The Blushing Bounder (An Iron Seas Short Novella) by Meljean Brook Read Free Book Online Page B

She took his hand, and that was enough as the steamcoach traveled the short distance down Whitehall, then west to their mews.
    Newberry seemed satisfied as well, though when they reached their flat and lit the lamps, it seemed his blush had not yet faded. Still he was, as he’d always been, the perfect gentleman. Her heart pounded as she readied for bed. She climbed beneath the sheets and then she waited.
    And waited.
    She heard his bedroom door close. Ah . Retrieving his things to move into here, no doubt.
    Still, he was taking a very long time. She passed it by remembering how his chest had looked. How his lips had felt. Her shift grew uncomfortably hot, and she wanted to tear it away, so that she would be nude when he finally came to her.
    Burning with frustration, she sat up and called, “Edward?”
    He appeared at her door a moment later, hair wild, gaze darting to the window. “Yes?”
    He’d been in bed, she realized. Sleeping—or trying to. Suddenly aware of her bare breasts beneath the thin shift, she pulled her sheet up to her chin.
    Temperance almost lost her courage before she found it again. “I thought you might sleep with me from now on.”
    His blush covered his face, his neck. How far down did it go? Her gaze dropped, then stopped at the linen stretched over his hips, the tent tall enough to house a fair. Her fingers shook, and the ache started again, so needy, so deep.
    “I think that you would like to come to bed, too,” she said. Oh, and how she wanted him to.
    His eyes closed. His voice was tortured. “I haven’t…before.”
    So? “Neither have I. But I’m sure we’ll manage to fit everything into the right places.”
    He nodded, and her heart thumped as he approached the bed. She scooted to give him room. He lay on his side, his feet at the very bottom. Gently, he stroked her cheek.
    She touched his, felt the heat. “My sister once warned me that a man who blushed so easily was probably a Man With Appetites .”
    His fingers stilled, and worry crept into his eyes. “I might be. I want so much, Temperance. But I don’t want to frighten you. Or hurt you.”
    He was the sweetest, most perfect man. She brought her face close to his.
    “You cannot hurt me, Edward.”
    His nod was small, a bare movement of his head. Their lips were close. His ragged breath swept across her mouth before he filled the distance between them.
    And, oh so sweet . His kiss was a slow taste, a tease against her lips before he opened his mouth on a groan and took it deeper. His hands found her waist, hauled her against his rigid body. She felt the hard press of him against her hip, and she’d never, never have imagined that simply knowing how he wanted her could strike sparks through her body, could make her squirm against him, until she was panting and wet—so wet!—between her thighs that she could not even look at him when he first touched her there. Wanton. But he didn’t push her away; it only seemed to inflame him, tearing her shift up over her body, his mouth suddenly hot on her nipples and his fingers pressing inside her.
    She gasped, squeezing her thighs around his hand. Edward stilled.
    “Am I hurting you?”
    Unable to speak, she shook her head. But now his mouth was slower as he bent his head, the suction of his lips and tongue at her breast matching the languorous movement of his hand. Tension began to roll through her, some deep, awful, wonderful tightening that seemed to cramp at her calves and push her hips into wild gyrations, leaving her crying out his name and sobbing for some release—and suddenly it was there, in great pulsing waves that shook her, shook her like the convulsions of a cough, but so luscious.
    Edward’s mouth found hers again, his hips settling in the cradle of her thighs. She felt him, thick and probing. She closed her eyes and stilled as a new ache formed, moving deeper, deeper, and her fingers dug into his shoulders. He groaned and his weight came over her, the ache not so