She squirmed at the dampness between her thighs, her nightgown chafing her peaking nipples like it was fashioned of sackcloth. Again, she pushed his shoulder, knowing she teased a lion and unable to stop herself.
Brand swore, finally, slowly turning to face her.
Oh.
Riveted, she stared at his brawny chest, lightly dusted with dark hair that nearly covered two flat, pale brown male nipples. No extra fat marred the sculpted lines of his abdomen, but that was naught in comparison to the magnificence of the long, thick male part resting against his palm. It stood nearly upright from a nest of black hair, pale-colored moisture coating the hugely swollen head as well as his fingers.
One wayward finger reached out and halted.
“May I…” she swallowed, finally meeting his molten emerald gaze. “May I touch it?”
One tiny jerk of his head gave her permission. Emboldened, she stepped closer and stroked him from base to tip, marveling at the hardness, the smoothness of the skin, the silky texture of his seed.
He groaned. “Catherine…”
“Am I hurting you?”
“No. Just torturing me.”
“What should I do?”
“To be fair and equal, be as naked as I am.”
A grim smile twitched her lips. Tonight she didn’t feel like a virginal physician’s daughter on the run from the queen’s soldiers, but a woman needing the man who’d dominated her thoughts, her heart, since the day they met.
Untying the front ribbon of her nightgown, she let the garment fall to the floor. His indrawn breath and slow, greedy appraisal of her body a reward for the daring act.
“And now, Brand?”
“Take my cock in your hands and stroke it. Like this,” he said, wrapping her hands tightly around the length of him and moving them back and forth.
Eagerly she complied, exulting in his choked sighs and incoherent words as he thrust against her fingers. Wanting to get closer, she dropped to her knees and leaned in, brushing the lightest of kisses across the tip.
He froze and she lifted her head, uncertain. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Don’t apologize,” he said, so raggedly she felt another rush of moist heat between her legs. “It feels very, very good when a man has his cock kissed. Or licked. Or sucked. If you wish to, do what you will.”
“I wish to,” she replied, darting her tongue out to taste the musky wetness there.
“God, yes. Like that, Carey. So good.”
His gruff praise warmed her to the soul, and lifting her gaze to his, she deliberately held it while taking the wide head of his erection into her mouth. Brand’s harsh breaths echoed through the room as she sucked gently, then more firmly, taking him a little deeper and hollowing her cheeks while her fingers teased the underside of his shaft.
“Sweetheart. Carey. Yes, darling. Damn, I’m going to…”
Abruptly a guttural roar tore from the very depths of him, and he jerked his erection from her lips, long streams of warm liquid splashing her breasts and belly, his other hand gripping her shoulder while his body spasmed.
For the longest moment Brand stood like that, his eyes closed and head tilted back, as though a thousand miles away. Then he met her gaze, and the fire there seared her to the core.
Catherine shivered. “Are you going to—”
“Wash you? Yes. Kiss and lick and suck every inch of your beautiful body? Yes. But it won’t be swift, Carey. I won’t be merciful. Perhaps when dawn comes, when your sweet cream drenches my fingers, and you beg me for release, I may grant it to you. We shall see.”
Unable to speak, enthralled by the dark promise of the words, she took his offered hand and got to her feet. Slowly, far too slowly, he washed his seed from her skin. The herbed water wasn’t cold, but she shuddered at the contrast on her too-hot flesh, the way the slightly rough sponge grazed her hardened nipples, her belly, the curls between her legs. Soon he discarded the sponge, instead using two fingers to tease her wet flesh.
She gripped his shoulder and sighed, back arching in shock when the fingers slid gently inside her. Quickly he bent his head, taking one nipple into his mouth to suck while starting a rhythm of advance and retreat between her legs certain to steal her wits.
“Please,” she begged, as the delicious tingling feeling started low in her belly. “Harder.”
“You’re so slick here, Carey. So hot,” he rasped. Then he stopped.
“Brand!”
He didn’t reply, just scooped her into his arms and placed her in the center of the bed with her feet dangling over the end. Before she had time to think, he knelt between her spread thighs and bent down to claim her mouth, overwhelming her with his hunger.
“Brand,” she gasped, tearing away. “I don’t know how.”
“Your body does. Listen to it,” he replied, but this time his kiss was gentler, coaxing, imploring her to open to him.
Enraptured, she didn’t even feel his hand move until two fingers surrounded one tender nipple and lightly pinched. She writhed, moaning as he did it again and again, alternating with a teasing lick. “No,” she sobbed, mindless with need. “Touch me properly.”
“Where?”
“There,” she said, a flailing hand gesturing between her legs.
Brand moved down the bed, and breathlessly she waited for the relief of his fingers stroking, delving inside her. Instead, his lips brushed her inner thigh and trailed upward.
Her hands grasped the sheets tightly.
Surely he wouldn’t.
Oh please, let him.
At the first lash of his tongue across her heated core, she attempted to close her legs, the rush of acute pleasure too much to bear. But he was relentless, one shoulder wedging her thighs wide as he lapped and sucked the swollen nub beneath her nether curls, and plunged his tongue deep inside her soaked, aching channel.
She cried out.
“Should I stop?” he teased.
“Nooooo,” she wailed, lifting and circling her hips, wanting to claw his back bloody for tormenting her
