Her Christmas Earl (11 page)

PHILIPPA HAD TIME to snatch one shocked breath before Blair seized her in his arms and kissed her as if waiting another second would kill him. The sensation was overwhelming, like being caught up in a whirlwind or tumbling against the beach in a great wave. Compared to the sweet tenderness of his last kiss, this was closer to those wild, passionate moments they’d shared in his dressing room. As heat poured through her, she immediately softened against him and moaned in surrender.

Through the tumult, she was vaguely aware of him flinging away his dressing gown. When her seeking, stroking hands met warm skin, a thrill sizzled through her. She’d never touched anyone like this. A man’s body offered a banquet of unsuspected pleasures. Blair was hard where she was soft; straight where she curved; powerful and potent. The musky scent of his skin flooded her senses.

She gave a soft protest when he drew her to her knees, interrupting her exploration. Then a gasp of shock mixed with excitement when he tugged her nightdress over her head and sent it flying through the air.

She had no time to feel self-conscious because he caught her up and kissed her with an enthusiasm that sent the blood pumping madly through her veins. She tasted claret on his breath.

He tipped her back against the bed and lifted his head to smile down at her with a masculine appreciation that made her tremble and sigh. “You’re glorious, my darling.”

She hadn’t blushed when he flung off her nightdress. She blushed now at the awe in his tone. Once she might have argued with his remark. But staring into his glowing green eyes, for the first time in her life she felt genuinely beautiful. The experience was heady.

“Thanks to you, I feel glorious,” she admitted with a touch of shyness, then leaned forward and kissed him. He gave a grunt of pleased surprise before he took charge with magnificent results.

On a groan of anticipation he settled above her, her legs framing his lean hips. His weight crushed her into the bed and stole her breath in an unfamiliar but wonderfully pleasing way. She ran her hands up and down his back, fascinated to feel the powerful muscles flex. More fiery kisses burned away her brief curiosity to see his nakedness. His tongue tangled with hers, his arms lashed her to his long, strong body.

For the first time, he touched her breasts. She cried out in startled pleasure as response sizzled through her. Those long fingers rolled her nipples into hard, aching points. She trembled at her spiking reactions.

“Oh, Blair…”

He bent his head and took one yearning peak between his lips, sucking gently at first, then with more pressure. Another thrill jolted her and a throbbing, impatient pulse set up between her legs. When he’d kissed her before, she thought she’d discovered desire, but compared to this conflagration of need, that had been a mere flicker.

Her trembling hands tangled in his thick dark hair, pressing him closer, asking for more of this exquisite torture. He made a wordless sound of appreciation deep in his throat and shifted his attention to her other nipple. Her restless, relentless excitement swelled.

Philippa spiraled toward something her mind didn’t understand but which her body craved. She whimpered in desperation as the unknown goal remained beyond reach. The hot brush of Blair’s skin, the scent of his body, his lips on her breast, the touch of his hands, nothing eased the coiling tension.

Blair raised his head to stare down at her stretched beneath him. In the candlelight, his expression was stark with need. She’d never imagined he could look like this. His green eyes glittered with hunger. The skin over his high Celtic cheekbones was taut. His mouth glistened from her kisses.

Instead of this new version of Blair terrifying her into retreat, another shiver of arousal ran through her. He was such a superb man. And right now, he was hers to enjoy.

Emboldened, she began to explore his body, learning the hard lines of muscle and bone, the jut of his hip, the curve of his buttocks. Yesterday, even an hour ago, she’d have hesitated to touch him like this. But she was beyond holding back. He was her husband and she wanted to claim every inch of him.

“I feel like I’m caught in a storm,” she confessed, her voice husky.

“Me too.” He cupped her jaw and tilted her face for more soul-stealing kisses. He nipped her bottom lip and drew it between his teeth, sending another of those extraordinary jolts through her. “You make me tremble.”

“I’m glad.” Once she’d never have believed that plain Philippa Sanders could affect him so profoundly, but she couldn’t mistake the ripples of reaction running through the body poised above hers.

Her hands tightened on his shoulders and she raised her mouth to his. The knowledge that she had this experienced man of the world shaking with desire made her want to cry. After her mother’s cold account of the sexual act, she’d dreaded her husband’s attentions. Now she began to suspect that her mother had neglected the most important information. The section about how her husband could drive her mad with anticipation. Blair’s kisses had always promised pleasure rather than shame and submission.

Now the delight she found in his arms was astounding enough. Even more astounding was that yielding to Blair’s passion was an act of heart as well as body. Every brush of his hand or glance of his lips lured her far beyond the physical realm.

“Oh, my beautiful sweetheart—” he groaned, grazing her neck with his teeth.

She cried out at the tingling response. Her eager hands tested the hard ladder of his ribs, his narrow hips, the powerful thighs. Daringly she ventured lower, toward the part of him that remained a mystery.

He groaned again as her hand brushed his silky heat. Briefly cowardice defeated curiosity. She withdrew and curled her hands across his back. He buried his silky head in her shoulder and breathed in great gusts that shook her with their force. Their kisses in his dressing room hadn’t prepared her for the powerful intimacy of lying beneath him.

“Should I stop?” Philippa asked shakily. Her inexperience made her feel suddenly awkward. She had no idea what a man liked a woman to do to him.

“Hell, no,” he gasped on a warm puff of breath that set off a fusillade of sensation inside her.

“I may touch you?”

His laugh was edged, as if he was in pain. “Please.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

Another difficult laugh. “I hurt with wanting you.”

The jagged admission banished the last of her timidity. With more confidence, she curled her hand around him. He felt alive and strong and dauntingly big. How on earth would he fit inside her?

