in his heart.

      What could he say? He dare not give into something she would regret. ‘Look at Henry the Eighth. He was a horror. And if I’m remembering correctly, Ann Boleyn was no saint. But their daughter Elizabeth was England’s greatest Queen. And besides, shouldn’t you give your father a chance to speak for himself?’

      A small silence greeted his words, followed by a determined nod. ‘Thank you. You are right. If I don’t do this, I will always wonder.’

      She rolled towards him, then propped herself up on one elbow. She brushed his cheek with the back of her hand. ‘I missed you dreadfully, you know.’ She said it as if it had been weeks, not a day or two. But he knew what she meant; he’d missed her damnably too. He had filled the empty space with anger.

      ‘Love me, please, R-Robert. One last time.’

      He was undone by her tiny smile of hope, her sweet smile. He’d never been a saint. Never been able to resist a woman’s plea. Why start now? He melded his lips to hers, felt the quiver of her body against his chest, the heady spiral of desire in his limbs and he took her mouth in greedy thrusts of his tongue while his hand drew her shift up her thighs. He cupped her in his palm and she rotated her hips.

      Eager. Giving and damnably sexy. ‘Little witch.’

      She laughed into his mouth and her hands went to his shirt. She tore it from the waistband of his breeches and wrenched it up.

      He lifted his hands from her body and let her pull it over his head. ‘Always in a hurry,’ he said.

      ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, raking her gaze over his chest and down to his breeches.

      His body went rock hard at the admiration and lust in her gaze, but it was the soft little smile on her lips that sent him beyond thought. He captured her mouth in his, swept it with his tongue, melded his body to her soft, feminine curves and set reason adrift.

      She clung to his neck with her arms as his mouth wooed her lips. He felt as if he could lose himself within her for ever.

      He lay her down and sat on the edge of the bed to yank off his boots while she traced circles on his back with so light a touch his muscles quivered and flinched in delight and torture.

      ‘Hussy,’ he said.

      ‘I must take after my mother,’ she laughed, her fingertips exploring a particularly sensitive spot just below his ribs. He groaned, stood up and divested himself of his breeches and stockings before whipping around and catching her fingers in his hand. A wicked smile curved her lips.

      ‘Think you can play with me, do you?’ he growled, lifting her hand to his lips. He nuzzled her forefinger free, then drew it into his mouth with a swift suck.

      Her indrawn gasp brought a smile to his lips and a throb of blood to his groin.

      He lifted her hands over her head and ran his gaze over her much as she had viewed him a few moments before, taking in the taut perfection of her small breasts, the tightly furled nipples, the tiny waist beneath the upraised ribs, the hollow of her navel. ‘Where to start,’ he said.

      ‘You look ready to eat me,’ she gasped.

      ‘Oh, now there’s an idea.’ He let his gaze drop to the triangle of curls at the apex of her thighs, her female mystery beneath the fine lawn of her chemise, her lovely pale thighs above the tops of her stockings and the plain garters of brown. He’d seen garters of roses and lace, and none had ever looked so erotic as these.

      Her wrists captured in one hand, he lowered his head, swirled each budded nipple with his tongue and watched her hips squirm in delight and longing. He trailed his tongue down between the valley of her breasts and dipped his tongue into her navel. How sweet she smelled, vanilla and roses and aroused woman. A scent to drive a man over the edge before he was ready. How rough the filmy fabric felt against his tongue compared to the silk of her skin beneath.

      ‘R-Robert,’ she gasped and there was shock in her voice, and laughter and below all of that wicked seduction.

      ‘What, sweet?’ he murmured against her belly. ‘Do you want me to stop?’

      He blew a warm breath against her skin.

      ‘Oh,’ she squeaked. ‘No.’

      He grazed his jaw against the soft swell of her belly, delighting in her arching spine.

      And then he reached his goal. The centre of her femininity. A musky scent filled his nostrils, powerfully erotic. A film of sheer fabric and a nest of pale brown curls hid his prize.

      He licked at the shadowed crease, parting her folds with his tongue, rubbing the lawn against her most sensitive spot and felt her writhe and jerk.

      With his free hand he raised her chemise, slowly, pausing to run a finger beneath her garter, and all the while he licked and nuzzled and breathed against her feminine flesh.

      She moaned, low and guttural. The primitive sound hit him deep in his chest and zinged its way to his pulsing shaft, the blood beating hot and heavy, the demand for entry, the urgings of the feral beast in what was left of his brain.

      A master of seduction never let the beast out of its cage, though he had never found it so difficult as now to remain in control, to keep from plunging into her and driving to the hilt.

      Letting go of her wrists, he lifted the chemise to her waist and bared her most sensitive place to his tongue, licking and nipping at her clitoris, revelling in her cries of anguished pleasure. Her fingers burrowed into his hair and her hips pressed up to meet his mouth. He placed his hands beneath her buttocks, kneaded the firm, silky flesh, gauged the roundness, the sweet perfection, and raised her higher, opened her for better access and plunged his tongue into her hot, wet depths. She let out a moan of pure joy.

      All passion, his Frederica. All womanly desire. God, he wanted to be inside her heat, feel her tight around his aching flesh.

      But this was for her. He worshipped at the shrine of her core, flicking her swollen bud with his tongue, grazing it with his teeth when she wriggled, employed every art he knew to keep her on the brink, until her hands fell away from him, her legs lay wide in submission and she whispered, ‘Now, R-Robert.’

      A demand that went straight to his shaft. He’d never been this hard. But this was for her. He flickered his tongue across her clitoris, then suckled.

      Shuddering, trembling, she shattered on a cry.

      He raised himself up to watch languid bliss replace the tightness in her face, to watch a rosy glow infuse her pale skin.

      Her eyelids fluttered open and she smiled. ‘You are wonderful.’

      And he felt like