“I like it too much,” he confessed with a growl as he ground his hardness beneath her.
His admission fired her senses as his voice rumbled. She drew a deep breath. “I want to touch you the way you touch me.”
Her blood heated when he raised a brow. “I am yours to do with what you will. Consider me a slave to your every wish.”
Eliza felt giddy with the control he gave her. “A slave? Slaves aren’t allowed to say no to their master, are they?”
His mouth opened to refute her words but then he must have decided to play along, that dangerously sinful glint reflecting from the gold in his eyes. “Not unless they are looking for punishment.”
*
She drew away, a frown on her mouth and Darius knew she didn’t follow his meaning. “There are all kinds of desires, Eliza. Some like it soft.” He barely touched his lips to her breast through the robe and nightshirt she wore but her entire body shuddered at the slight action.
She’d started this game; he was more than willing to play along.
“Some like it hard.” He took her mouth in a punishing kiss, harsh but gentle. At the same time he kneaded her backside, his touch rough as he pulled her hip against his erection again. “There are many, many different degrees of pleasure.”
“How do you like it?” she asked, her face flushed, her breath shallow.
“Any way you do.” He spread his arms and sat back against the corner of the oversized armchair. Complete submission he offered. Would she take it? Did she know what it cost him to hand it all over to her? He’d never given another control over anything he did. Not since the night he’d taken a beating that had changed his life forever. In every aspect of his existence, day and night, he’d always retained control, in command and in charge. It’s what had led him on a failed mutiny that almost saw him dead at the bottom of the ocean. Even that mistake hadn’t softened his resolve to never be at another’s mercy. In this though, she could take what she wanted, give what she wanted. He would walk over broken glass if she asked him with those kissable lips and luscious mouth.
“What if I hurt you or do something you don’t like?”
Her hesitation told him the control he relinquished was only a very small amount. She was overthinking and questioning everything. He needed her to stop doing it and touch him for God’s sake.
Darius took his shirt off over his head and let it drop to the floor next to the sofa. “You can’t hurt me.” Not physically anyway. The thought came from somewhere so deep inside. He suspected he no longer recognised the cavernous depths of his own heart.
Fighting to keep his breath inside rather than hissing it out when she placed her hands against his chest, Darius also fought to remain still. When her fingers trailed over his nipples and down to his belly button, he resisted the urge to tell her to firm her touch. He wanted Eliza to explore him properly, not tentatively like a frightened girl. Where was the impassioned woman from the day before?
“Is there something wrong?” he asked when she made to withdraw and stand. His stomach dropped. Had he pushed her too far? He didn’t think so but she was suddenly skittish.
In her eyes there was frustration. It surprised him until she spoke. “I don’t know what to do. I’m scared.”
“Scared? Of me?” His passion cooled.
She shook her head so hard, her hair fell over her face as she looked away from him.
“Of what then?”
“All these years, Darius, all these years I have been raised a lady. Ladies do not want to take a man’s…a man’s…” She gestured with a huff to where he strained against his breeches.
“You want to touch my member?” His heart soared and his pulse danced a naughty jig.
She shook her head again. “I don’t know,” she cried out.
Her frustration made him want to laugh but he kept it in. “There’s no shame in wanting, Eliza. I won’t ever look at you any differently for the way your body urges you. It’s all perfectly natural.”
“It isn’t natural at all.”
Darius swore beneath his breath. “This is all bloody England’s fault! Eliza, women do take their husband’s member into their hands, into their bodies, into their mouths if they want! Ladies maybe not, they’re too stiff in the upper lip to know what’s good for them. They need a bloody good spanking to wake them up. No one knows what we do but us. I won’t tell anyone that my wife wants to put her hands on her husband. I don’t need to. Any married man knows it already.”
If that was supposed to make her feel better, he wasn’t sure it would but it had to be said. She kept assuming what society wanted of her but he wanted her to do whatever she damn well pleased.
“Sod this,” he muttered and unlaced the fall on his trousers. When he sprang free, proud and tall, he took his member in his own hand and gave it a pump. “It won’t break,” he told her. “The only way you can hurt me is if you don’t touch it. You’re killing me.”
Her brows rose as did the colour on her cheeks but the clenching of her fists gave her away. She did want to explore him. When she licked her lips, his cock twitched; it drew her attention there. When she bit down on the plump cupid’s bow he swelled all the more, imagining what she might one day do with those teeth and that tongue and mouth.
God help him, he was in trouble. With both hands she reached out, shuffled closer, considered her angle. He closed
