He retreated, permitting her an opportunity to retrieve a much-needed breath. His face was a great blur with the proximity, as she attempted to focus on him before his tongue traced the outline of her lips.
She gasped, her mouth tingling with the action, the tip of her tongue darting to duel then mate hungrily. Kate rose against him, pressing her mouth to his without hesitation. Dante's hand fell from her head, settling between her shoulder blades and coaxing her upwards. Her tongue echoed his actions, tracing the full lines of his mouth, his passionate moan of longing mingling with her exhalation.
A blinding flash of burning emotion ignited within him as he captured the teasing tip with the edges of his front teeth, bringing her torturing actions to an abrupt standstill. With an adeptly executed motion, he released the tender flesh and captured her parted lips in a deep and soul penetrating kiss.
Her mouth offered up an innocent sweetness, drawing from him a response he never experienced. She was untried, unlike any woman in the past, taking each of her cues from him. She eagerly returned his kiss, her sighs wafting against his mouth. Her hips rotated shyly against him and the throbbing ache that assailed him raged furiously. He growled against her mouth, vainly attempting to bite back the sound. Kate groaned her disappointment aloud as he pulled his lips away, his eyes darkened with abject passion as he stared into her aroused features.
“I can't let you to leave.” He murmured possessively. The heaviness of his hand glided from the soft curve of her rounded hip and slid up the arched curve of her back, pressing her against him. His other hand moved at an unhurried pace to the expanse of her shoulders, his skilled fingers slipping her robe and nightgown from her shoulders, exposing the pale softness of her satiny skin. The material fell unheeded, hanging in limp folds from her bent elbows, refusing to fall further.
“I don't want to leave.” She responded candidly, shifting against him. The worn and comfortable softness of her nightclothes slipped, exposing her full breasts before catching at her hips. “I want to stay.”
She moaned the words against his throat as she pressed against him, naked flesh to naked flesh. An excruciatingly raw groan escaped him, his muscles contracting with the touch. Low and deep growls of delicious pleasure rumbled from his chest, vibrating with unvoiced pleasure and need. Kate felt deliciously wicked as her hands snaked sinuously upwards, leisurely tracing his straining shoulders. Beneath her sensitive fingertips, she could detect the explosive rate of his heart. The tempo mingled with hers, the rapid tattoo echoed in her ears and the heat of his skin inflaming her.
Dante trembled explosively with the touch, her hands invoking small flickers of rapidly consuming flames. His low and throaty growls fell from parted and gasping lips and a part of his brain argued he should halt. Years of tightly harnessed restraint rose and crested brutally and he filled with uncontrollable desire.
She was his Kate, his love, the woman he adored.
Unable to prevent himself from falling under her silken spell, he couldn't halt his inflamed response to her gentle touch. Somewhere deep inside the hastily growing heaviness of his body, he was losing all reasonable control of the situation.
“Let me to show you, Kate,” he whispered. “Let me show you what your sweetness does to me.”
The heat of his ample hand journeyed in a slow trek to the aroused swell of her breast. Her body arched upwards at the contact, the pressure of his calloused thumb stroking at the aching bud of tender flesh half concealed against his chest. The unsteadiness of his fingers was scintillating, causing her to shudder. As his searching thumb lingered on the burgeoning nub, he exhaled a suppressed sigh that mingled with her pleasured moan.
“Sweet Kate!”
The dazed endearment tumbled hoarsely from his mouth. She clutched tightly at his broad chest for support, the contact not seeming close enough. Fiercely, he crushed her more demandingly into his embrace, his heavily lidded gaze on her face. Kate writhed impatiently against the hardness of his thighs, attempting to find some semblance of comfort for the ache filling her, unaware of the unintentional and unbearable pain she inflicted.
Dante exhaled a choking gasp, throwing his head back in rapture as his hardened hips surged against the soft curve of her body. A throaty growl erupted from him, echoing in the hall, and the heavy pounding of his heart quickening. He lowered his head, the thick waves of his dark hair framing his face as he stared into her entrancing eyes.
