Carrying The Gentleman's Secret. Helen Dickson

the meal. Raising his hands, he began removing the pins from her hair, with deft fingers combing out each curl and braid until it fell in dark shining locks about her shoulders.

      ‘This,’ he said, glorying in the tender passion in her eyes, feeling the heat flame in his belly as he drew aside the curtain of her hair and placed a kiss in the warm, sweet-scented hollow of her throat, ‘is what I’ve been thinking of from the moment you walked into the dining room.’

      As his lips trailed over her flesh, with a gasp of exquisite pleasure Lydia threw back her head and closed her eyes. ‘I cannot believe this is happening to me—that I am even allowing it to happen,’ she breathed softly. ‘I feel I must confess to having little knowledge or experience of the intimacies that take place between a man and a woman. I’m afraid that you will find me a complete novice,’ she murmured. She knew she was on the brink of the unknown and her pulses began to race dangerously. ‘I—I feel I am heading for something I cannot possibly know how to handle.’

      ‘Then I think it is about time you learnt,’ he replied seductively.

      Again his mouth laid siege to her own, taking her lips in a fierce, devouring kiss that sent jolt after jolt of exquisite sensations rocketing through her, filling her with a fever of longing. Leaving off just long enough to divest her of her dress and undergarments with the dexterous ease of long practice, murmuring to her between kisses which he dropped on creamy flesh as each item of clothing was removed, he somehow managed to remove his own attire in the process. Lydia heard his sharp intake of breath as her body was slowly revealed to him, his eyes fastening hungrily on her naked beauty. She was gloriously lovely, and he was bewitched, helpless to resist such temptation.

      Lydia was enthralled by what was happening to her—by her own nakedness and his, after he had removed his clothes unselfconsciously to reveal the muscled, well-honed body of an athlete, brown and hard and eager—and she took a moment to admire his shoulders and deep chest, matted with crisp black hair. She flushed and tried to avoid looking at his manhood, and Alex chuckled softly, charmed. Passion flared and he pulled her down onto the bed, soft and ready for them.

      In the glow of the single candlelight that burnished their bodies gold, he took a moment to study her thoughtfully. Lydia felt the heat at each spot that his eyes rested on her body. He took his time, with his mouth moving lingeringly over her, and when his lips took possession of her breast she was unable to stifle a gasp. Never would she have suspected that the feel of a man’s lips on such a secret part of her body could create such incredible pleasure. He continued kissing her, enfolding, caressing, gently at first and then with increasing urgency, sliding his hand down to the curve of her waist, kissing her eyes, her throat, the rosy nipples of her breasts, his fingers burning wherever they touched. No part of her escaped and her sighs and moans fed Alex’s ardour, fuelling his passion.