His Christmas Rose: The Rockliffe Dynasty Book 4 by Jane Maguire

Author:Jane Maguire [Maguire, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-12-12T00:00:00+00:00

9

As a girl, Emily had often imagined the way Nate’s lips would feel if they fell upon hers. She’d spent more time than she cared to admit pondering whether they’d be smooth or rough, whether they’d brush against her in a featherlight caress or overtake her with a consuming pressure.

However, her imaginings couldn’t have prepared her for the way his kiss would steal the air from her lungs and make her heart detonate as if composed of fireworks. She couldn’t have predicted that his lips themselves would be soft, but that the stubble along his jawline would lightly abrade her skin.

He neither skirted her lips nor ravished them, but pressed against them with a steady force, like he wished to savor her. To know her.

This was all a terrible idea. Something that shouldn’t happen, couldn’t happen, for it was a dream she’d long since thrown away. She’d learned her lesson, knew better than to return to childish fantasies.

And still, she didn’t pull away. Didn’t think about wisdom or old hurts or guarding her heart. Instead, she returned the pressure of his lips, allowing herself to know him, too.

As if of their own volition, her arms reached up to wrap around his neck, her fingers extending to comb through the hair that had grown long enough to curl at his nape. She’d long wondered what those dark gold strands would feel like, and it turned out they were sleek beneath her fingertips, something she could relish until dusk became dawn.

His hands, meanwhile, slid down her back to encircle her waist in a pleasurable embrace. Those battered hands that she’d held, stroked, and soothed as he laid bare all his secrets and regrets. As, little by little, he became less the young man who’d so flippantly dashed her feelings for him and more someone who’d matured, changed—someone to whom she wanted to give all her care and comfort.

But the longer their lips stayed connected, the less she could focus on who he’d been in the past or who he meant to be in the future. She could think only of how his tongue gently teased her until her mouth fell open, and of the hot jolt of bliss as the tip of his tongue flicked over hers.

She’d allowed gentlemen to kiss her before, but it had never been like this. She’d never had a man caress her lower back and experienced the sensation deep in her core, had never tasted another man’s mouth so intimately and felt desire spiral in myriad directions. This wasn’t a mild sensation that skirted the edge of enjoyment. This was champagne and butterflies, and she wanted more of it, wanted to become drunk and dizzy⁠—

A sharp clatter echoed off the marble floor tiles, followed by a woman’s startled gasp.

Something fell … Someone’s here …

All at once, her brain made sense of the noises, and her body snapped to alertness, jerking away from him and sitting straight against the chair back.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Ruck, stood in the doorway

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