Christiana clutched at his bare shoulders as Richard kneaded the tender flesh, a long drawn-out groan sliding from deep in her throat that ended in a gasp as he suddenly wrenched the fragile bodice of her nightgown aside to touch her without its encumbrance.

“Oh, Dicky,” she cried when he suddenly broke their kiss, and was surprised at how breathless she was.

“Call me Richard,” he muttered, dragging his mouth along her neck as he gently pinched the nipple he’d revealed.

“Oh Richard!” she cried dutifully, fingernails digging into his shoulders. “Oh please.”

“Yes,” he muttered and suddenly his mouth was replacing his hand at her breast. His lips closed around the nipple, tongue swirling across it briefly before he began suckling, drawing on it and pulling little mewls of pleasure from her.

Christiana was vaguely aware of his hand moving on her bottom, squeezing it and using his hold to rub her against his hardness as she’d wanted to do, but she was so overwhelmed with all the sensations attacking her that they were all melting into one raging storm of desire and a million wants. She wanted him to kiss her again, but didn’t want him to stop the lovely things he was doing to her breast to do it, and she wanted him to do the same to her other breast at the same time, and she wanted free of her nightgown so that she could feel him against her more fully, and she wanted . . . she didn’t know what, but she wanted something to end this sweet torture and yet didn’t want it ever to end at the same time.

Desperate to ease one of the wants raging inside her, Christiana raised one leg, half wrapping it around his hip in an effort to get closer to the hardness rubbing so excitingly against her. She then groaned with pleasure at the increased pressure. He was rubbing against the very center of her now, the cloth of her nightgown the only barrier and it only added to the pleasant friction.

Richard groaned in response, the sound vibrating across the flesh of her breast. He then raised his mouth to claim her lips once more. Christiana closed her eyes and kissed him back the best she could, opening for him and then instinctively sucking on his tongue as it invaded her. She felt his hands shifting their position on her, but grunted in surprise when he suddenly grasped her by the waist and lifted her. She instinctively wrapped her other leg around him then, holding on by hooking her ankles together behind his back as the room suddenly spun around them, a whirl of color, light and shadow.

Christiana was vaguely aware that he was carrying her across the room, but this new position opened her to the caress of his hardness and had her hard-pressed to compose much in the way of thought. She was very disappointed when he paused after only two steps and set her carefully back on her feet.