Pippa and the Prince of Secrets by Grace Callaway

17

Pippa wound her arms around Cull’s neck, opening herself to his kiss. To him. This man who wore a mask not because he enjoyed being a mythic, mysterious figure…but because he thought he needed to. To hide himself when his injury, the cause of it, made his true beauty shine as brightly as a star.

Removing the mask stripped away a barrier that had stood between them. She felt their new intimacy in his kiss, in his plundering hunger. No one had ever kissed her like this, with such animal need. With such raw and honest passion. It made her feel wanted and wanton; she wanted to kiss and kiss him. To give him anything he asked of her and take everything in return.

Cull stroked her mouth with his tongue, his taste filling her senses. Curling her fingers in the rough silk of his hair, she tugged him closer. Until there was no space left between them.

His sensual chuckle heated her lips. “What a demanding chit you are.”

She stilled, Longmere’s words mocking her. Suchforward behavior is unbecoming of a lady.

“Is that a problem?” she managed.

“Hell, no. I want you greedy for me.” Cull’s scorching honesty vaporized her doubt. “I want you panting, moaning, begging me for more.”

If his words didn’t convince her, then his actions did. He pulled her back against his front, his lips finding her ear. At the first hot lick against the sensitive curve, her spine bowed.

“I love how responsive you are,” he murmured. “How you don’t hide your reactions from me.”

Would it be possible to contain what she was feeling? She didn’t think so. When he dragged his lips down her neck and back up again, she knew she couldn’t hold back. Didn’t want to. She moaned as he flicked her earlobe before taking it into his mouth. The warm suction pulled her nipples into hard, throbbing points. An accompanying pulse started between her thighs, where she was already slick with need.

Arching against him, she clutched his rock-hard thigh. “Oh, Cull, I need…”

“You’re so sweet when you beg.”

At that, she turned to give him a narrowed-eye stare. His mouth took on a lopsided curve. It was a teasing and oh-so-sensual smile, and she wondered how he could ever think himself ugly. How he could believe that his scars could be the sum of his attractions.

“I never beg,” she said primly.

“Then you haven’t been properly made love to before.” Wicked challenge smoldered in his earth-brown eyes. “Never fear. There is a first time for everything.”

Her retort was lost in his playful devouring. His mouth was everywhere: on her mouth, her ear, her neck. He cupped her breasts, squeezing the aching mounds, rubbing her nipples against her bodice until they throbbed like twin heartbeats. Her breath pushed against the cage of her corset, her skin itching with need. She was restrained when what she wanted—what she craved—was to feel Cull, skin to skin.

He seemed to read her mind. He fisted her skirts, raising the voluminous mass, swearing as some of the layers eluded his grasp.

“You ladies wear too many damned clothes,” he muttered.

Pippa wasn’t only a lady; she was an Angel. And being an Angel had its advantages.

Feeling rather smug, she reached for the hidden fasteners that Mrs. Quinton, the Angels’ genius modiste, had placed beneath the ruffle at her waist. A few deft tugs were all it took to detach the skirts and petticoats from her bodice. They pooled on the floor, leaving her in her drawers and black silk stockings.

“Designed for the physical demands of investigating…and practical for lovemaking as well,” she said impishly.

“Now that is a dress,” Cull rasped.

Then he got onto his knees in front of her. He ran his palms up her stockinged calves, his touch reverent and possessive. And the look on his face…

Pure, raw hunger.

He shoved her thighs apart with arousing roughness. The heat of his palms burned through the thin linen of her drawers. Her back slid into the cushioned corner of the carriage as he pulled her closer, spread her wider. So wide that the slit in her undergarment gaped, revealing her sex to his burning gaze.

“There’s that pretty pussy,” he murmured. “Sunshine down here as well as on top.”

She squirmed, embarrassed and unbearably stimulated. The gleam in his eyes told her that he knew exactly how she felt. That he enjoyed her discomfiture.

“Are you going to just talk”—her attempt at haughtiness was foiled by her breathlessness—“or are you going to do something?”

“What would you like me to do?”

She refused to be embarrassed by her desires any longer. Not with Cull, who’d exposed his own vulnerability to her. Who made her feel beautiful and wanted…just as she was.

“Touch me,” she said.

His eyes glinting with approval, he ran a thumb lightly down her intimate seam. “Like this?”

She had to bite back a moan. “More.”

He stroked her again, up and down, his nostrils flaring. “I love how wet you get, Pippa. How these lips are as pretty, pink, and pouting as the ones you use to argue with me.”

“I don’t argue…oh.”

Her words dissolved into a whimper as he found the peak of her pleasure. As he rubbed and circled that throbbing bud, his gaze never left her face. The slick sounds of him fingering her filled the cabin, and she gasped as he slid a long, thick finger inside.

“Wet and tight,” he growled. “Keep moving, Pippa. Fuck that sweet quim on my hand until you come for me.”

His filthy words unleashed her primal instincts. Panting, she did as he instructed, moving, taking that fullness. He stretched her with another finger, stirring those thick digits, and her rhythm became desperate. When he curled his fingers, dragging the callused tips against a place high inside, a quickening started at her core. She cried out as bliss exploded, aftershocks cascading through her.

He murmured sweet nothings, still stroking her, gently easing her back to reality. Meeting his gaze, she saw banked flames that set off more tremors.

