The Pursuit of Pleasure by Elizabeth Essex Page B

had meant to arouse her, and judging by the flush heating her neck, he had, but the feel of her soft, warm skin through the insignificant barrier of fabric left him scorched, dazed and thirsty for her.
    She had to tip her head back to drink and he feasted first his eyes, and then his hands, on the long slide of her neck leading down to the ripe swell of her breasts. He ran the backs of his fingers lightly along the top edge of her shift, toying with her nipples and reloosening the tie. He had to see her.
    As Marlowe carefully peeled back the fabric to reveal the luscious pink tips, he felt Lizzie’s breath shiver out on a shaky, uneven sigh of pleasure. So responsive, his Lizzie. So beautiful, so vivid and fresh. Her nipples were the same pale pink as the inside of a strawberry, and suddenly he was thirsty for more than just the taste of whisky on her lips.
    He moved to stand between her legs, pressing her knees wider and pulling her heat to the edge of the table. His erection strained against the confines of his breeches, and he eased himself for just a moment by pressing his restless cock into her belly and mound.
    God, it felt good. So good. Heat poured out of her core. He was nearly wild to yank up the hem of her shift and show her all, here and now.
    No. Virgins needed to be wooed gently, in a soft bed, not taken by flyer or initiated into coition on a stillroom counter. And this was Lizzie. No matter their history, no matter what experience she had, or hadn’t had, she needed proper handling. Because he wanted more from her than a quick tupping. He wanted nothing less than her complete and total surrender.
    Marlowe heard the words echo around in his brain: seduction and surrender. They were tied up together in his mind. He could not pursue one without the other.
    It took an effort to ease his cock away from her heat, but he was compensated for the loss by the erotic sight she presented. She was a delectable gamine, wearing his dark, masculine clothes: all tumbled ginger hair and soft luminous skin, her breasts framed by the rumpled, translucent shift, which barely veiled the riot of darker curls there, lower, where her waist slid in and then flared back out over her slim hips and long, God they were endless, legs. So perfect, he could not have conjured such a vision even from his deepest, darkest dreams.
    “God. Look at you.” He put his hands on her knees and spread them infinitesimally wider, and then flipped up the hem of the shift so it rucked up over the junction of her soft white thighs.
    She clamped her hands down on top of his to stop him, her knuckles white with shock and thwarted, suppressed need. Trying so hard to keep control of her curious, inexperienced body. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came, only the tense, almost ravaged sound of her breathing.
    He smiled, in sympathy or perhaps encouragement, and watched the play of conflicting emotions scatter across her mobile, expressive face. Such a study in contrasts: she looked both vulnerable and avid. Needing to be convinced.
    “I want to look at you Lizzie, all of you.”
    Her breathing became shallower in reaction, her shoulders up in anticipation and confusion. “Why?”
    “Because you’re beautiful. Everywhere. Because we were talking of seduction. Seduction and surrender. All you have to do is surrender to your desires.”
    She tried again to cover her shock of arousal with worldliness, though her words were nothing but a breathy little whisper. “I’m going to need more whisky for that.”
    “No more whisky, love. I want you lucid. I want you to feel and understand and remember everything.” He held the sponge up between them. “I want you to show me how it feels when I take this cool, wet sponge and press it up inside the heat of you.”
    He lowered his hand and pressed it gently against her mound, over the gauzy layer of her shift. She gasped, and he felt the ripple of her desire undulate through her body.
    This time, when her