Filed To Story: Alessia Mistaken as Mistress Book PDF Free
“All right,” she whispered.
“Perhaps you can persuade her to have dinner with us one evening soon.” His breath rustled against her hair. A tremor ran down her spine. Her head spun with turmoil. She didn’t want Nicholas around Celia, but how could she be so cruel to the woman?
“Your hair has driven me crazy since the first time I saw it,” he confessed in a low intimate tone.
His words soaked in and numbed her thinking. If he touched her, she’d dissolve into a puddle.
“I’ve wanted to test those tight curls beside your face and along your neck. See if they spring back when I tug them.”
She tipped her head and touched her curls self-consciously.
“When I get within a foot of you, I can smell your hair, and I want to bury my nose in it.”
Alessia’s brain dealt with his words slowly. “You think all that about my hair?
“
“Not just your hair.”
Oh, Lord. Her eyes drifted shut against her will, as if closing them could protect her from the sensory onslaught of his voice. A rush of anticipation sluiced through her veins.
“It’s the way it lies against your neck, and how pale and soft-looking that skin is. So delicate. And it feels as soft as William’s.”
Her skin tingled everywhere. The thought of him touching her again gave her nerve endings vibrant expectancy. She couldn’t think past the heat and the tension.
“Right now I can see your pulse at the base of your throat. I could feel it if I placed my lips there. What’s making your pulse race so, Claire?”
Alessia thought she might faint. She reached for something to steady herself, and his strong hand came up from beneath and clasped hers. She clung to it.
With his other hand, he tested the curls beside her face with gentle tugs, did the same along her neck. He leaned closer and inhaled, and she was sure she heard him groan.
“May I?” he asked in a hoarse voice, releasing her hand.
She nodded, and when she reached back, she met his fingers, already plucking pins. Hands trembling, she helped him until her hair was free. He thrust his fingers into it, buried his face in it, pushed it all to one side and pressed his lips to her neck so gently they might have been the radiating heat of the fire.
Heat skittered down her body, setting it atingle.
He kissed her neck, traced the shell of her ear with his tongue, then turned her with gentle hands and ran his tongue along her throat, down to the pulse point, up to her chin.
She faced him now, her head fallen back; her loose fists rose helplessly. He delved his fingers against her scalp and held her head fast, bringing her mouth to his.
Alessia grabbed his shoulders before she collapsed, and welcomed his mouth upon hers. His kiss inflamed as staggeringly as his words had, his lips warm and pliant and hungry for the taste of her. She wanted to absorb him, have him for herself. She kissed him back, a hungry, greedy kiss that left her modesty in tatters and her composure in shreds.
He settled her against his body, and Alessia lost all sense of time and place and propriety. Her swollen breasts welcomed the hard plane of his chest. Their thighs pressed together through their clothing, his long and muscled, hers trembling.
“I want you,” he said against her mouth, and the proof pressed against her belly. The intimacy shocked, yet excited her. She should push him away. She should put a stop to this. But he ran his hands down her back and cupped her bottom through layers of dress and petticoats, and all Alessia could think of was what that would feel like if she were unclothed.
Apparently Nicholas had the same thought, for he turned her and unbuttoned the row of tiny buttons from her neck to her buttocks, all the while, his breath fanning her neck.
Shamelessly, she helped him peel the bodice forward, and her chemise followed, but caught on her corset and her arms.
He didn’t care. He turned her toward him and rested his blazing dark gaze on her breasts.
Alessia blushed, her body tingling. She’d never had a man look at her like this, and her breasts were full and heavy now, her nipples swollen.
“Will I hurt you if I touch them?” he asked, apparently as concerned as she, yet considerate enough to ask.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“You’ll tell me?”
She nodded.
He cupped a palm beneath one breast, more gently and reverently than she’d expected from his passion moments before. He rubbed the sensitive skin, tested the weight, ran his thumb over the crest of her nipple and watched it harden.
He kissed her again then, more tenderly this time, more worshipfully but with every bit as much fire and dedication.
Gaylen Carlisle had given Alessia a baby, but he’d never set her on fire or shown her passion. What she’d done with him could not be compared to this.
She didn’t think there was a comparison for this.
Desperately needing to touch him, Alessia raised her hands, but her arms caught on her chemise. “Nicholas,” she said against his mouth.
At his pause, she looked down and unlaced her corset, allowing it and her chemise to fall, then liberating herself of the stiff layers of petticoats.
With her arms free, she cupped his face, touched her palms to the warm, slightly rough skin of his cheeks, and pulled his face back to hers while he shed his coat.
He kissed her, but urged her to the divan, where he laid her back against his coat and ran his palms over her shoulders and breasts.
Alessia sighed her pleasure, hooked an arm behind his neck and raised herself to his ministrations. He slid his fingers over one nipple, up the side of her neck, caught her chin and kissed her hard.
He pressed kisses against her eyelids, her chin, her neck, the valley between her breasts, touched his tongue to her nipple, and she shivered. He looked up at her then, his eyes dark with passion, and she caressed his cheeks and his brow.
He lowered his head to her breast and suckled. She savored the rush of sensation until she felt her milk let down. Embarrassed, she pulled his head away. He gave her a quizzical glance, but respecting her unspoken wish, allowed her to stop him without question. He kissed her lips, his tongue invading and drawing hers to kiss him as deeply.
Alessia’s insides turned liquid. She pulled him against her, running her hands over his back through his damp shirt, the scents of starch and man strong in her nostrils.
He slid a hand along her hip, caught her against his hard frame and ground himself against her, emitting a frustrated groan.
Alessia clutched at his shoulders, wild with the fire of his kisses and the near-ecstasy of his touches.
Nicholas slipped his hand between them, cupped her through her pantalets, and she gasped. He parted the placket in the material, and his gentle fingers found her folds, quickening her with sure steady strokes, and instinctively she raised her hips into the pleasure.
Her exquisite feminine responses had Nicholas tied in a knot. He buried his nose in her hair, felt the tightening of her lush body, gloried in the breathless gasps against his ear and gave himself the gratification of feeling her pulse against his hand. Could he bury the shame of seducing her by pleasuring her and denying himself?
Somewhere along the line his plan had backfired. How would he know if she were doing this just to ingratiate herself with a wealthy man or if he’d approached her at a vulnerable time and said and done all the things she’d needed to hear?
These responses weren’t faked. That he knew.
But worse than even those thoughts was the seed of doubt he couldn’t close his mind to. Perhaps he reminded her of Stephen. She was lonely. If she had truly loved his brother, she might be drawn to Nicholas because of the physical similarities.
She held herself still and quiet. Waiting.
He wanted to take her now. Sink into her and lose himself in her lush and lovely body. He fought against taking her as quickly and harshly as he desired. He clenched his jaw. Hard.
“Nicholas?” she asked tentatively.
He smoothed his hand up over the cotton covering her hip. “What?”