And that was before he withdrew his fingers, saying with male pride, “Everything appears to be in working order.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry that he had remembered what she said. That he’d filed away that piece of information to use at an opportune time. Her witty rejoinder went up in smoke when he brought his fingers to his lips…and licked them.

Her quim quivered.

“Delectable,” he said. “The perfect appetizer before the main course.”

“M-main course?” she breathed.

His smile was wicked. “I’m a man who likes to feast.”

The taste of Pippa…it was indescribable. The best damned thing he’d ever sampled.

And she seemed to be enjoying his feast as much as he was. Although she hadn’t said it, he guessed from her shocked expression that she’d never had her pussy licked before. Yet another failing to lay at her cursed husband’s door. At the same time, Cull couldn’t deny that he liked being the first to give her this pleasure. The first to experience her delicious response.

Her fingers clenched in his hair, and he would have chuckled at her feminine demand if he wasn’t otherwise occupied. She’d come again for him, her honey coating his lips as he’d licked and suckled her little pearl. He could tell she was on the verge once more…in working order indeed.

The woman had so much passion in her that it was a wonder she didn’t burn him alive. And he’d be happy—no, bloody ecstatic—to go up in her flames. His cock felt like a throbbing iron bar, his bollocks pulled up taut. He’d never been this hard, this full of want.

When she’d kissed his cheek, the warmth of her lips had seeped through his numb layers, touching the part of him that had hungered for her light from the moment he’d clapped eyes on her fourteen years ago. To experience the sweetness of the girl rolled up with the passion of the woman was…he didn’t have words for what he felt.

Lust and desire and something more. Something he’d never had. Something that was his for the moment, and he wasn’t bloody going to waste it.

He parted her sunny thatch, swiping his tongue along her slit.

“Cull,” she moaned.

His erection twitched. God, the sound of his name on her lips.

“I think,” he said thickly, “that I’ve found my favorite meal.”

Feeling her shiver, he delved deeper, licking into her tight passage. When she clenched around his tongue, he groaned. He diddled her love-knot while he ate her, her moans driving him on.

“Spend in my mouth now,” he growled. “I want the taste of you sliding down my throat.”

“Heavens, Cull.”

She shrieked, coming in a honeyed gush, and he showed his approval by lapping up every drop.

When she sagged against the cushions, a sated glow upon her face, he sat on the bench next to her, pulling her close. Burying his nose in her fragrant hair, he strove to master himself. He was so aroused that he feared he might spill in his pants like an untried greenling. He concentrated on not unmanning himself…and jerked when her fingers feathered over his pulsing length.

“I want to see you,” she whispered. “May I?”

Bloody hell, yes.

“If you’re certain you want to,” he managed.

Her eyes sparkled as she nodded.

He needed no further urging. He undid the fasteners, grimacing a little as he brushed his granite-hard prick. As he lowered the flap and shoved down his smalls, his erection fell out, the head glossy and engorged. When she delicately fisted him, a groan raked up his throat.

“You’re very large,” she said. “I can barely get my fingers around you.”

He got even bigger at her words, at her light, too-careful touch. “You make me this way.”

“Truly?”

He would have laughed at her pleased expression if her stroking wasn’t driving him mad. He couldn’t tear his eyes off her slim fingers wrapped around the thick pole of his flesh, the mesmerizing contrast of that ladylike hand and his rude length popping with veins. Her gentle caresses kept him on the razor’s edge. Yet he enjoyed the sweet torture, that look of curiosity and lust on her cameo-worthy face.

“Am I doing this right?” she murmured. “Do you like me touching you this way?”

“You must know that I do,” he said huskily.

Uncertainty flickered in her eyes.

Christ, what kind of an idiot had Longmere been? was starting to be a refrain in Cull’s head.

She asked, “Will you, um, find satisfaction if I keep touching you this way?”

Cull saw no reason to hide how she affected him. “I almost did just watching you come. Having your hands on me is bliss.” As if to prove his point, a drop of seed leaked from him, and he grunted when she smeared it around his sensitive head.

“You liked that,” she purred.

“Yes.” His balls pulsed as she circled his tip again, drawing forth more silky moisture. “You can frig me harder, sunshine.”

She caught her bottom lip beneath her teeth. “How much harder?”

He surrounded her hand with his own, tightening her grip and moving it faster. “Like this.”

“Oh,” she said in a breathy voice. “That isn’t too hard?”

“Hell, no.” The words hissed through his teeth.

Pleasure blazed along his spine as she caught onto the general idea. Her firm stroking seemed to pull all the blood into his groin. When she slapped his hand aside, saying, “I can handle this on my own,” he made a ragged sound. Christ, her touch…

As she frigged him like a goddamned expert, she asked, “Do you like being touched here too?”

She cupped his balls, squeezing gently.

“Bloody fuck,” he gasped.

His blood roared, his seed pulsing up his shaft. His neck arched as he erupted in a hot blast. She continued milking him with her lady-soft hands, pulling his spend from him in long, blissful bursts.

When it was over, he dragged her close. Looking into her eyes, he said hoarsely, “Being with you is even better than I imagined it would be.”

Her smile was so lovely that, unbelievably, his cock stirred.

“I’m glad. Because you’re everything I imagined you would be…” She brushed her lips against his cheek, whispering, “And more.”