He wasted no time waiting for her assistance. He bent over her and used his tongue to tease her nipples over the top of the stays. The sensation was erotic beyond anything in Eden’s meager experience. She gasped and arched up, urging him to take more of her into his mouth.
He obliged. His hands cradled her breast and his lips closed on her nipple while his tongue swirled around it as if it were a favorite sweetmeat.
Eden pushed her fingers into the bed of leaves, clutching handfuls in an agony of pleasure. Hartley left no part of her breasts unexplored, but always he came back to her throbbing nipples, licking, kissing, suckling.
“Hartley,” she whispered, “if you do not… stop…”
He lifted his head and met her heavy lidded gaze. “Do you wish me to stop, Eden?” He kissed the underside of her breast. “Do you?”
She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by her inundated senses. “No. No. Please do not stop. Hurry.”
“After waiting so long?” He lifted one of her hands and kissed her fingers. “Did none of your other lovers pleasure you this way, Eden?”
Only one. She opened her eyes and forced herself to focus on his face and the words she must speak. “No.” She shivered as he sucked on her little finger. “I… have had only three. Donal’s father, my late husband… and you.”
He went very still and stared down at her, expressionless. “But your reputation—”
“You have heard of that as well? My reputation was earned with innuendo, gossip, and mistaken assumptions that I chose to encourage. Even my aunt believed the rumors of my wanton voraciousness.”
“Why?”
“I found it amusing to deceive the ton.”
“Why no other lovers?”
“Because… because…” Her tongue was thick and inarticulate when her body spoke so loudly, begging for release. “Spencer… lay with me only once. He ignored me after. And then—”
“And then?” He slowly turned her hand to lick the center of her palm.
“I waited.”
“For what, Eden?” He drew his tongue the length of her arm and kissed the inside of her elbow. “For whom?”
“For… for—” No. If you tell him, it will become more than you can afford. It will become real…
“Was it for me, Eden? Did you wait for me?”
Yes. But I did not know. She shook her head, and the perfume of the blossoms wreathed her face. “I did not know you.”
“You know me now.” He kissed each of her breasts in turn, lightly, and put his hand on her knee through the muslin of her gown. His touch threatened to scorch the cloth from her body.
“I… know you. Please, Hartley—”
“How many years without a man’s touch?” He slid his hand up her leg, drawing her skirts with it. “Is that why you came to my bed, Eden?”
“No. I could have had—”
“Any man you please. The marquess.” Her skirts were around her thighs, barely covering her drawers. “But Rushborough is like Spencer—only half alive.” He parted her thighs and knelt between them.
“Show me,” she whispered. “Show me, Hartley, what I have been missing.”
He showed her. She felt the cool air between her thighs, and then a jolt of sheer pleasure as he touched her intimately, stroking his fingers over her wetness. He unerringly found the one part of her that held the center of all sensation, and teased it with his fingertips.
A moan escaped her. Then even that required too much effort, for his finger slipped inside her while his thumb continued its caresses.
Tension began to build in her, pulsing outward from the place he touched. His finger moved in and out, testing, preparing her for what was to come.
And she was ready. She pushed up against him, begging him silently to give her all of himself. But he was not finished. His hand withdrew, and she felt his hot breath before his mouth and tongue replaced his fingers.
This had not happened before, even with Cornelius. She couldn’t manage so much as a gasp. With long strokes and tiny flicks of his tongue, Hartley tasted every part of her. It was impossible to tell where she ended and he began. All the world was hot and wet and filled with rapture.