“Dante!”
His name was a plea that stole from deep within her throat. Kate ached all over and, somewhere in the depths of her womb, was an unbearable pain. Each touch he placed on her deepened the sensation's intensity, causing her spine to arch. Her breasts throbbed and tightened painfully and her lips pulsed.
“My sweet, sweet Kate,” he ground the familiar endearment harshly. He felt mad, coerced to the outer limits of his sanity by her touch. In her innocence, she pressed her swollen mouth against the full bow of his lower lip. Her teeth captured and nipped, tormenting him with a precise duplicate of his actions until he felt the urge to roar his frustration.
Kate gasped aloud at the pure pleasure that erotically burned through her. Expertly, his firm teeth captured the fullness of her lower lip. The biting pressure was momentary, painless, before he moved to smother her with the warmth of his mouth, causing her to tremble unashamedly. His body surged boldly against her, hot, tormented, and fully aroused. An unaccustomed quiver shot through him, his trembling fingers teasing the hardened tip of her breast. Her skin was warm with desire, her eyes darkened and drowsy with pleasure, and her lips parted and swollen.
“You're my dream, my sweet Kate, my beautiful and elusive dream.”
“An obsessive madness,” she countered gaspingly as he pressed his damp brow to hers. He shuddered beneath her touch, his body tightening and the blood roaring to deafening levels in his ears. “A delicious madness that makes me wonders what you'd feel like against me.”
“Wanton wench,” Dante shuddered at the implication.
His hand moved from her breast, pausing to tease the taut nipple. He traced the exposed outline of her waist, agitatedly forcing the crumpled material of her nightgown and robe beyond her hips. His powerful hand splayed the exposed flesh, tightening and convulsing with the intimate contact.
With a stifled groan, he clutched her tight to the throbbing ache of his maleness, the pressure of his fingers digging deeply into her tender flesh.
“You're my siren.” He growled, his hold tightening. “Only you, Kate, can make me forget everything I know. In your embrace, I forget everything I’ve learned, and everything for which I've been trained.”
Kate responded with an awkward shyness, her eyes flying wide with surprise at the pressure of his turgid body as his sweat-dampened forehead moved to her shoulder. A pained gasp was torn from him as he moved his head from side to side, as if denying the sensations flooding through him. She gasped his name, her nightclothes fall into a pile on the floor as he swept her up into his arms.
The wide doors, silent guards at the head of the stairs, were pushed open with a precisely executed shove of his shoulder. Dante pressed his lips to hers, stilling her weak protest as they entered his dimly lit bedroom, the warm but indistinct glow of a bedside lamp grazing the pale lines of her body and his golden coloration appearing to darken.
“Dante,” she lightly protested with a sigh against the tender onslaught of his mouth. Her palm pressed against his shoulder, a burning flush of deep crimson rushing into her face. Kate drew her lips away from the increasing onslaught of his mouth, searching his face, stunned by the wealth of desire in his soulful gaze.
He walked across the opulent chamber, his eyes never leaving her, placing her on the four-poster bed. Uneasily, she moved to cover the exposed globes of her swollen breasts with the palms of her hands as he rose majestically. The muscular expanse of his glorious body appeared carved of stone as he towered above her.
“No, Kate.” Instantaneously, her slender wrist
s were captured in the firm grip as he leaned over her. He extended her arms across the bed linens, exposing the full-length of her to his hungry gaze, his body arched dominantly over hers. “I've waited to behold you in this manner for an eternity.”
The words were hoarse. Dante's eyes were shadowed, the sapphire coloring eclipsed by the rapidly enlarging pupil. She ran her tongue over her lips in anticipation of the kiss foretold in his eyes and the promise of what was yet unspoken. Her action caused him to chuckle and relinquish his hold, rising.
Dante loomed above her, his attentive gaze lingering on the luminescent fairness of her skin an ethereal contrast against the linens. The dimmed lighting touched her in a fragile flush, her body more surreal than in the depths of his dreams.
