Secrets of Seduction by Nicole Jordan

bare bodies—her cambric nightdress, his brocade dressing gown. He hadn’t sashed his robe tightly enough, either. His manhood stirred, while desire, heavy and urgent, tightened his body.
    Hawk bit back a groan. Embracing her like this was severely testing his fortitude. What he’d meant to be a comforting embrace had turned unexpectedly heated. Every part of his body vibrated with the tension she had created, and in another moment, he’d grown fully aroused.
    He suspected Skye felt a similar desire, for she went very still. Beneath his fingers, he could feel the rapidly beating pulse in her throat. Then her hand curled around his nape and moved lower, beneath the collar of his robe. When she drew a shallow breath, he knew she was feeling the burn scars on his back, the ridges of puckered flesh caused when a smoldering beam had crashed down upon him.
    Faintly, her hand stroked the back of his neck, and she pressed her lips to his chest, as if consoling
him
.
    “I am so sorry,” she whispered.
    Her face was damp with fresh tears, he realized. She was crying over him. Hawk froze. He didn’t want her pity. Catching her wrist, he drew her fingers away from his damaged flesh, unwilling to bear her efforts at solace.
    Unfortunately, she raised her face to him.
    Temptation beckoned anew. Huge sapphire eyes, ripe rosy lips, flawless ivory skin. Hawk locked his jaw, fighting her allure, but he had no defense against her tear-filled eyes.
    Bending his head, he kissed a path along her cheekbone to her soft lips. She tensed at first, as if startled, yet the quiver of her mouth under his kiss told him she felt the same intense attraction. When he deepened the pressure, her resistance melted. Rather than pushing him away, Lady Skye responded with fervor, leaning into him as if hungry for his mouth, for his touch.
    When she opened to his penetrating tongue, heat seared him. Heat he didn’t want. Possessiveness he
shouldn’t
want.
    He almost left her right then. Buffeted by the emotional jolt of her kiss, Hawk badly wanted to pull away. But instead, his hand slid down her body, caressing, stroking. He’d been too long without a woman, without a soft feminine touch, and every nerve and fiber in his being was clamoring for her softness.
    When his palm skimmed along her bare thigh, a rasping murmur that had nothing to do with protest sounded deep in her throat. And when his hand rose again to cup the ripe swell of her breast, she arched into his touch.
    She was as eager for him as he was for her, Hawk knew without a doubt.
    His lips moving on her flushed face, he laid her back against the pillows and pulled down the bodice of her nightdress, then drew back to drink in the sight of her.
    He’d imagined how she would look in the golden glow of firelight. Ivory, velvet-smooth skin. Firm, lush breasts. Rosy-tipped nipples. Luscious, inviting warmth.
    Hawk drew a long, labored breath. No sane man could resist her beauty, and arguably there were times when he was not wholly sane—like now, when his head was reeling much less from the liquor that hadloosened his self-imposed inhibitions than the powerful shock to his senses.
    Craving her warmth, he reached for her. Her eyes closed this time while her back arched again, her creamy breasts trembling, peaking, filling his hands.
    Lowering his head, Hawk kissed one exquisite crest. When Skye whimpered softly, he remembered the rough stubble on his jaw and wondered if he had hurt her. But when he began to suck on her nipple, her sigh of pleasure told him he was mistaken.
    He intensified his ministrations, his lips closing more firmly on her breast, his tongue coaxing the taut bud to greater arousal.
    She was straining against him now. Her fingers curled in his hair, pulling his mouth closer, as if begging him not to stop.
    He had no intention of stopping. All he cared about just then was touching her, exploring her. His blood was pounding violently, but as he stretched out beside her, he willed