His tongue delved deep, the velvety richness of it teasing and tasting, desperate at first and then becoming more deliberate. She had her eyes closed, her entire body vibrating with need as his lips moved from her mouth to her neck, sucking and licking his way down the column of her skin. Her head tipped back, and she shivered.

His lips left her then, and she opened her eyes to find him watching her. “Why did you stop?” she whispered.

His fingers slid from her hair. “I haven’t stopped,” he said roughly. “I’m just getting started.”

He began working on the buttons of her coat, his fingers deft and sure. Careful of her shoulder, he peeled the coat from her body, letting it drop to the floor. Gently, he tugged her toward the hearth, stopping her in front of the heat. He went to work on the laces at her throat, pulling the linen over her head. His hands came back to span her ribs, and she leaned into his touch impatiently.

He bent, his lips against her throat again, his hands working on the bindings at her breasts. And then they, too, fell away, and now his palms were cupping their slight curves, his thumbs circling her hard nipples, pleasure streaking through her like lightning. Her hands came up to his shoulders, needing to hold on to something.

She looked down breathlessly as his head dropped lower still and he took the nipples he had just been caressing into his mouth, his tongue swirling around each peak. She didn’t recognize the sound that escaped from her, but she recognized the pulsing dampness that instantly throbbed at her core. And perhaps he recognized it too, because his fingers were on the fall of her trousers, and they were sliding down her thighs, Flynn lifting his head just long enough to yank her boots and her trousers from her legs.

He was kneeling before her now, his hands wrapping around the back of her legs and then over her buttocks, and his tongue was tracing a trail of fire over her navel and to the top of her curls. She watched as his hands came around her hips, brushing her mound and sliding along the inside of her thighs, urging her legs farther apart. He slid a finger through her folds, and Charlotte gasped, her own fingers clutching his shoulders as everything clenched deep inside.

“Perfect,” she thought she heard him murmur, but the uncontrollable pounding of the blood in her ears was making it difficult to hear.

He was stroking her now, insistent circles over the pulsing spot that was twisting her insides tighter and tighter. The heat at her back from the hearth was nothing compared to the heat that was building inside of her. And then his fingers slipped away, but before she could protest, his mouth was there, right where she needed it, sucking and licking and making her vision dim along the edges.