The Surrender of a Lady by Tiffany Clare Page B

head to the side, he grazed his mouth over the tip of her ear.
    How easy, in the height of passion, it would be to whisper the truth to her. Tell her that he knew who the real woman was beneath the veil. But it was too soon to reveal the depth of his feelings. The depth of his insanity over the years in thinking about her. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. A faint smell of rose water filled his nostrils . . . and the scent of woman beneath that. She did not wear the cloying perfumes of an English lady.
    This was the pure, clean scent of a woman. Reaching around to her front, he ran his hand over her heated flesh and stopped before reaching her mound. There were so many things he’d dreamed of doing that he didn’t know where to start. The breath coming from his lungs rasped, panted. Too many sensations fired his blood to a boil.
    God, he’d needed this woman too long.
    He had been thinking about her most of his life. The Marquess of Rothburn had been brought to his knees after a few weeks in her company. Did she remember his boldness when he’d sequestered her in the Duchess of Glenmoore’s gardens? They’d laughed most of the night away. He thought they’d been friends after their shared horror stories of society balls. Thought they’d had a deeper connection after his confessions of feelings for her, after their heated kisses when he’d proposed to her under the stars.
    Or had she forgotten? Had it all meant so little to her? Or had she doubted him after his hasty departure from England?
    He held her close as he remembered the past. The last night he’d seen her had ended on a high note. What had she thought when he hadn’t danced attendance upon her thereafter? Instead he’d hightailed it to his villa in Italy after his uncle arranged for him to marry some thoroughbred chit. As soon as he left, his uncle had sent the indebted baron panting after Elena. Both men had made sure to ruin her socially, arranging for her to be caught in a forbidden embrace. Not that Griffin believed for one minute she’d welcomed the baron’s advances. Although the blackening of her name had forced her to marry the scoundrel while Griffin had been abroad licking his wounds.
    So stupid of him to leave her behind when they could have eloped and lived abroad.
    So very, very stupid.
    Bending at the knee, he scooped her up into his arms again. She was lighter than her figure suggested. Maybe because she didn’t have the cumbersome skirts of English fashion to bulk her up and weigh her down.
    He tossed the blankets aside as he laid her on the wide divan. His mind was lost when his body needed her touch so badly, needed to be in her, on her, around her lush form soaking up her very essence. Setting her legs so they bent at the knees, he spread them apart and knelt between them. It shouldn’t have surprised him when she displayed her flexibility with an aptness that would make most bawds blush.
    The folds of her sex glistened with moisture in the moonlight that reached its faint white fingers through the open window. He didn’t hold back the appreciative groan that came from deep in his lungs, robbing him of air. He swallowed against the sudden dryness in his throat.
    What was she thinking? He wished he could see her expression, but he wouldn’t give back her sight just yet. Not until he had lived out this one fantasy. He held his hands slightly above her waist, not ready to touch her. Once he did that, he would lose himself in what she so willingly displayed without shame. Lose himself in the long obsession he’d had with this particular woman.
    Finally, he grasped onto her hips and lifted her, placing her open, wet core against his cloth-covered erection. With a thrust of her hips her sex came in tighter against him. He just needed to touch her, to hear her scream in release. He wanted his fantasy woman on fire with passion beneath him.
    He felt her holding back as her hips stopped moving. She wanted to feel him. She wanted to be