skin.
He felt her responsive shudder to his bones, ached when, against her better judgment, she sank against him, fingers tightening on his lapel as she fought the compulsion to urge him on. Fought to hold on to her wits even while she shifted closer, hips and thighs moving into him, making his control quake.
His fingers found what they were searching for. Her gown laced up the back.
Lifting his head, dragging in a breath, he turned her and drew her back-trapped her against him, her back to his chest.
Her luscious bottom to his groin. He bit back a groan, and concentrated-on her. Raising his hands to her breasts, he closed them, locked her against him as the contact made her gasp, made her momentarily more malleable.
Pris kept her eyes closed and battled to quell the shivers coursing down her spine. She wasn’t cold, wasn’t in need of more clothes, but less.
He kneaded her breasts, but there was no desperation in his touch, only a knowing confidence, one that screamed of how well he knew that each evocative caress sank into her mind, captured her senses, weakened her will.
Before she could gather her wits and respond-resist, break away-one hard hand left her already aching breast. His chest shifted back. A second later, she felt the quick, deft tugs as he unpicked her laces.
Why was he here? Why was he doing this-what did he hope to achieve?
Her mind wasn’t sure; her heated body didn’t care.
But she knew she should say something, do something, before-
Her bodice gaped; the tiny off-the-shoulder sleeves weren’t designed to hold it up. Drawing her fully back against him again, he slid one hand beneath the loose silk, tugged down the gathered top of her chemise, and lifted first one breast, then the other, free.
She sucked in a tight breath, had to lean back against him, had to grip the long muscles of his thighs as the remembered plea sure of his hands and fingers on her naked skin swept through her again. His hands sculpted and shaped. He pandered to her senses, openly, flagrantly, until her breasts were heavy, aching and swollen, firm and sensitive to every seductive touch.
His fingers circled her ruched nipples, then closed, squeezed.
She gasped, and he bent his head, with his lips traced the curve of her ear.
“Open your eyes. The mirror-look.”
It took effort, but she raised her lids, looked across the room, and saw what he saw. He was a dark male presence, clothed in black, holding trapped before him a slender siren in aqua silk, her bodice loose and lowered, revealing two creamy flushed mounds that his tanned hands possessed and caressed, as if he had the right, yes, but that wasn’t all she felt in his touch.
Wasn’t all she saw when she raised her gaze and in the mirror searched his face.
Soft light spilled over them, golden and flickering from the fire, muted and white from the lamp. In that gentle illumination, she both felt and saw something that made her breath catch.
She-the siren-might be trapped and helpless, but…
Her breath suspended, her body all his, she watched as he watched her watch him. As he caressed with a reined need that was powerfully reverent, as he worshipped her openly, without disguise.
Every touch, every brush of his fingertips across her taut skin was a testament, a prayer. It wasn’t simply the physical but something more ephemeral, as if he valued the needs raging inside her, without question appreciated the wild passion she longed to let free…
Her gaze had dropped to his hands; now she looked back at his face, confirmed that he did indeed worship that. The wild compulsive beat in her blood.
No other had ever heard it, let alone responded. No other had ever appreciated it, shared it, as he did.
That was what she read in his face.
That was when she felt the reins of her will start to slide from her grasp.
She dragged in a breath, tried to wrench her senses from the gentle but overpowering seduction. She licked her dry lips. “I don’t…”
He looked down at his hands. “Want this?” His fingers found her nipples and squeezed; she closed her eyes on a hiss of plea sure, and he murmured, “Don’t lie-you do.”
His voice was a dark rumble in her ear. His touch changed, became more flagrantly possessive. “What of this?”
Sudden pressure-burgeoning pleasure-made her gasp.
“Do you know…one thing I love about you is how you respond. To every touch, every brush, every caress.” He demonstrated, and her shameless body, her witless senses swooned, and proved him right.
“Yes, that.” His breath was another caress. “But not only that. With you, with me, it’s not just your body that rises and meets mine, that aches and hungers, but your senses, your soul. You come to me, join with me, fly with me.” He shifted slightly, his strength surrounding her as one hand left her breast and reached down. “And that’s something infinitely more precious.”
She heard her skirt rustle, felt it rise, felt the cooler touch of air as he drew the front up. Not in any rush, not bunching and crushing, but carefully sweeping it up and to the side; opening her eyes, she stared, mesmerized, as he released her other breast, draped her raised skirt in the crook of that arm, then his fingers returned to her heated skin, firming around one breast again while his other hand slid beneath the angled hem, and skimmed up one leg.
To the curls at the apex of her thighs. He stroked them once, then reached past, sliding his fingers along the swollen folds, then caressing.
In the mirror, he watched her face. “And this?” His fingers were slick with her arousal; he slid one into her sheath, lightly probed.
She shuddered and closed her eyes.
Felt his lips at her temple, felt his breath against her cheek.
“I didn’t tell you before, but I should have…this, having you in my arms, feeling you respond to me, is one of the things I most love about you.” Between her thighs, his fingers probed; at her breast, his fingers squeezed. At her ear, his voice deepened and roughened, and drew her deeper into his thrall.
“This.” And her body answered.
“And this.” Her senses quaked.
The deep rumble of his words, explicit and evocative, kept her with him, held her to him-in those heated moments, through the rising flames, showed her herself through his eyes.
A revelation that made her ache. That made her want with a need she’d felt before but only now understood, only now saw for what it was.
And in that, he was right. She did want him-would always want him. Would always want to give herself to him in just this way-not just to please him, but to take for herself the joy of knowing she could, that she did.
His hands caressed, his voice ensnared, but it was her own needs that flamed within her. That drove her passion to ever wilder heights.
And she knew. She might have the strength to deny him, but once he’d stirred her senses and given them passionate life, she didn’t possess the will to deny them.
She couldn’t, now he’d revealed something of his fascination with her, quench the drive to know more-to take him into her body once more and experience again the connection…knowing what she now knew.
If she could understand what that connection was, what gave it its power, she would know what to do, how to deal with it. How to conquer it.
That, unquestionably, was what she most urgently needed to know.
Her body started to coil, to tighten-but she needed him inside her, needed the physical joining to reveal the ephemeral.
As if he heard her thoughts, his stroking eased, slowed.
Eyes still closed, she sensed his hesitation before he asked, his voice gravelly with desire, “Do you want me inside you?”
She opened her eyes, across the room met his in the mirror. “Yes.” She held his gaze for a second, then boldly asked, “How?”
