The back of her legs hit the mattress. His hands shifted to her waist, gripped, steadying her, even as he surged deeper into her mouth, rapacious and hungry.
Greedy for her.
Expectation, a sharp spike of sensual anticipation, flashed through her. In its wake flames rolled in, desire and need escalating, sapping her resolution, cindering her will. .
In sudden desperation, she pulled back, broke the kiss. “No.”
His was a seduction of mind as well as body. If she let him sweep her away, let her mind become ensnared in the passion and delight, she would never have the wit, let alone the will, to take the lead and do what she’d come there to do. She stared through the dimness, holding his gaze.
Then, with deliberation, she licked her kiss-swollen lips. Felt as much as saw his gaze lock on them. “Me, first.” The words hung between them, sultry yet definite. “My turn to dictate.”
He was an expert in this sphere and, at least with her, he’d never acted other than deliberately. Control was something he exercised so effortlessly, so completely on the physical, sexual plane. . she doubted he realized that that very control and how he deployed it might reveal, might reflect, what he felt.
She was entirely willing for him to lead their dance and reveal whatever he might, but not until she’d made her statement, her wordless declaration. Sliding her hand from his hair, retrieving the other from beneath his coat, she gripped the lapels, leaned in and, instead of kissing him, ran her lips in a feather-light caress along his jaw, distracting him as she pushed the coat off his shoulders.
Leaning back, into his hard hands — they’d moved to rest at the back of her waist, hard, heavy, heating her flesh through the single layer of flimsy silk — she stripped the coat down, tugging and pushing until he obliged and drew first one arm, then the other, free of the sleeves.
Feeling his heavy-lidded gaze on her face, she extended one arm and let the coat fall where it may.
“Just as long as I get my turn, too.”
Reaching for his cravat, she glanced up, briefly met his gaze. Glimpsed the banked passion in his eyes. “We can share, but I lead first.”
Switching her attention to her fingers, she swiftly undid the simple knot he favored.
He didn’t immediately answer but eventually said as she drew the strip of linen free, “If you insist.”
“I do.” Her determination had returned in full force. Sending the cravat to join his coat, she fell on his waistcoat.
Looked up as she freed the last button. “To do what I want, I have to be in charge.”
“You do?” When she nodded, then tugged, he obliged by shrugging off the waistcoat. “And what do you intend to do?”
“I’m not going to tell you.” Stepping closer, she looked into his eyes, her fingers swiftly undoing the buttons closing the front of his shirt. “I’m going to show you.” She looked down.
“Are you.” Not a question; a skeptical statement.
She didn’t respond; leaving his shirt hanging open, she caught one of his hands, flicked the button at his cuff free, then did the same with his other hand, other cuff.
“In this arena, you’re going to show the foremost rake in the ton. . what, exactly?”
She looked up, met his gaze, held it as, between them, she flicked the button securing the flap on his trousers free. “I’m going to show you something no other lady ever has.” Without taking her gaze from his eyes, she slid her hand past the gaping flap, reached in and found him, stroked, then boldly took his rigid member into her palm. “I’m going to do to you what no other lady ever has.”
She was going to make love to him.
It had occurred to her that there was a reason the act was described that way. A reason she could use. An exchange she could exploit to communicate what she needed to convey, then encourage him to use the same language to reply.
Brazen and bold the ploy might be, but if it worked. . she was more than willing to try.
He’d sucked in a tight breath. She sensed rather than saw his muscles tense, turn steely hard as she let her fingers trace, trail. . then she closed her hand.
His lids fell; hands again splayed on her back, his fingertips pressed harder.
Gripping him firmly in her fist, she shifted closer still; the silk of her robe brushing his bare chest, she stretched up and set her lips to the sensitive spot beneath his jaw, below his ear, then traced a path down to where his pulse thudded at the base of his strong throat. Her fingers tightened about him, and she heard a soft hiss. She placed a long, lingering kiss over his pulse point, then laved lightly with her tongue, sensing the heat of him through his skin, tasting the wildness, the hungry desire, that prowled beneath.
Savored the strength of him, borne in his touch as his arms closed, and his hands, large and so male, spread over her back and held her.
Held, but didn’t urge, didn’t guide; he waited, his breath shallower than usual, to see what she would do.
Inwardly smiling, she set herself to fulfill her self-appointed task. Slowly, on a long, caressing stroke, she drew her hand from the hot rod of his erection; she needed both hands to properly worship the width of his chest, the wide muscles that spanned it, the flat discs of his nipples curtained by wiry dark hair, to properly appreciate the heavy, solid bones of his shoulders, the warm resilience of the heavier muscles that framed his upper back.
Spreading the halves of his shirt wide, she pushed the linen off his shoulders, then paid due homage to all she’d uncovered with her lips, her tongue, her teeth, with the hot wetness of her mouth.
All the while shifting, sensuously sliding, her silk-encased form against his rock-hard frame.
She sensed his fascination, his indulgence, felt him shift as, drawing his hands from her he reached behind his back and stripped the shirt free, let the garment fall.
His hands returned to cradle her back, shifting over the silk of her robe.
She nipped lightly at one nipple. Heard his breath hitch, felt the spike of reaction that flashed through his muscles.
Felt the heat spread beneath his skin.
“What are you doing?”
She looked up, met his gaze, darker now, passion smoldering behind the bright hazel. “I’m doing as I wish, what I want — what I need to do.”
Heat was steadily rising, in him, in her, between them; she should have felt the night’s chill but instead felt only the building glow of desire, the slow burn of encroaching passion.
Raising one hand to his cheek, she drew his lips to hers, kissed him again, openly demanding, taking his mouth rather than giving hers. . surprised that he allowed it, she was enthralled enough to ask for yet more. To take more.
When she drew back and their lips parted, they were both breathing quickly, and the heat had flared to a nascent conflagration.
Eyes on his, sensing, all but seeing the steely control he was exerting, their breaths mingling, she murmured, “You’re being very good.”
His reply was a dark rumble. “For now.”
She took note of the implied warning and gave him no chance to retake the reins; pushing back against his hold, she slid her hands, palms to his warm, deliciously heated skin, down from his upper chest, over the rock-hard ridges of his abdomen, down and wide to either side of his waist, then skimmed her hands lower, down his lean hips, catching his trousers, sliding them down.
Her hands reached his upper thighs, and the garment slid of its own accord down his long legs to pool about his feet.
She followed it down, sliding from his hold and sinking to a sideways crouch. Saw the powerful muscles in his flanks, his upper thighs, lock. Ignoring the sudden grip of his hand on her shoulder, she drew down one stocking, with a nudge of her arm got him to lift his foot so she could free it of stocking, shoe, and trouser leg. After repeating the actions with his other foot, she pushed shoes, stockings, and trousers back and away across the floor, then, swiveling to him, her hands sliding up the back of his bare calves, gripping the wide muscle for balance, she looked up — all the way up to his eyes.
Legs braced, fingers trailing her shoulders, his spectacular body naked, the powerful contours limned by faint moonlight, he looked down at her; in that moment he appeared more beautiful, more powerful, than any god.
