For Your Arms Only by Linden, Caroline (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

keep it from falling further. He took another step, and so did she, away from him again. Then she bumped against the post of the bed, and he lunged.

Together they tumbled onto the bed. Cressida let go of her nightdress and began pulling at his shirt. He bent his head and kissed her right beneath her ear. The shirt came free of his trousers and she slid her hands underneath over his skin, so warm and alive as his muscles flexed and quivered. Dimly she registered the faint tracks of the scars she had seen that day in the library, but she barely thought of them. It was Alec she loved, scarred or not, and he was proceeding far too slowly to satisfy her.

Alec’s control was fast slipping. He didn’t know why Cressida wanted to seduce him tonight; he didn’t care. He was going mad over her, with her pert tongue and soft eyes and that contemplative way she looked at him with one corner of her mouth crooked upward and her head tilted to one side to tease him with the sight of her bare neck. Perhaps she had been contemplating…this, he thought, burying his hands in the silky fall of her hair. Lord knew he had thought about it long enough to be in danger of completely losing his head as she clung to him and ran her own hands over him. He wanted to make love to her tenderly, with all the decency and delicacy she deserved, and he wanted to rip the blasted nightdress away and ride her until they both expired from bliss. He suspected she wasn’t a virgin, but he didn’t know, and therefore he should be more restrained, if not call a halt to things altogether—

“I want to feel you inside me,” she said in a throaty whisper that made him even harder and completely wiped away the thought of stopping. Her hands moved down and cupped him through his trousers, and Alec had to hold his breath to keep from coming right then. With a muttered curse he pushed her nightdress out of the way. Her knees rose beside him as he finally slid his fingers through the damp curls between her legs, right into the wet heat of her body. She arched her neck and her eyes rolled back in her head, and Alec was lost.

He wrenched off his boots and shed his trousers and undergarments. She sat up and pulled the shirt over his head, and then she was in his arms again, her smooth, soft skin against his. He touched her again, but she was already wet, lifting her hips and pushing against his fingers.

“Please,” she begged. She licked her fingertip and ran her hand over the plane of her belly to touch herself. Alec shuddered; the sight of her pleasuring herself was almost unbearable. He slid one finger, then two, inside her, stroking in and out while watching her swirl her finger over that secret, feminine spot until it seemed his eyes were burning. A fine sweat broke out on his brow and his hands shook. Abruptly he caught her hand, sucking her finger between his lips to taste her for a moment. She reached for him with her other hand, and he caught both her wrists, pinning her hands above her head as he finally took his erection in hand and thrust deep inside her.

Cressida gasped. Her arms tensed, but not enough to break his grip. He raised his head and paused, but she shook her head wildly. That gasp had been one of pure carnal pleasure. Incapable of speech, she hooked one leg around his waist and raised her hips to meet his next thrust.

It was needy and hungry, as if neither could hold back. He let go of her hands so he could cup her breast, flicking his thumb across the nipple before lowering his head to take it into his mouth. Cressida ran her hands over his shoulders and arms, scraping her nails along the muscles that bunched and stretched as he moved above her, inside her, filling her body and her heart.

She felt her climax begin to collect in her belly as her nerves strained taut. She gripped Alec’s arms until she must have hurt him but instead he just kissed her deeply, and changed his rhythm, angling his hips to drive into her differently. She returned his kiss and felt tears slide down her cheeks as release crashed through her in a wave of heat. Alec’s back went rigid under her fists and he shuddered in his own climax.

Neither moved for a while. Cressida kept her eyes tightly closed, clinging to the feeling of utter contentment and happiness. She didn’t want to leave his arms, or this bed. It had been a risk—still was a risk—to make love with Alec, but it was one she wouldn’t hesitate to take again. Again and again and again, if possible, and as often as necessary to secure his heart as he had secured hers. Cressida knew she was so deeply in love, she was willing to risk ruin and heartbreak for him.

Alec dragged up his head and looked down at her. Flushed with passion, smiling up at him as she held him in her arms, Cressida Turner was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He had been attracted to her from the moment she pointed a pistol at him in her stable. He had come to respect her strength, to admire her honesty and decency, to find her dry humor entertaining, to value her trust. Now he knew it was more than attraction and admiration. He was fascinated and charmed, unable to imagine life without her. Alec had never been a romantic, sentimental man, but when she smiled at him like this, his heart swelled with more happiness than he could ever recall feeling in his life.

“This is not over,” he said through ragged breathing. “This is not enough. I want you—not just