flickering, skittering, with expectation.
Control. His.
Whenever they’d come together in the past, neither had exercised any real measure of control-for herself, she’d never sought it, and she’d always, in the past, been able to cinder his.
Not this time. As the kiss went on, spun out, and left her slowly whirling along the outer edges of a vortex of pleasured delight, she felt all resistance fade.
He wished her to know this, and so she would. The conqueror within him, a being she’d always known existed beneath his debonair charm, wasn’t going to give her any choice.
A primitive shudder of anticipation ran down her spine.
He sensed it; he paused in his slow, devastatingly thorough claiming of her mouth, then the kiss changed. Deepened. As one hand drifted from her waist.
She felt the brush of his fingers as they slid beneath the hem of her chemise. With his fingertips he traced- slowly-upward from her hip along her side to the underside of her breast.
Moving slowly, smoothly, he palmed it. At last skin-to-skin, he closed his hand about her flesh and the flames leapt.
Just so far. They flared and fell as he touched her-everywhere. As he claimed every inch of her skin-unhurriedly, explicitly, as if he had all night and intended to use it.
His desire, his absolute intent to make her his, to claim her, brand her, reached her through his touch. Through every caress of his hard hands, through every sweep of his palms as he sculpted her body. Through every slow, languid, thorough exploration.
It almost felt as if he were learning her anew, as if those long-ago times had been in some other life and they were both different people now.
As if he were claiming her for the first time.
That thought filled Christian’s mind; that was indeed his intention. Always, before, he’d let her have her head, let her burn and take him with her-let them plunge unrestrained into passion’s fire and be consumed. Never before had he extended himself, never before had he fought to give her this. Never before had he held the flames back so she might see what, to him, beneath the flames and the fire, being intimate with her was all about.
He’d always hidden the emotion that, from the first, had driven him with her.
Tonight he held the flames back, and laid his heart and soul bare before her.
He was who he was, and that was something she understood.
But not something he’d before let her see. Never completely. Never clearly. Hardly at all.
Tonight was different. Tonight he intended to love her-and let her see.
She kept trying to push him, to let the flames free, but if he truly wished, he could hold her back. Could keep her with him, gasping, breathless, as he caressed every inch of the lush body he would possess.
Her breasts were a delight he savored at length, purely with his hands, knowing she ached for more. “Later.” He breathed the word across her swollen lips then took them again in a long, deep kiss, one sufficiently demanding to keep her absorbed-that together with his caresses left her no mental space to gather her resolve and press him. To summon the will to reach for him and touch him as she usually did.
The long sweeping planes of her back, the graceful indentation of her waist, the flare of her hips-he learned them all anew, as if he were some pasha and she his latest acquisition, his newest slave.
He set his thumb to her navel, and pressed in and out in a rhythm she knew very well. Her hands were on his shoulders; they shifted to his throat, fingers curling over his nape as she clung. He sensed the heat rising within her, drew his thumb from her navel and skated his hand down.
With the backs of his fingers he brushed the crisp curls at the apex of her thighs. Felt her shudder, felt her fingers tense.
He drew back from the kiss, eased back and looked at her-at her body, skin flushed and heated, all but quivering with need, screened by the filmy black veil of her chemise.
The sight had rocked him; it still aroused him. Her skin was so white, pearlescent in the dimness. He’d never had a widow in her weeds before. Nevertheless…
One hand on her waist, anchoring her, with his other he grasped the chemise, gathered a handful and drew it up. She obediently lifted her arms and wriggled. He pulled it up, free of her hair, then let it fall.
Immediately she reached for her garters.
He stopped her, caught her hands again in his, moved her arms back and once again locked them in the small of her back. He drew her full against him. She looked up, eyes wide-struggling to hide the effect of his clothing rasping her sensitized skin.
“Leave your stockings on.”
His voice was a bass rumble, coming from deep in his chest.
Letitia made out the words-had just enough brain left to decode them. Her skin felt alive, her nerves aroused by his caresses and now shocked into heightened awareness by the realization he was fully clothed while she was… naked but for her black garters and black silk stockings.
It wasn’t modesty that had her reeling.
How had he done this? How had he-
His mouth came down on hers, and she stopped thinking.
Could only feel as his hands locked on her hips and he half turned her and steered her back the few steps until her legs hit the end of her bed.
It was a high four-poster bed; the footboard behind her calves and knees ended lower than the top of the mattress.
His hands gripped and he lifted her, but he didn’t throw her back on the bed as she expected; he sat her on the edge of the mattress.
He let go of her and stepped back.
Dazed, adrift-not knowing this script-she blinked up at him. Put her hands behind her on the silk coverlet and braced her arms to lean back so she could. Saw his lips curve in a smile that was all arrogant conquering male.
“Spread your legs.” His eyes trapped hers. “Wide.”
A shiver ran down her spine. Slowly, she complied.
Then watched his gaze lower from her eyes to her lips, to her breasts, swollen, peaked, fine skin flushed from his earlier ministrations. Watched his gray eyes grow darker, stormier, as they skated down over her ribs, over her waist and belly, to fix on the soft flesh she’d willingly revealed to him.
She felt that flesh throb, dampen. As his eyes devoured.
“Good.” The word was a guttural growl. He stepped closer, between her spread knees. The bed was high so it was easy for him to lean down and kiss her, draw her once more into the drugging, enthralling exchange. Then he set his hands to her body again.
Reduced her to gasping, trembling need before he consented to touch her between her thighs, to stroke her, part her folds-at long last slide a long finger deep into her sheath and give her the first part of what she wanted.
He eventually eased a second finger in alongside the first, to her immense relief. But then, his hand still working steadily between her thighs, he drew back. And looked at her.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. Watched him watching her. Saw herself through his eyes, naked but for her stockings, her legs spread, his hand between, pleasuring her. He was still fully clothed; he wasn’t touching her anywhere else.
What she saw in his face had her shuddering. Biting her lip against a moan, she closed her eyes-and felt the slow scorching burn of passion controlled. More intense, more powerful, more potent. With every slow, possessive thrust of his fingers he pressed that on her.
She felt it swell, felt it fill her. Her gasps turned to pants; her inner flames coalesced and brightened.
He sensed it and drew back. Eased his fingers back so they were only just penetrating her, playing at her entrance in the slickness he’d drawn forth.
Her whirling senses slowed; a protest was on her lips when she felt him lean close. Planting a large hand on the bed beside her, he leaned down-and set his mouth to her breasts.
On a half gasp, half moan, she let her head loll back.
