Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise Allen

muttering under his breath with frustration at the tight knot. ‘Ah, that’s got it. There was nothing hurting at all. The wound was healed up, I was feeling perfectly fine, but I wanted to go with you, so I did my best to look as though I was bravely suffering in silence.’

      Bree spun round, the corset strings pulled out of his hands and the stiffened fabric slid to her hips. ‘You fraud!’ She took a hasty step forwards and it slid further, effectively hobbling her. ‘Oh, get this beastly thing off me so I can hit you!’

      Max grinned and tugged the corset up over her head. ‘I had the best of intentions.’

      ‘You can take your own waistcoat off,’ Bree said, trying to look affronted. Max stripped off the moiré silk, its deep blue shimmering as it caught the light, making him think of her eyes.

      Bree did a rapid calculation. ‘Shirt, pantaloons, drawers. This is very unfair—you have more clothes on than I do.’

      ‘You should have added up first, and made me start,’ Max drawled, then yielded a point. ‘I’ll unpin your hair and count that as one.’ It was no concession; he was having trouble controlling his breathing at the thought of that wheaten mass sliding free over her shoulders. Any minute it now it would be slipping over her naked body.

      He made a deliberately slow business of it until it slid over his fingers like cool live flame. He caught up the weight of it, then let it go. ‘Lady Godiva,’ he teased, trying to cover up his own emotion before he lost control.

      Bree’s eyes were wide on his. This was ceasing to become a game, yet she was not frightened, he could tell. Apprehensive, yes. And aroused. He could see the hard peaks of her nipples, the flushed skin of her throat and bosom.

      She took hold his shirt and began to pull it free from the waistband of his trousers, then set to work on the buttons. He wondered just how much more of this he could stand. ‘There.’ She pushed the linen back off his shoulders. Max put up his hands, caught hers and pulled them down, flattening them against his pectorals, feeling the pressure of her soft palms on the tight, aching knots of his nipples.

      ‘Max.’ It was a whisper that fluttered against his skin like the brush of a feather.

      He released her and took hold of her chemise, pulling it gently over her head, never taking his eyes off her as he tossed it aside. Then all he could do was look.

      Bree’s hands fluttered to her sides and she stared back at him, seeming hardly to breathe.

      His eyes drank her in. The delicate slope of her shoulders, the firm, uplifted breasts with their puckered, rose-pink aureoles, the sweet curve of waist and hip, the feminine roundness, the mass of curls, darker than her head hair, the shadowed triangle of delights, the provocative pink garters and the shimmer of silk over her calves.

      His hands went to the fastenings of his pantaloons, fumbled, freed them and he dragged them off, his thumbs hooked into his drawers so both came together, leaving him naked in front of her. Bree’s eyes widened, she touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip. ‘Touch me,’ he said softly. ‘Put your hands on me.’

      But he is beautiful. His shoulders were broad, his chest ribbed with muscle, narrowing down to a slim waist, tight hips. Her gaze froze and she ran her tongue around lips suddenly dry.

      She had held him, caressed him, in the drag. But she had not seen. Max, powerful, aroused, naked, was taking her breath away.

      ‘Touch me. Put your hands on me.’

      Bree took a step forward, then another. She laid one hand on his chest, over the breastbone, feeling the thud of his heart. She raised her lips for his kiss and curled her other hand around the hard, hot, velvety masculinity that pulsed between them.

      ‘I love you.’ They were not playing now. The tone of his voice was as sincere as when he had made his vow in church. His lips on hers were a claiming as much as the placing of the ring on her finger. She slid both her arms around his neck, letting him pull her tight against him, branding the heat of him on her belly.

      ‘I love you too. Show me how to make love to you,’ she whispered.

      He lifted her, carried her to the bed and settled her on the expanse of golden brocade. ‘I should go slowly for you,’ he whispered, settling himself beside her, his hand gliding down over the curve of her breasts, the swell of her belly, into the curls that seemed the only protection her modesty and virginity had left.

      ‘Max.’ She did not know how to say it, how to tell him that she ached for him, that she was wet for him, that tiny quivering darts of pleasure were shaking her. ‘Max, I need you now.’ Daring, desperate, she touched him again, taking him firmly as he had shown her, caressing up the length to the crown, then down again.

      ‘Sweetheart … stop, or I will lose what very little control I have left.’ His finger moved into the hot, wet, aching folds and she pressed against him, knowing the pleasure that would give. But he avoided the aching bud and instead slipped inside. Bree felt her muscles closing around him, trying to hold on to him, then a second finger joined the first and she arched up, pressing against his palm, whimpering with delight.

      Max shifted over her, nudging her legs apart, and she moved to cradle him, feeling the tip of his erection at the very spot she so yearned for him. ‘I love you,’ he said again, and surged into her.

      Bree gasped, shocked by the stab of soreness, then shaken to her core by the sensation of his body within hers, of the movement that was driving the pain away, building that tension that was racking her to the point where she arched hard against him, desperate for it to sweep her away.

      ‘Open your eyes. Look at me.’ Barely able to focus now, as his body drove hers into a tighter and tighter spiral of sensation, Bree dragged open her eyes and looked up into his face. His eyes were wide, dark, intent. His jaw was locked hard, the tendons in his throat taut with effort as he took them both higher, harder, further.

      ‘Max—’ His name was dragged from her lips as the dam burst, the tension splintered into pleasure that racked her from head to toe. She was conscious of his body surging against hers, of his shout, of his body driving impossibly deep into hers, and then the world went dark.

      She came to herself to find Max’s weight still on her, his forehead resting on hers, their panting breath mingling.

      ‘Max?’ He rolled off her with a sigh, but gathered her against him as though fearful of letting her go. ‘Max, is it always like that?’

      He pushed himself up on one elbow. There was sweat on his forehead, his hair was in his eyes, his mouth looked bruised. I did that?

      ‘Not in my experience,’ he admitted. ‘Never before.’

      ‘Will it always be like that?’

      ‘Slower,’ he said. ‘Sometimes slower.’

      ‘Oh. Slower would be good. Sometimes. We’ll try that next, shall we?’

      ‘Shall we have a glass of wine first?’ Max slid off the bed, clutched the bedpost for support and grinned at her. ‘You have unmanned me.’

      Bree sat up against the pillows. Her muscles seemed to have been turned into jelly. ‘Then pour the wine and come back to bed,’ she said softly. ‘And teach me how to show you just how much I love you.’

      ‘If it is as much as I love you,’ Max said, pressing a cool glass into her hand, ‘we may need to stay here for ever.’

      The glasses clinked together, they sipped, then he put them both down beside the bed and took her in his arms again.

      Outside, the autumn dusk fell like dark velvet. Inside the fire crackled, flared up, catching sparks of light off the crystal on the table, and two voices, merging and blending, whispered, ‘I love you.’

       Not Quite a Lady

Not Quite a Lady

      Chapter