He released her briefly to tug off his jacket. Beneath the fine cotton of his shirt she could see the heavy play of muscles and the dark shadowing of hair, and her fingers itched to unfasten his shirt. Lost in her own private daydreams, she suddenly realised how tense he was.
A soft flush of colour spread over her body as she saw the way he
was looking at her.
'My God, you can't know how much I've wanted this.'
His hands touched her, sliding softly up over her ribs to cup her breasts. Fierce surges of delight rocketed through her, her breasts swelling wantonly against his palms. She shuddered in molten desire beneath the arousing movement of his thumbs against her nipples.
'You like that?'
His voice was unfamiliar, raw and husky with male desire, and she thrilled to the sound of it.
'Dear heaven, I nearly went mad with the need to do this years ago… do you know that?'
She quivered in response, making no demur when he picked her up and carried her across to the settee, sitting down on it, holding her in his arms.
Firelight played across the planes of his face and she raised almost timid fingers to caress it. Shocking waves of delight shuddered through her as he held her palm to his mouth, slowly caressing it. She could feel her breasts peaking in wanton delight.
'Christy, I want you so much. Touch me… undress me…'
Which of them was it who was shaking as he transferred her hand to the front of his shirt, helping her to unfasten that first button? Beneath her fingertips his skin felt moist and burning hot. She felt him shudder finely as she slid her hand against his skin, stroking through the soft thickness of his body hair. He groaned deep in his throat, and with great daring she did what she had wanted to do from the first moment she had witnessed that small betraying gesture: she placed her mouth against the maleness of his throat and caressed it with the tip of her tongue.
His response to her went far beyond her wildest fantasies; never had she dared even once to imagine him going wild in her arms like this, responding to her, showing her how much he liked what she was doing.
The collar of his shirt impeded her progress down towards his shoulder and she unfastened the rest of the buttons, tugging the fabric away from him and pushing it off his skin.
She felt his fingers curl into her hair as she slowly caressed his body, taking her time as she savoured every inch of warm male flesh. Her fingertips stroked lightly along the line of body hair that disappeared beneath the waistband of his suit, registering the taut firmness of his belly as her hand lingered possessively there.
She wanted to feel all of him against her without the barriers of any clothes, but shyness overwhelmed her. She had no experience in undressing men, and she was frightened of destroying the delicate spell they had woven around themselves with clumsy inexperience, so she simply let her hand lie flat against him as her mouth traced the hard muscles of his chest, and her tongue stroked tentatively against the pebble hardness of one flat male nipple.
She felt him move, pushing himself against her, his hands sliding to her hips and then down to her thighs before moving up again to slide under the edge of her satin briefs to cup the rounded softness of her bottom and pull her against him.
The tension invading her lower body was awesome and familiar. She had desired him like this before, but never with such immediate intensity. Logic and reason were totally suspended, only instinct prevailing.
'I've got to feel you against me… all of you.' Dominic muttered, releasing her and standing up.
She couldn't look at him, but she heard the metallic sound of his zip, and the slither of cloth against flesh.
He came to her from the shadows of the fire, tautly male and the embodiment of all her feminine fantasies. Dark shadows concealed much of his body from her as he kneeled on the floor at her feet, cupping her instep in one hand while the other dealt with the fastenings of her stockings.
She could almost see his tension at her body's unmistakable response to his touch, the look glittering darkly in his eyes as he raised them to her face, making her fear momentarily that he meant to tear what was left of her clothes from her and lay her bare to his gaze, but instead he undressed her slowly and painstakingly, his fingers a tormenting caress against the insides of her thighs as he slid down her stockings.
Her heart seemed to stand still in her breast as he lifted her to tug down her briefs, and she felt the heat of his breath against her skin.
At last, when they were both naked, he simply kneeled and stared at her until she was quivering with a mixture of self-consciousness and need. His hand reached out and caressed the curve of her throat and then slid down to her shoulder.
'Just perfect,' he murmured softly. 'Perfect.'
And then, still kneeling before her, he took her in his arms and kissed her as she had dreamed of him kissing her, his mouth both tender and demanding; hungry for her and yet feeding her own need.
'I want you so much. You have no idea.' His mouth slid moistly over her throat, and caressed the fragile bones of her shoulder. His hands had found her breasts and were slowly caressing them. His mouth moved slowly, oh so slowly over her skin, until she was ready to cry out with need, and then she felt its warmth against the curve of her breast and she closed her eyes in a sudden agony of desire, digging her nails into his shoulder as she sought desperately for something to cling on to in the fierce maelstrom of delight that had seized her.
His tongue touched her nipple, gently circling the deep pink flesh before delicately brushing over it, making her cry out in shocked delight.
'I could almost believe that no one has ever touched you like this before.'
Dominic's voice was dazed, drugged almost, and she clung to the aroused desirous sound of it rather than listening to the words. It seemed impossible to believe that he could not know how she felt about him, and that he was not just the first, but the only one.