“Goodness gracious,” she breathed, tentatively running her hand down the hot, satiny column, feeling vitality in the raised veins beneath her fingers.

Liquid heat flooded her at her bold forays. She shifted, feeling sleek and needy. More slowly she moved her hand up until she brushed the swollen tip. He was damp, too.

As all the new experiences of the night crashed down upon her, she snatched her hand away.

She felt fretful, needy, hungry. This wasn’t at all what she’d imagined after her mother’s advice. She’d pictured herself lying back while he took control. This degree of involvement felt threatening, like she surrendered more than just her body. And however much she liked the man she’d married, she didn’t yet trust him as the keeper of her soul.

She’d recognized Blair’s emotional power over her yesterday when she’d seen him with Amelia. Now fear and desire battled for supremacy and she wasn’t sure which was stronger.

“Trust me,” Erskine said softly. When he’d asked Philippa to trust him before this, she’d never failed him. Let her trust him now.

He’d never imagined that introducing his wife to pleasure could carry such importance. Dear God, let him do this right. Let him show this innocent, gallant girl bliss. As he rose above her and stared into her brilliant eyes, his desire for his wife burgeoned into an emotion strong enough to shake kingdoms.

He sucked in a shaky breath. Her scent filled his senses. Lemon and flowers. Arousal. A trace of sweat. The mixture was as intoxicating as brandy.

“Yes,” she said simply, and relief struck him like a blow.

“I’ll be gentle,” he promised, praying that it was true.

His hand drifted down from her face, lingering to test the kick of her pulse at her collarbone. She had a beautiful body, small and slender and graceful with high, round breasts that fit his hands as if created for the purpose.

“Oh,” she gasped as he kissed a particularly sensitive place on her neck. “I like that.”

He loved the taste of her skin. Clean and fresh and warm with life. Tonight he awoke the sensuality that he’d always suspected lurked inside her. He loved watching her amazed wonder at every new experience. He loved watching her confidence build with every sizzling moment.

“Good,” he whispered, fighting the urge to rush to fulfillment. Patience now would reap untold rewards. “I hope you like everything else I’ve got planned.”

To his delighted surprise, she giggled. He’d never heard his serious little bride giggle before. He nuzzled his way across the slope of her breast, drawing in her scent, so much warmer and richer there. “You’re quite delicious, you know.”

“You sound like a hungry lion,” she responded breathlessly, curling her fingers over his shoulders.

At her touch, heat blasted him. “This lion wants to eat you,” he growled.

He came down over her, balancing on flattened hands, and bent to kiss her. She met him readily, darting her tongue into his mouth with a daring that set his blood swirling with need.

The craving to slide into her tight velvety passage was overwhelming, but still he reined in his impulses. He wanted her so drunk with arousal when he took her that any pain became merely a fleeting distraction on the road to rapture.

“Can you feel how much I want you?” He brought her hand down. Excitement shuddered through him as she closed her fingers around him.

“I…I want you, too,” she admitted, caressing him as she raised glittering eyes to his. He saw right to the pure depths of her soul. Through a wave of unfamiliar emotion, he offered up a prayer of gratitude to whatever powers had decreed this union.

Her hand flexed, setting off an explosion behind his eyes. For endless excruciating minutes, he bore her ministrations, gritting his teeth to stop himself from driving to culmination. He relished the intense concentration she devoted to his enjoyment, but he was only human and this tentative, searing torment approached the limit of his endurance.

He caught her hand and glanced a kiss across her knuckles. She was breathtakingly lovely with her creamy skin and drifting cascades of hair. His nostrils flared as he took in her hot scent. Her body told him it wanted him. “It’s my turn to please you, my darling.”

Erskine wasn’t by nature prone to endearments, but something about Philippa made him want to call her every silly fond name he knew. He became completely starry-eyed over his young wife.

“You do,” she admitted in a choked voice.

Deep emotion shone in her eyes. He wasn’t alone in tipping over the edge of physical pleasure into something more profound. He’d had no idea what he’d invited the day he’d offered to marry this woman.

“I will.” He spoke with the same decisive tone that he’d used for his wedding vows. “Let me show you what you’ve got in store for the next fifty years, sweetheart.”

He palmed one round breast, bending his head to take the other nipple between his lips. As he sucked at the beaded peak, she whimpered and slid her hand up his chest. When she sank her nails into his skin, he groaned at the stinging mixture of pleasure and pain.

He raised his head and stared at her. “If you touch me, I’ll lose control and I need to make sure you enjoy this, darling.”

Her brief uncertainty melted into a smile. “Can I touch you later?”

“Over and over and over.”

“That’s a promise?”

“Yes, it is.” Paradise hovered so close. “Now, lie back and enjoy yourself. You vowed to obey me today.”

“In hindsight, that seems a little rash.”

He smiled, captivated. “Too late, sweeting.”

He caressed and kissed her breasts until she bucked beneath him. Her every wriggle released more alluring scent into the air until he drowned in his wife’s sweetness. She was so sensitive, she was close to shattering, but some selfish element in him wanted to share that final joy.

When she trembled beneath him, hot and feverish, he finally, finally ran his hand across her belly and touched her between her legs. Triumph thundered through him when he found her slick and ready.

Carefully he slid one long finger into her, testing the silky heat, the tight muscles clenching around him. Another finger, gently stretching. She breathed in humid little gasps that fired his need.

He rose over her and parted her legs. “It’s time, my darling wife.”

Her dark eyes held the unconditional trust he’d waited so long to find. Very gradually, he eased into her. She was so primed, possession should be easy, but he’d never taken a virgin before. Somewhere the careless lover had transformed into a man who’d cut off his own balls before hurting his wife.