“Does that feel good?” I ask.
While I suspect I know the answer, I need to hear it. Suddenly I’m starved for praise and I want all the pretty words about how I make him feel.
“It’s exquisite torture. I haven’t been touched in so long. See what you’ve done?”
He pulls my hand up and places it on his heart, so I can feel the wild, thundering rhythm. I listen with my fingertips for a few seconds, then I smooth my palm sideways, marveling at the breadth and strength of his chest. I find a tight nipple, and he moans when I swirl my fingertips in a circle. I get the same reaction when I tease the other one, and his unfettered response makes me so wet. The more I touch Njål, the softer and slicker I become, as if his pleasure is tied to mine. At the rate we’re going I might burst when he does without anyone touching me down there at all.
“More?”
“Whatever you wish,” he gasps. “I’ve boasted of my patience more than once, and I’m regretting it now.”
Slowly I lower my head and plant kisses along his collarbone, moving upward until I find the curve between his neck and shoulder, then I linger there with my mouth. His skin tastes clean; I can tell that he washed, and he trembles beneath me, his erection burning like a hot iron bar between us. I brush it now and then with my hip, and he reacts like I’m hurting him, pleasure gone through the looking glass.
I return to his nipples because they must be aching as mine are, to be touched and licked and sucked. When I do all those things, a growl escapes him, but his hands are gentle on the back of my head, stroking and caressing while I do my best to drive him wild.
Finally he pulls my mouth away with a gasped plea. “Please. Please let me.”
I know what he wants and I straighten enough to pull my nightgown over my head. There’s a certain decadence in knowing that I’m completely exposed while I can see nothing. I don’t know why that excites me, but it does.
“You’re beautiful. You are so beautiful.” Hotly admiring whispers, given to my skin as he nuzzles his face into my chest.
And then he does to me what I’ve done to him—lips and teeth and tongue, soft and sharp and hot, on my neck, my shoulders, and finally my breasts. When his teeth graze my budded nipple, I react with a demanding sound, one I didn’t even know I could make. Njål does it again and again, until my body throbs and I can’t stop those helpless noises. I’m wet, so very wet, and I’ve forgotten why I didn’t mean to bed him completely. Now I’m ready to climb on top of him. I don’t care about the east wing or why he doesn’t want me to see him. There’s only this insistent pleasure, stealing my sanity.
“You’re so excited,” he teases.
There’s no point in answering that. Anything other than the obvious “yes” would be a lie. I quiver when his touch glides downward. I imagine his hand there as I did the first time I rubbed myself and squeeze my thighs together in response to the powerful surge of excitement.
“Look at you, aching for more. Shall I go on?”
“Yes. Whatever you like. Please.”
I squeak when he moves me, and then my nerves catch fire. I think I’m perched on his chin and his mouth moves down there, licking me up and down like a delicious treat. This is beyond all decency and I’m torn between ecstasy and shame. Soon, the shame dies in a fiery conflagration as Njål tastes me and nuzzles into my softest parts, and I can’t keep still or quiet. I moan and squirm, until I realize the feelings are building like they did when I stroked myself, only a thousand times more powerful.
“That’s it, beauty. Show me how much you like it,” he whispers.
Utterly seduced, I relax and move with more purpose against his mouth, shifting my weight, learning when to lift and tilt, how to offer myself so he can reach where it feels best. The sounds, oh, the sounds—wet and decadent—he’s taking so much satisfaction in this. When I brace my hands on the wall, offering myself fully, Njål goes wild, licking and sipping, and then he focuses right there. I’ve never felt anything so good.
“Oh. Oh. Njål!”
My stomach tightens as I crest, rubbing wildly against his lips and tongue. When I go limp, he catches me, tucking me against his side. I nestle into his arms, wishing that I didn’t feel so . . . done. But I’m relaxed and sleepy now, bewildered by the shivers still spiraling through me.
“Did you enjoy that?” he asks in a sweet, husky tone.
“You know that I did.” I hide my face against his chest, not that he can see much of my expression beneath the blindfold. I hope.
“Have you ever done that before?”
Now I know how he felt when I was poking at the curse, because I don’t want to ruin this glow by thinking—or speaking—about Owen. Owen and his cold hands and the pennies on his eyes.
“I haven’t.” To forestall further questions, I add, “I’ve never done much other than kissing and cuddles.”
“Ah,” he says. If he’s curious about anything else, he holds it in.
“Give me a minute to recover and I—”
“No,” he cuts in. “I don’t want this to be transactional. You trusted me enough to permit me into your bed. This is enough.”
“But . . .”
“In the strictest sense, this is equitable,” he tells me sternly. “You got nothing from our encounter in the
