wild across the Rutlandshire wolds. There was no chance she would tire soon.
His body rose to her challenge; he fought to remain as still as he could, to defer to her stated wishes. She held him, clasped him tightly, continued to ride steadily, transparently savoring him, only gradually moving faster and faster.
His breathing became labored, as was hers. She held tighter to his hands but didn’t break her stride. He could feel her tightening about him, feel the tension coiling through her, feel it start to coalesce, condense.
On a gasp, she released his hands, grabbed his wrists, and guided his fingers to her breasts. Breath hitching, he cupped the firm mounds, then kneaded evocatively, searched and found the tight peaks, closed his fingers and squeezed… until she gasped anew, clamped hard about him, swayed, then braced her hands on his chest, caught her rhythm again, and rode on.
Rode him. Harder, faster, sliding her knees wider still to take him ever deeper. The fight to remain passive nearly ruptured his heart. His pulse thundered, galloping with her, caught in the escalating heat, trapped in the relentless driving rhythm. Running with her. Urging her on.
Her breasts filled his hands, swollen and tight; she moaned when he kneaded, gasped when he squeezed.
She leaned forward, pressing her breasts into his palms. Hoarsely instructed, “Touch me.”
He didn’t need to ask where. Releasing her breasts, pushing aside her frothing skirts, he reached beneath, closed his hands about her flexing thighs, then followed them up. Slid one hand around to grip her hip. With the other stroked her damp curls once, heard her breath hitch, felt her body constrict almost painfully about him.
Set one fingertip to her pearl.
Knowingly caressed.
Paused. Heard her earnest, breathless entreaty.
Pressed.
And she imploded.
With a soft cry, she climaxed about him, her body contracting powerfully, her hands clenching tight on his chest.
His body reacted.
The surge of primitive need, of fueled lust, desire, and so much more, nearly shattered his control. Head back, he gasped, dragging air into his locked lungs; fingers gripping her hips, sinking in, he held her down, impaled to the hilt, held her still, fought to hold on to the reins of his demons, aroused, teased, taunted, and now slavering, fully expecting, now, to be released-to be allowed to feast on her soft, feminine, satiated body.
Jaw locked, teeth clenched, breath bated, he waited…
She slumped on his chest. Then reached up, guided his lips to hers, and kissed him.
Invitingly-or so he hoped. Prayed.
The tension thrumming just beneath his skin, the rigidity of his body, reached her. He felt her hesitate, then she reached up again-and tugged the blindfold from his eyes.
Watched him blink, then met his gaze. Held it as she stretched luxuriously against him-smiled as his hands locked on her hips, keeping her precisely where she was, fully sheathing him.
Her expression that of a cat who’d had her fill of cream, she held his gaze, and tossed the blindfold away. Lowered her arm and traced his cheek.
Whispered softly, “Take me, then.”
His senses leapt; reflexively, so did the rest of him, before he slammed his control back into place and locked every muscle again. Her eyes widened, but the tenor of the smile curving her lips-knowingly wanton-didn’t fade.
He met her eyes, dark, dreamy with spent passion, yet very much awake. Watching, waiting, for what he would do…
Their breaths mingled, his still tense and labored, hers softer in the aftermath of climax.
Yet another spur he did not need.
She’d issued an open invitation, hadn’t specified. He wondered if she could even conceive of the primitive urge riding him, evoked by her game.
He wanted to take her from behind, to position her on her knees before him, her skirts flipped up over her shoulders, a surrended captive, to drive into her and feel her open for him, yield to him.
His.
He licked his lips. Easing his hands from her hips, he reached up and around, and set his fingers to the buttons closing her gown.
Held her gaze as he undid them.
Told himself he’d have her as he wished-one day.
But not yet. Later, if he played tonight’s hand wisely, kept his head through the following days-even weeks-then one day he’d be able to let fall the reins and show her precisely what she was to him.
Precisely how she made him feel.
Shifting within her as little as possible, he drew her gown off, over her head. She helped, lifting her arms, wriggling free of the folds, aiding him in removing her chemise as well.
Leaving her naked but for her stockings.
He rolled her beneath him.
Nearly lost his mind when she pressed his shoulder back. “Wait.”
His control shivered, fractured, started to fall away…
She shifted beneath him. He sucked in a breath, opened his lips to tell her he
Instead, blinked, watched, amazed as, lifting one of her long legs high, she rolled her stocking down-or rather up and off. She caught his gaze as she flung it away. “I like to feel my skin against yours.”
He wasn’t about to argue; he allowed her to shift enough to perform the same feat with her other leg, noting with increasing fascination the ease with which she accomplished the deed.
New vistas blossomed in his mind.
But then she flung the second stocking away, twined both arms about his neck and drew his head down.
“There. Now you may-”
He stopped her words with a searing kiss.
Took her breath from her, ravaged her mouth, and sent her senses spinning-faster, harder, faster yet-until she arched beneath him, inchoately pleading… until he anchored her hips and drove into her.
Again, and again, and again.
He felt the reins slide and couldn’t grab them back, could only surrender to the storm. To the blinding urgency that drove his body to plunder hers.
Far from complaining, she arched beneath him, fingernails raking his back. Flagrantly demanding, commanding, wanting… as desperate as he in needing more.
He wedged her thighs wider; she went one step further, lifting her long legs, wrapping them about his hips, opening herself to him, giving him all he wished.
Heart pounding, he took, took her, gave himself.
Head back, braced above her, he let go, closed his eyes-and let the swirling power have him. Infuse him, drive him.
Felt it close in, sweep him up.
Shatter him.
Felt her cling as he shuddered, knew when she joined him.
Felt ecstasy flow through them, melding their bodies.
Felt it thunder through their veins and fuse their hearts.
Portia lay back, high on the pillows where Simon had lifted her once the tumult had passed.
Passed, but it hadn’t yet died. The aftermath still held them, heat slowly dissipating, languor weighting their limbs.
She could grow used to this; this sense of intimate closeness, the sharing, the fury. The bliss.
One arm draped over the pillows behind her head, with the other, she idly sifted his hair, the fine texture a sensual delight. He lay slumped half beside her, half over her, one arm beneath her, his head pillowed against her breast, his other hand splayed possessively over her stomach.
