Read Online A Summer Seduction by Candace Camp - Free Book Online

footman here to open the door?”
    Damaris turned an amused gaze up at him. “Not all of us are earls, my lord. I took the servants with the house when I let it. There are not many, and I saw no sense in anyone staying up to answer the door. My maid is doubtless waiting for me in my chamber.” She stopped, a blush creeping into her cheeks. Somehow, with Rawdon’s gaze upon her, it was embarrassing even to allude to the nightly ritual of changing into her bedclothes.
    His eyes darkened, his mouth subtly softening, and Damaris knew he was thinking of the same thing. His reaction stirred a new sensation inside her, something entirely different from embarrassment. She could not help but think nowof what it would be like to have his hands, not her maid’s, on the fastenings down her back, of his fingers slipping beneath the opened sides of the gown and pushing them apart, gliding over her bare skin, brushing the lace of her chemise. Just imagining the touch of his fingers, her skin was suddenly alive with anticipation. Heat curled deep in her abdomen. She could not help but wonder what the reality of his touch would be like.
    Would he be tender or forceful? His hands rough and impatient or slowly stoking the heat in her? It would be easier, perhaps, to still be a maiden, she thought, to have no idea of what lay between a man and a woman. If she had never known a man’s kiss, she would not wonder now how Alec’s mouth might taste or how soft his lips would be against hers. She would have no hint of the way fingertips brushed over her bare flesh could make her shiver. But she did know, and she could well imagine…
    Alec reached out, brushing his thumb along the line of her cheek. Damaris looked up into his face. She knew she should protest, should move away, but she could not.
    “Your eyes are so beautiful,” he murmured. “Their color…” The corner of his mouth quirked up. “No doubt hundreds of men have written poetry to your eyes.”
    “Hardly hundreds.”
    “I have no way with words. But when I look into your eyes, I feel as if… I am drowning and I have no wish to be saved.”
    “I think,” Damaris breathed, “that you are doing quite well with your words.”
    His eyes widened just a fraction, his lips pulling back in a flash of a smile, and he bent and kissed her.
    Damaris stiffened, her hands coming up to his chest, but instead of pushing him away, her fingers curled into his jacket, holding on as he pulled her into him. His mouth lingered on hers, answering all questions of how he would kiss her. He tasted her as one might a fine wine, his lips and tongue teasing and exploring, slowly savoring her.
    A long shiver ran down Damaris. She felt as if her whole body was opening up to him as surely and completely as her mouth. Her hands relaxed and moved up his chest to loop around his neck. She stretched upward, her body sliding up his, until she stood on her tiptoes, her lips locked with his. She was washed with heat, intensified by the furnace of his body.
    Rawdon was flush against her all the way up and down, his arms wrapped around her, enveloping her. His kiss deepened, his mouth consuming her, and his hands glided down to her hips, pressing her up into him so that she felt the length of his desire digging into her. She was dizzy with the taste and scent and feel of him, and she thought that she might fall into a limp, trembling mass on the floor were it not for the hard strength of his arms clasping her to him.
    His hand came up to curve around her breast, and her gasp was swallowed by his kiss. He caressed her, his fingertips burning through the material and arousing her nipples to hard points of yearning. A liquid warmth pooled between her legs, spurred by the delicious ache forming there.
    With a groan, he pulled his lips from hers and buried his face in her hair. She could feel the stir of his breath upon herhair, hear the thunder of his heart. She felt strangely will-less, loath to move away or to