Eloisa James by With This Kiss Page B

Grace was no virgin. She wasn’t in the least uncertain. She had one leg draped over his shoulder now, and she was arching wantonly toward his mouth. She was soft and wet . . . He slid a finger inside her, gasping at how tight and hot she was. She screamed again, so loudly the dream coachman could probably hear her, and then convulsed around his finger.
    He kept kissing her, luxuriously, slowly, with a kind of pleasure that he’d never indulged in before. She was gasping—panting, really—so he thrust another finger beside the first.
    Her cry was so sweet and passionate that he almost spent himself there, on his knees. One thrust of his fingers and she was shaking again, convulsing, driving him into a fever of desire.
    Damn, but he had a potent imagination. It was a good thing that he had thrown that laudanum out the porthole, because he saw now how easily a man could become addicted to dreams like this one.
    The only thing that annoyed him was that he couldn’t see her. But no complaining . . . He wouldn’t wait any longer. He stood, braced himself against the swaying coach, pulled his placket open and her thighs apart, and said, “I want you.” His own voice was so guttural, low and fierce, that he surprised himself.
    Dream Grace wasn’t the sort of illusion who argued with a man. As he put a knee on the seat, her arms came around his neck, and she pulled his mouth to hers.
    Colin positioned himself at the entrance to her sleek warmth and then slowly began pushing forward. This dream was amazing. He was ecstatic.
    No woman could possibly feel this tight and hot. No woman’s lips were that lush. No woman could turn his loins to fire with nothing more than a squeak, like a mix of surprise and desire.
    He pulled out, slow, and then worked his way back into her, shuddering with the pleasure of it. Then he caught her lips again, stilled because it felt so good, kissed her for a long moment, caught there between pleasure and movement.
    Suddenly he had a pulse of anxiety—what if the dream ended?—and remembered, at the same moment, that the woman who had put a leg over his shoulder didn’t need the sort of careful attention one might give a real woman. She was his , straight from his imagination.
    So he pulled out again and then thrust, roaring aloud at the pleasure he’d never imagined . . . hadn’t ever thought . . . His thoughts fell apart.
    He loved her; she was his center; he was nothing without her.
    For long minutes he had no other thoughts than the desperate heat in his loins and the blazing need in his body. He pumped fast, and then faster, one hand caressing her breast, the other balancing himself against the movement of the coach. He just wished he could see her face, see her head thrown back in exquisite pleasure, her lips open, her eyes glazed with desire . . . love.
    Was she with him? Did it matter? She was Dream Grace, after all . . . She would be with him. She was pure sensuality, pure desire.
    For a moment, he felt sad, missing Real Grace’s complex, thoughtful mind. But his beloved would never be this sensual. She was adorable, and grave, and dignified.
    The thought of Real Grace made it all roar out of him, all his love and despair and pure lust, moving from him to her in a storm.
    Then . . . his knees were weak. He slipped free, consumed with deep thankfulness that the dream had finally— finally —allowed him to make love to Grace, rather than dissolving her into thin air just before they joined.
    He was so damned tired that he could feel darkness swallowing him up. He stood, bumped his head on something, fell onto a seat. Grace was gone, of course. Just himself on a leather seat, alone again.
    He missed her with a piercing agony, but the darkness was coming to swallow him up.
    “Mine,” he said, shaping the word clearly, just in case he never saw Dream Grace again. “You’re mine, now.”
    He spoke to the silent air, of course. There was no one in his dream but him.
    She