Mastered By Love

Bathed in silvery moonlight, every powerful ripple and curve sheened, every line of bone was gilt-edged.

He breathed in, muscles tensing. His hands gripped harder.

Slowly she circled and climbed up on the bed again. Close behind him on her knees, she caught the shirt at the shoulders, drew it back and off, tossed it on the floor.

Although his back was in shadow, there was light enough to see. The long muscles, the supple, powerful planes, the quintessentially male sculpture rendered in muscle and bone and hot taut skin. She traced each feature. His tension built. Pressing against his back, she touched her lips to his shoulder, trailed her fingers around and reached for his waistband.

His stomach pulled in, letting her fingers slide past the band as she slipped the buttons free.

Lips curving against his shoulder, she drew the halves of the front placket wide, releasing his erection; careful not to touch, she grasped his trousers, edged them over his hips, down his thighs until they fell to the floor.

Leaving his body displayed naked in the moonlight, arms wide, muscles bunched as he gripped the posts. The only thing he still wore was the blindfold.

Drawing breath through lungs suddenly tight, placing both palms on his shoulders, she stroked slowly down, following the long muscles bracketing his spine to the slope of his rear; pivoting her hands over the tight cheeks, she slid them still farther, pressing against the mattress to reach and caress as far as she could down his thighs.

His head tipped back; his breath shuddered.

Retrieving her hands, she gripped the sides of his waist, eased her thighs wide, fitted herself against his back. Her cheek to one shoulder blade, she sent her hands around, down; lids falling, she found his erection, closed her hand about the rigid length.

He breathed out, short, sharp, as she squeezed and released. With her other hand, she reached further, caressed his heavy testicles, cradled them, fondled.

Royce’s lungs locked tight, his body as rigid as his erection as she worked him with one hand, with the other weighed his balls, assessed, played. The sense of possession escalated. Head back, he gritted his teeth against a curse.

He’d felt nothing like this. Ever before. Sight cut off, he was functioning on touch, and imagination. Her lascivious acts conjured the image of a sultry, sirenlike seductress who owned him. Who could make free with his body as she wished, with total impunity.

That it was he who granted that immunity, his hands so tightly locked on his carved bedposts his fingers felt fused with the wood, merely added another layer to the swelling sensuality.

Her hand closed firmly. His control shuddered. Jaw clenched, he fought the impulse to pump his hips, work his erection in her fist. He wanted, desperately, to turn to her, rip the prim nightgown away, exposing the siren before spreading her beneath him and sheathing himself in her.

He burned to possess her with the same calculated intensity with which she was possessing him.

Over recent nights she’d learned what strokes, what actions, most pleasured him. Now she applied the knowledge. Too well…

Head back, he fought…every muscle locked tight.

“Minerva!” The plea was wrenched from him.

Her grip eased, her strokes slowed. Her hand drifted from his balls and he could breathe again.

“No talking, remember. Well, not unless you want to beg.”

He growled, “I’m begging.”

Silence, then she laughed. Sultry, rich, a siren’s laugh. “Oh, Royce-what a lie. You just want to take control-but not this time.”

She shifted position; her grip changed. “Not tonight. Tonight, you’ve ceded control to me.”

Head rising, she murmured beneath his ear, “Tonight, you’re mine.”

Her fingers closed around his erection. “Mine to take. Mine to sate.” Her breath fanning his ear, she ran her thumb over the weeping head. “All mine.”

Sensation lanced through him. He locked his knees, sucked in a breath. He’d agreed-now all he could do was endure.

Easing her grip, but without releasing his erection, she slipped under his braced arm and off the bed. Taking him firmly in hand again, she came to stand before him. The hem of her nightgown drifted over his feet.

Pressing herself to him, she reached up, drew his head down for a long, sultry kiss. Locked between them, her hand solidly fisted his erection. He let her dictate, did nothing but follow. She laughed softly into his mouth, then, lips locking on his, moved.

Sinuously, flagrantly, blatantly erotic, her breasts, hips and thighs caressed him, flooding his senses with images of her writhing against him, wanton and abandoned-as hungry, as urgent, as desperate as he.

She released his lips and sank slowly down, lips trailing down…head back, jaw clenched tight, he waited, prayed, wanted-feared…

She slid her lips slowly over his erection, slowly, deliberately took him into her mouth. Deep, then deeper, until he was sunk to the balls in her wet heat.

Slowly, deliberately, she reduced him to quaking desperation.

And he couldn’t stop her.

He wasn’t in control. He was at her mercy, completely and absolutely.

Hands gripping the posts, unable to see, he had to surrender, cede his body and his senses to her, hers to do with as she pleased.

One heartbeat before the point of no return, she slowed her attentions, then drew back.

His chest heaved; the night air felt cool against his damp, heated skin. She released him, rocked back, rose.

Fingers loose around his straining erection, she reached up and drew his head down. Kissed him, but briefly; drawing back, with her teeth, she tugged his lower lip-refocusing his attention.

“You have a choice. You can have your sight, or your hands. Choose.”

He wanted his hands on her, wanted to feel her skin, her curves, but if he couldn’t see…“Take off the blindfold.”

Minerva smiled. His gaze she could endure, but with his hands free, her remaining in control for much longer was unlikely.

And she wanted longer.

The air was heavy, thick, the scent of passion and desire a miasma about them. The salty taste of his arousal was fresh on her tongue; she’d wanted to lure him to completion, but the hollow ache between her thighs was too insistent. She needed him there as desperately as he wanted her sheath enclosing his erection.

They each needed the other to achieve their ultimate in completion.

She reached up as he lowered his head. She picked the knot free, unwound the folds, drew the long strip away and stepped back. He blinked, focused.

His dark gaze burned, scorching, piercing.

She caught it, refused to think about his strength, that it was his control that gave her any chance of controlling him. “Put the insides of your wrists together in front of you.”

Slowly he eased his fingers from their death grips on the posts, flexed his arms, then set his wrists together as she’d asked.

She bound them with the linen band. Releasing the trailing ends, she placed her splayed fingertips on his chest, pushed. “Sit on the bed, then lie back.”

He sat, then let himself fall back onto the crimson-and-gold brocade.

Grasping one bedpost, raising the nightgown, she clambered up, kneeling, looking down at him. “Put your hands on the bed above your head.”

In seconds he was lying stretched out on the bed, hands above his head, calves and feet dangling over the edge.

He lay there, naked, delectable, heavily aroused, hers for the taking.

Trapping his gaze, she wrapped one hand about his erection, with the other raised her nightgown so she could swing her thigh over his hips. Sinking down on her knees, she released