With This Kiss Read Free Page B

right,” she whispered, her fingers still tight in his hair. “All right. But I feel terribly vulnerable. It’s frightening.”
    “When you can’t see, you have to trust your touch. My eyes would have told you everything you wanted to know in the parlor.”
    “The windows to the soul,” she said, understanding.
    “You would never have spouted that drivel about how I felt about Lily if you could have seen my eyes. Never.”
    She shifted onto her side, her body sliding under his hands like water. The feeling of her skin sent a rage of pure lust up his body.
    “All right,” she said. “All right. I’ll… I’ll touch you then.”
    His hands stroked down her bottom and she startled. “ I’ll touch you,” she dictated. “Not both of us at the same time.”
    He sighed, rolled on his back, let his arms fall away. “I am here.” Though he didn’t like it. Lying on his back felt too exposed.
    “Where?”
    She sounded a bit tentative, but then her fingers descended on him like little flames. She started on his chest, her fingers tracing the muscles rippling under her touch as she stroked down his chest, across his stomach. Under her fingertips, he felt like a battering ram, a body honed into muscles for one reason, and one reason only: war.
    He shook the feeling off. Somehow, it was easier in her presence. He hadn’t felt the drowning weight of black memory all day, not even when in the grip of laudanum.
    Instead, his body was tingling all over, his tool rigid against her hip, his stomach clenched with lust. Perhaps his body wasn’t made for war, but for her. For her pleasure, for her amusement.
    She had stopped caressing him; her fingers seemed to have stalled around his waist. “Here,” he murmured, pushing her hand lower. At the mere brush of her fingers, his hips rose in the air and a groan burst from his lips.
    “I wish I could see you,” she breathed. Then she was silent for a moment, her fingers roaming from the curve of his inner thigh to an erection so pounding and fierce that he’d never experienced anything like it in his life. Her touch was close to causing him pain.
    When her hand finally curled around him, he couldn’t stop a surprised curse from erupting from his lips. He had the sheets clenched in his hands, forcing himself not to touch her. Not to throw her backward and bury himself inside her.
    “You like that,” she said, and the delight in her voice made the erotic hum filling his body more tight, more potent.
    “I do,” he managed. Her fingers tightened as she stroked him. If she kept that up, he would find himself begging. “Do you think that you’ve touched me enough, darling?”
    Her grip froze. “ Darling? ”
    He couldn’t bear it another moment, not without losing all control and disgracing himself. He pulled her hands apart and then rolled her into what was quickly becoming his favorite position. He tucked her small body inside the shelter of his and kissed her, loving every touch of his fingers, the way her hands trembled as they caressed his shoulders.
    “You’re mine,” he murmured, keeping his weight on his elbows. Then he kissed her forehead. “Mine. My darling. My Grace.”
    Her hands stroked down his back, but she made a stifled noise, almost like a little sob. He let a smile curl his mouth, knowing she was blind to it. “And I’m yours,” he told her. “This body, such as it is, is yours, Lady Grace, soon to be Mrs. Barry.”
    “Mrs. Barry.” Her voice was wondering, with an undercurrent of astonishment. But he knew her. Every word of her letters had taught him to love her and to know her. She was more joyful than surprised.
    “My wife,” he said, with satisfaction. “Are you all right?” He kissed her nose.
    He caught her yes in her mouth, stifled it with a kiss that went on and on. When he finally surfaced from a pool of desire, he found that he had lowered all his weight on her, and he was grinding into the soft cradle of her body, his breath