He watched her eyes trail restlessly over his body, her unconcealed satisfaction in his massiveness discernible in the rapidly rising rosiness blanketing her. She ran her lingering eyes across the solidness of his shoulders and down the length of his well-defined torso, lingering on the rippling tautness of his abdominal muscles.
Dante slid his hands to the fastening of his trousers, his actions languorous and teasing as he proudly displayed every rugged muscles and tendon to her hungry regard. He forced himself not to smile at the sound of her strangled gasp as her gaze lowered to the turgid maleness. Kate's hands seized at the softness of the counterpane, the spasmodic activity capable of shredding the exquisite brocade material.
“Dante,” she choked, her back arching as he leaned over her pliant form. “I don't think….”
“Trust me, Kate.” He whispered throatily, his jaw tightening with each of the words.
Dante's heated hand moved with marked deliberateness over her trembling thigh, the tips of his long fingers brushing the apex concealed beneath a thatch of auburn curls. She gasped as he paused, arching upwards, her lids drifting shut. She whetted her lips as his gentle fingers sought the dampness within, grazing the swollen flesh with an artfulness that rendered her a quivering mass. She exclaimed his name as his fingers invaded the entryway to her womanhood, her eyes flying wide at the bevy of sensations rocking her.
“Trust me, my sweet Kate?” His control nearly crumbling, he swallowed as she quivered beneath him, her hips rising against his hand. Her movement brought the pressure of his fingers further into her aching body and he knew what she said without speaking. She was more than ready for him, he surmised, the damp tightness of her body clutching about his fingers. “Will you trust me, my sweet Kate?”
“I trust you.” Her eyes drifted shut as she shook against his onslaught, her body straining, and her hips rocking against the intrusive pressure of his fingers. Kate groaned aloud as the invading pressure of his hand left her body.
Tenderly, he parted the silky splendor of her thighs with his bent knee. He leaned over her, his hands bracing his weight, whereas not a single part of his inflamed flesh touched her. His arms quivered with the effort and he stared into her face, noting the flush of excitement burnishing her cheeks.
“Tell me you want me.” Dante demanded urgently, staring intently into her eyes, needing to hear the words.
Weakly, she lifted her hands to cradle his face. Her trembling fingers lingered on his cheeks before trailing through the thickness of his hair. She used the deliberateness of her hold to pull his head close, her body palpitating with need, longing for the completion she could only achieve in his embrace.
“There aren't enough words to say how much I want you.” She pressed her lips to the cleft in his chin and felt a rumble of pleasure escape him.
A sudden and unaccustomed pressure of velvety hardness pressed against the juncture of her thighs, throbbing and heated. His head lowered on its own accord, his lips capturing hers in a triumphant kiss as he pressed forward, the hot and insistent intrusion of his body delving into her moistness. She gasped at the pressure, stretching painfully to accommodate his invasion, the insistence of his mouth stifling her muttered yelp.
“My sweet, darling Kate.”
She heard the softly uttered words, filled with unspoken apology. Dante trembled and shuddered with the strain of tightly leashed control, waiting. “I will never, willingly, harm you.”
Eagerly, she returned the soft touch of his lips, rising hungrily. He issued a strained laugh, the momentary flash of a dimple marking his smooth cheek. Unerringly, he coaxed her from the threshold of pain until she pulsed around the velvety shaft, gasping as he plunged hungrily into her.
Overwhelmed with the insistent pressure his body induced, Kate arched beneath him, her trembling hands clutching at his straining shoulders. Dante bent closer, his weight steadied on a single arm as he clutched her hip to his pulsating maleness, driving himself into her quivering flesh. She gasped with the onslaught, an unnamed tension building within her.
He began a slow and leisurely tempo of motion, compelling her to respond with a similar need, each movement of his body a persuasively teasing dance of enticement. Intimately, their gazes locked before he captured her lips in a kiss, teasing her with his taste before drawing back.
Intensity built within her, the maddening rush of blood roaring in her ears. Desperately, Kate clutched at him, her spine arching, and her breasts jutting upwards. She attempted to draw him closer, to continue the contact of his mouth and the slow and steady tempo of his skillful lovemaking.
