‘Does your skin taste as good as it feels, I wonder …?’ he whispered.
Juliet gasped, and her back arched involuntarily as she felt the softness of his chiselled lips against her nape, those quivers down her body increasing in urgency as she felt the gentle rasp of his tongue against the bareness of her flesh.
‘Mmm, it tastes even better than it feels,’ he murmured appreciatively as he alternately kissed and licked a heated path down the length of her spine. That path came to a halt as he reached the top of her gown. ‘May I …?’ he asked huskily.
Juliet was too hot, too confused by the strange clamouring of emotions she was feeling, to immediately comprehend his meaning. By the time she did understand what he was asking Sebastian had already unfastened most of the buttons down the back of her gown!
‘I ask that you do not turn around, Juliet,’ Sebastian reiterated as she once again made an attempt to do so, placing his hands firmly upon her shoulders to accompany this reminder as he held her in place. ‘I wish for you to remain exactly as you are so that I might … explore.’
Juliet’s gaze moved wildly about the drawing room, but no one was paying her—or consequently him, where he stood hidden by the drapes—any attention. They remained engrossed in their party game.
Having Sebastian touch her in this way was so sinfully wicked that Juliet could not possibly allow him to continue. Could she …? Yet with her gown unbuttoned down her back did she really have any choice but to remain standing exactly as she was?
Did she even want a choice?
Juliet could not deny that she felt a curiosity. A wanting. An aching to know if the sensations she was feeling really were pleasure.
Juliet gasped again as she felt the heat of Sebastian’s hands about her waist. Only the thin material of her silk chemise separated those hands from her bare flesh. That gasp became a tiny moan as his hands shifted beneath the loose material of her high-waisted gown to move caressingly upwards to just below the pertness of her breasts.
‘Shh, sweet …’ Sebastian murmured soothingly.
How could Juliet possibly remain silent when those hands touched her so intimately? When she could feel her nipples become engorged in anticipation of caresses yet to come?
She felt a warm flooding between her thighs as Sebastian continued to touch her just beneath her breasts. A hot dampness in her most secret place. A clenching spasm deep inside her as Sebastian’s hands trailed a slow path from her breasts down to her waist and then back again.
‘You must stop, Sebastian!’ she protested agonisingly from behind her fan. Her knees seemed in danger of buckling beneath her.
His only reply was to tighten his hands about her waist as he held her more firmly in place and his lips explored the bareness of her shoulder, licking, gently sucking.
Juliet was in no doubt now—this was pleasure!
Unimaginable, indescribable pleasure.
It was a sensation unlike any Juliet had ever known before.
A sensation she wanted to continue ….
Sebastian knew that he should stop. That he must stop soon or risk exposing them both to a scandal that the ton would never forgive or forget.
But finally being able to kiss Juliet, to touch her, to feel her pleasure in his caresses, to hear her little panting breaths and feel the response of her body, was feeding his own desire, so making it impossible for Sebastian to do anything other than continue the wild, illicit caresses.
Her skin smelt of spring flowers and tasted like silken honey as he continued to explore its smoothness with his lips, feeling the arch of Juliet’s back as he ran his tongue down the ridges of her spine. Her bottom was pressed against him, and the hardness of his throbbing, aching arousal fitted perfectly against her.
That Juliet was completely naked beneath her chemise Sebastian had no doubt, and he allowed one of his hands to glide lower down over her stomach, to cup her between her parted legs. He was able to feel her dampness through the thin material that was the only barrier to his questing fingers.
A barrier Sebastian pushed impatiently aside, skilfully drawing the material of her chemise up to her waist.
Growling low in his throat, he was finally able to touch, to explore the soft and downy thatch where the hard bud of her arousal was hidden.
She was swollen.
So swollen.
And so responsive as Sebastian lightly stroked, above and below, never quite touching that engorged nubbin as his fingers became wet and slick.
‘Please …!’ Juliet’s groan was so low and aching that Sebastian felt a leaping response between his own thighs. ‘I want—Sebastian—I need—’
Sebastian knew what she wanted, what she needed, what she craved.
What he craved, too.
But not here.
How could either of them enjoy complete pleasure when they were standing here so publicly?
When anyone in the room might turn at any moment and see them together?
Juliet’s slippered feet no longer touched the floor as Sebastian placed a strong arm about her waist, and she felt herself being lifted, carried backwards out of the room and into the dark shadows of the terrace before he lowered her to turn her in his arms. His mouth claimed hers hungrily.
The new, craving sensations in Juliet’s body caused her to return the hunger of that kiss as she silently pleaded, begged for an end to the tormenting, unbearable ache between her thighs.
Her lips parted to the hard invasion of Sebastian’s tongue, and those moist, rhythmic caresses once again pushed her to the brink of—Of what …?
Juliet didn’t know.
But she wanted to know.
She needed to know!
‘… was most enjoyable. But I am so warm after all the excitement that I simply must go outside and take some air.’
Juliet barely had time to register that she and Sebastian were about to have their privacy interrupted before he wrenched his mouth from hers to place silencing fingertips against her lips. He swiftly manoeuvred her backwards, even further into the shadows.
Only just in time, too, as the elderly Duchess and Duke of Sussex strolled out onto the terrace before crossing to stand at the balustrade.
Juliet looked up in the gloom at Sebastian face, to find the darkness of his gaze glittering down at her.
In laughter, or in triumph?
Chapter Five
‘Personally, I fail to see what is so funny in the two of us nearly being found together in such a compromising situation.’ Juliet stood in the middle of her bedchamber, frowning her consternation as Sebastian, having refastened her gown for her, stood before her, clutching his sides with laughter. ‘Lord St Claire, you must desist!’ She glared at him reprovingly when her previous admonition had no effect.
His laughter finally ceased, although his eyes continued to gleam with merriment as he looked at her, and a grin still curved those sculptured lips. ‘I apologise. I simply found myself imagining how the Duke’s jowls would wobble and the Duchess’s mouth gape open like that of a fish if they had happened to turn and see us as we made good our escape!’
‘That is most unkind, My Lord.’ Although Juliet could not deny that their flight from the terrace had been in the nature of an escape.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex had stood at the balustrade for several minutes, talking softly together on the success of the evening, before the Duchess had