Slightly Wicked by Mary Balogh Page A

ascent, rocking and twisting to keep her steady and increase her pleasure, his hands spread over her hips. She was hot and invitingly wet. Soon he could hear the erotic sucking sounds of their ride—and their labored breathing. She knew just how to make use of her inner muscles, exciting him, drawing him closer to climax without catapulting him over too soon.
    He waited for her. He waited a long time—he could wait forever if necessary. It was a slow, exquisite game she had chosen to play, and he could play it all night stroke for stroke with her. But she straightened up eventually, all her weight on her knees and lower legs, her eyes closed, her fingertips touching his stomach. He watched her and understood that she was close to the edge, had been for some time, but could not find her way over. Unlike many other women, she would not feign release as a compliment to him or as an excuse to be finished with him.
    He took one hand from her hip, moved it down between them, slid one finger down until he found the spot, and rubbed it lightly.
    Her head went back, her hair falling in a golden red cloud down behind her, tensed in every muscle, and cried out. He grasped her hips firmly and drove up into her once, twice, with powerful strokes and growled out his own release.
    “At least a couple of thousand miles,” he said when she raised her head again and gazed down at him as if for the moment she did not know quite where she was.
    “Yes,” she said, and he took hold of her, turned with her, and set her down on the bed beside him. He bent his head and kissed her warmly, deeply.
    “Thank you,” he said. “You are magnificent.”
    “So are you,” she said. “Thank you, Ralph.”
    He grinned at her. He liked the sound of his name on her lips.
    “I think,” he said, “that you have earned a sleep.”
    “Yes,” she agreed. “But not for long.”
    “Not?”
    “I want to play more,” she said.
    Had he not been so exhausted, he might have had another erection there and then. Instead he chuckled.
    “Now on that score,” he said, “I am always ready to oblige, ma’am. Well,
almost
always. But first we must sleep or there will be nothing to play with.”
    She laughed softly and he gathered her into his arms, pulled the bedcovers up over them, and went immediately to sleep with a smile on his lips. The last thing he noticed was that the rain was still hammering against the window.

CHAPTER IV

             R ain was pelting against the window. It had not st
opped all night. Travel would surely be impossible this morning. Perhaps there would be a little more time after all.
    Judith did not open her eyes. She was lying half on her back, half on her side on the bed, a warm arm beneath her neck, its partner draped heavily across her waist. Her legs were all tangled up with two others. He was breathing deeply, still asleep. He smelled of cologne and sweat and man. It was a curiously pleasant smell.
    She really had been inebriated last night, else surely she would never have come even close to doing what she had done. This morning she was sober with a slight headache as an aftermath of drinking more than she ought. This morning she could understand the enormity of what she had done. It was not just that she was now a fallen woman—that did not matter one iota to her in light of her imminent fate as a dependent relative and fading spinster. It was more that she now knew what was going to be missing from all the rest of her life. Last night she had thought that the memories would be enough. This morning she was not so sure.
    And this morning she had thought of something else too—oh, she really must have been
very
drunk. She might have been got with child during any one of last night’s four separate encounters. There was panic in the thought, which she tried to quell by concentrating on her breathing. Well, she would know soon enough. Her courses were due within the next few days. If nothing happened . . .
    She would