A sob erupted from her as the pleasurable sensations spiraled upwards, cresting explosively. She tensed beneath him, the small crescents of her nails marking his flesh before he growled his muffled release.
Chapter Fifteen
Colinwood Manor was brilliantly aglow with light, a virtual jewel set atop a snow covered hill, twinkling brightly in the night. The windows sparkled with a life of their own, glistening like the many facets of a priceless gem. The glow emitted over the valley was a welcoming sight to the many arriving guests.
Kate stood before the full-length mirror gracing the far corner of her room. Apprehensively, she stared into the glass, grimacing at her image. She felt uncomfortable at the thought of attending the party, even for Anne's benefit.
“Are you certain I won't be under dressed?” Kate inquired, eyeing the snug fit of her jeans and the cream-colored silk shirt. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled with anticipation.
“You'll fit right in.” Lily responded, not sparing the woman a glance as she tidied the room.
“Are you certain, Lily?” Kate spun around before the mirror, looking at her reflection over her shoulder. “Dante has made such a deal over this party.”
“Oh, he has, I'll admit.” Lily affirmed, nodding her head in agreement, giving Kate the slightest of glances. “I dread to imagine life at Colinwood, if the girl decides to wed.”
Kate laughed at the hushed whisper. Dante did suffer from the severity of planning everything down to the last letter. She shook her head, fidgeting restlessly with her hair, anticipation overwhelming her. The strains of a popular ballad filter up the staircase and she hummed along, anything to ease her discomfort.
“I don't know if I belong to this nonsense.”
Lily issued an amused chuckle. “You belong to this nonsense, as you call it.”
“Lily, I would hate to embarrass them.”
“There's hardly anything capable of embarrassing this family, Madam.” She scoffed and turned back the coverlet of Kate's bed. The effort was useless and the entire staff knew it, the woman having not spent a night in her room for the past week. “The Ravensmoors have done everything, at least once, in the history of the title.”
Kate wished she could cowardly avoid the party, but knew she couldn't. The manor had bustled with movement since dawn and the building was filled with the delicious aromas of taste tempting delicacies from O'Toole's kitchen. Dante had left the comfort of his bed long before she had awakened, drawn by the scrumptious scents and the numerous tasks before him.
She blushed now at the thought. Kate had made a vain attempt to return in her room since the first night, f
earing the servant's gossip and sly looks, but Dante refused to have her elsewhere. She would wake in the luxurious comfort of his arms, ensconced in his bed, stirring to the heat of his provocative touch and drugging kisses.
Kate was inundated with the graphic memory of his lips trailing over her skin and the passionate words whispered into her ears. A tingling flush of heat covered her as the events of last night rushed back to her and she shook her head. She had spent the week in his bed, a willing captive, ensnared by his skillful touch and the liquid clarity of his eyes.
“You don't have a thing to be nervous about, Madam.” Lilly assured her, interrupting her thoughts. “You'll do fine.”
A swift knock sounded at the closed bedroom door. The door swung open swiftly and Anne's dark head peered around the corner.
“I wonder if you planned to come downstairs.”
“I'm working up the nerve.”
“You haven't the need.” Anne's eyes sparkled with amusement. She shot her a lopsided grin so like her father's Kate couldn't help smiling in returned. The opened doorway allowed more of the sounds from below stairs to fill her room, along with the steady hum of numerous voices. “I'm startled so many guests did show. I didn't realize I was such a darling.”
“You know you are, imp.” Kate used one of Dante's phrases, winking at the girl.
“I had begun to wonder if Papa may have scribbled some dire threat at the bottom of each invitation.”
“He would never do anything so outrageous!” Kate exclaimed in mock outrage, hearing Lily's vain attempt to stifle a giggle.
“Don't count on it, Madam.” Lily supplied, her dark eyes twinkling with mischief. “More than half of the more senior guests have known His Lordship since he was a lad. I don't believe a one would refuse an invitation.”
My Lord Raven (The Ravensmoor Saga) Page 18