Bitten by Desire Read Free

more of this thing building and climbing inside her like a tower made of heat.
    Vaelen looked up, gazing deep into her eyes, his own lambent with desire. He kissed her, a drugging kiss so deep it made her toes curl, as if he was dragging something up from the depths of her being. Then he kissed her again, thoroughly, covering her body with his, the cloth and fastenings of his coat rough on her sensitised skin. She could feel his erection pressing into her through his breeches, but he made no move to disrobe. He kissed her again, retracing the path down her throat, her breasts, lifting up her gown to reveal the soft curve of her belly, pulling her over to the edge of the bed as he kissed, kneeling on the floor between her legs, his breath whispering over her curls to the soft skin of her inner thighs.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Confused, she tried to sit up, but he stalled her.
    â€œIt’s what you wanted. It’s why I’m here.” The truth, both sides of it. Vaelen drank in the feast that lay before him. Luscious, creamy thighs, exactly as he had imagined them. He was hugely aroused, achingly aroused and horribly tempted, but he would not break the code he had enforced on himself. Though, he had never been tempted like this before.
    Imogen. Her name so soft and giving, like her body. Tenderness fluttered fleetingly over his cold heart. He wanted to give her pleasure beyond what was necessary. She would not remember, but he would. That he already knew he would not forget her should have been a warning. He longed to have her heat envelop him. He nudged her thighs wider and kissed the tender flesh.
    His mouth was hot now on her skin. She was hot too, burning-hot, shivering-hot. Where he touched her, flames leapt. He was kissing her where she had not… Had never… But now that he was doing it, she knew she had only to surrender. His tongue. His lips. His kiss on her sex as it had been on her mouth, tasting, learning, tracing her shape.
    A knot of desire took firm hold inside her. Sharp-edged, bladed, it twisted as he deepened his intimate kiss, his tongue caressing her, licking the steel she could sense turning and burning, gouging out need and urging her to rush forward and clench back at the same time. She was a diamond. He was honing and polishing her with a languorous lapping that became maddeningly slower when she wanted it to spark and speed. For as he slowed, her desire raced until she felt a wrenching and slipping, tumbling over and over in a twisting, shivering, endless falling, so caught up in the hot wild pleasure of it that his lapping on the delicate inner crease of her thigh was subsumed.
    Vaelen sucked carefully, but with pleasure so extreme he thought he would be unable to contain himself. So hot and sweet her taste, it filled him with acute tenderness and sorrow and longing even as it sated his baser needs. The feral part of him growled its gratification, greedily demanding more. It was an immense wrench to stop, but he timed it by the pulsing of her climax, ceasing as it faded, licking carefully over the tiny wound.
    Imogen opened her eyes, staring up at him hazily. Sated she looked; delectably sated. Would that he felt the same. She held out her arms, but he ignored her mute invitation. She had already tested his resistance far beyond the usual bounds.
    â€œSleep, lovely Imogen,” he whispered, relieved to see that she closed her eyes obediently. It pained him, but he pressed his cool hand to her brow and said the words which would obliterate him from her mind. To be forever unremembered was one of the prices he paid. Usually it cost him nothing. Imogen sighed and settled. He pressed a kiss to her brow. Then he left the way he had arrived, suddenly and silently.
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    Imogen woke in the morning feeling light-headed. The ribbons of her nightgown had come undone; it was rucked up around her waist. Her sheets were tangled. She struggled up through the mists of sleep. The room was