released them, broke their kiss and swept her into his arms. He would have preferred to go more slowly, but she’d already rushed ahead.
He carried her the few paces to the bed, knelt and laid her across it. Pausing, he looked down at her, his mind almost blank as he drank in the sight of her naked and heated, flushed with desire and wanting him so blatantly, then he grabbed his shirt, drew it over his head and tossed it away, then stepped back and swiftly dealt with the buttons at his waist.
Toeing off his shoes, he stripped off his trousers and stockings; naked, he joined her, coming down beside her propped on one elbow the better to view her. Intent, she reached for him; again he caught her hands. Once again shackled them, this time in one of his; shifting, he drew her hands up and anchored them over her head.
She was breathing rapidly. She frowned, opened her lips-
“Don’t speak.” Briefly, he met her eyes, noted how wide they were. “I know what you need.”
He looked down, let his gaze roam her body, laid out beside him, a delectable gift. The truth crashed through him. Just taking would be so much less than either of them needed, or deserved.
Her breasts remained swollen, firm and tight, the ruched peaks begging for his attention. Her skin, pearly white, almost glowed, satin soft, tinted with desire, an elementally evocative sight. The indentation of her waist, the teardrop-shaped hollow of her navel, tempted him to taste. Below her taut belly, tawny curls covered her mons, veiling the delicate flesh between her thighs.
His gaze swept her thighs, sweetly curving to her knees, followed the subtle swell of her calf to where it tapered to narrow ankles and finely boned feet. To him that long line held the essence of femininity; he reached out and with his palm sculpted. Caressed.
She shivered.
Returning his gaze to her face, he watched her response as he ran his hand slowly upward, from her calf to her knee, up her thigh and over the swell of her hip, sliding through the curve at her waist to glide over her breast to her shoulder, and on, up the exposed inner face of her arm to her fingers. Then he reversed direction, sweeping his fingers around her face, then spreading his palm, now tingling and hot, below her throat, then running it more heavily, more possessively, down, over the center of her body, fingers trailing over her breasts, over her navel to splay over her taut stomach.
He pressed gently, watched her eyes darken. Watched her moisten her lower lip, lush and swollen from his kisses. He shifted over her, leaning down to take her lips, her mouth, again, while his hand slid lower, fingers spearing slowly through her curls to the slick, swollen flesh beyond.
Her body lifted; her thighs parted, wordlessly inviting. He slid one knee between hers, cupped her fully, evocatively stroked, then slowly pressed two fingers deep, into the lush haven of her body.
She moaned, the sound trapped between their lips. He filled her welcoming mouth with his tongue while between her thighs he pressed her on.
Until she writhed beneath him. Until, heated and desperate, she tugged against his hold, but still he held her hands. He shuddered when, denied them, she used her body, all womanly curves and sweet, flushed skin, to caress his, and tempt him.
He held against her for long moments, then released her hands and moved over her. She spread her hands over his shoulders, his chest, greedily grasping. Inciting.
Yet still he held back. Spreading her thighs, he settled between, yet he wanted, and knew he could have, even more from her.
She broke from the kiss, pressing her head back, panting, gasping. Before she could catch her wits, he lowered his mouth to her breast.
Jacqueline jerked; the voracious contact sent sensation lancing through her, sharp, passion sweet. She closed her eyes and almost sobbed. The wet heat of his mouth expertly applied to the excruciatingly sensitive peaks of her breasts was both pleasure and punishment. She wanted more, so much more-she knew exactly what.
She could feel the heavy weight of his erection riding against her inner thigh. She wanted that inside her, wanted him to take her.
Wanted to be conscious when he did.
His hand hard about one breast, he suckled more powerfully, simultaneously probed deeply between her thighs.
Poised above her, his weight, the inherent power in his naked, muscled frame, the ruthlessly intimate touch of his hands and mouth, sent realization of her vulnerability crashing through her. Dragging in a breath, she cracked open her lids. Caught the gleam of his eyes beneath his lashes as he lifted his head.
“Now-
The plea fell from her lips on a breathless gasp.
His face was an angular mask, graven with desire; he searched her eyes, then his gaze lowered. He bent his head once more, shifting back to place a hot, openmouthed kiss on her navel.
She sobbed, clutching desperately at his shoulders, thinking he meant to caress her as he had before.
Instead, he rose above her, adjusting his hips between her widespread thighs; bracing his weight on his arms, he nudged into her.
She caught her breath, felt her eyes grow wide as the broad head of his erection pressed into her. Stretching her.
She blinked. For one instant wondered how…
He flexed his spine and thrust in. Inexorably. Hard, deep.
Pain lanced through her-she gasped, closed her eyes. Her breath tangled in her throat; her lungs seized.
He held still, embedded within her, impossibly large, impossibly heavy. Totally alien.
So male.
Amazingly welcome…
The sharp sting was already fading; her body eased beneath his. She straightened her fingers from where they’d curled about his biceps, nails biting in in instinctive reaction.
He bent his head, found her lips, breathed over them, “There’s no rush,” then covered them.
But he was wrong. She returned his kiss with all the hunger she possessed. Sliding her hands around his body, she clung; the instant he started to move within her, she knew what she wanted, what she needed. Now.
He thrust deep, and she was with him, rising beneath him, urging him on. Wanting more. Wanting all; if she had to give him that, she wanted the same in return.
And she got it.
He groaned and surrendered, and all control evaporated. They broke from the kiss, gasping, breaths mingling. The dance caught them, trapped them. Heat poured through them, rushed down their veins, pulsed between them. His body moved over hers, into hers, repetitively stroking inside and out; hers seemed to know the rhythm-she moved with him, against him, without conscious thought.
The tempo steadily escalated, a pagan crescendo of motion and searing heat. A constant striving to a fiery climax that for long desperate moments seemed out of reach.
And then they were there.
In the eye of desire’s storm, surrounded by passion’s whirlwind, by flames that left them gasping, nerves coiling, tightening as sensation spiraled and coalesced.
From beneath heavy lids, their gazes met, locked; every nerve she possessed was alive, exquisitely abraded as he drove deeply, powerfully into her, as he moved against her and her body responded, ardent and abandoned.
Beneath him, she rode each thrust, each forceful penetration. Desperately clinging.
Then she broke apart.
She cried out, felt perception shatter as her nerves unraveled and her body melted. In one clear instant, she saw him above her, his expression blank as passion claimed him, too, as with her body she claimed his, as with his he’d claimed hers.
Then completion swept her, caught her, buoyed her on, into a golden sea. Satiation swamped her; she felt warmth deep within her as with a groan he joined her, then collapsed across her. She drifted on the waves, his
