Urgency raced down her veins.
Lips melding, hungry, hot, and urgent, the kiss raged back and forth, first driven by him, then by her, their tongues dueling, seeking, searching—he for supremacy, she for equal strength.
She won. He didn’t.
She held her own and pressed him even harder.
Knew when he broke, when he accepted that he didn’t care how, just as long as he had her—and she had him.
She only had a split second to wonder what next before he hoisted her up against him. She responded immediately, adjusting the angle of the kiss, unwilling to allow the connection to break, to allow either of them a chance to think, even for a heartbeat. Then he turned from the wall and she raised her legs and wriggled and hitched and conquered her skirts enough to grip his hips with her thighs.
He grunted, but, like her, made no move to end the ravenous engagement of their mouths; sliding his palms beneath her hips, carrying her, he started up the stairs.
Giving thanks for his strength, she left it to him to get them to his bedroom and focused her will on the kiss, on keeping them both, he and she, so deeply immersed that the flames they’d already ignited didn’t wane.
She succeeded so well that, on reaching the corridor to his room, he sat her atop a wall table, clamped his hands to her face, took over the kiss, and poured fire down her veins.
On a gasp, she tipped her head back and broke the kiss—and he let her. One hand framing her jaw, angling her chin, he ducked his head and set his lips, burning, branding, to her throat. Followed the arching line down to the hollow where her pulse raced. He licked, laved, and she shuddered.
He made a sound, low and guttural, and then her bodice was loose and he was drawing it down; before she gathered her wits enough to react, he stripped bodice and chemise to her waist, and set his mouth to her bared breasts.
She cried out as he sucked one furled nipple deep; evocative and arousing, the sound echoed in the dark.
He chuckled, harsh and ragged; cupping her other breast, he kneaded and squeezed while with lips and tongue he claimed. One hand sliding to the back of her waist, holding and supporting her, he waited while she blindly freed her arms from her sleeves, then he tipped her backward until the back of her head rested against the wall and he bent to his task—apparently intending to reduce her to an utterly wanton state . . .
She was already there. Hands sunk in his hair, eyes closed, head back, she moaned, then arched, wanting more of all he lavished on her—the hot worship of his mouth on her sensitive flesh, the excruciatingly piercing sensations he sent streaking through her.
Driving passion was already a pounding thud in her veins; she wondered how much stronger it could get.
Shivered with anticipation at the certainty of finding out.
Despite the potent compulsions of desire, tonight she was more aware—more able to appreciate his sensual expertise. Previously, her senses had been swept away; tonight, they were riding the tide.
And she wanted, craved with a deep-seated need, the heat and the flames and the surging, swelling passion. More than anything else she craved the fusion they would lead to, the intense, intimate, physically powerful joining.
She’d been too distracted earlier to properly absorb every detail; tonight her senses were greedy and grasping, devouring every nuance.
Her gown and chemise lay crumpled about her waist. Standing as he was, his hips forced her knees wide; he shifted, then the hand at her breast released and stroked down. Down over her waist, pressing her clothing aside, sliding over her stomach to splay there, then his long fingers reached further, parting the curls at the apex of her thighs to push down and in.
She started, shivered, then caught her breath on a gasp as his fingers explored, caressing and parting her slick folds, then circling, lightly pressing. Delicious sensations spread under her skin. Panting, she squirmed, needing more, wanting . . .
Drawing his mouth from her breast, he softly cursed and withdrew his hand from between her thighs.
She clutched his arm. “No—”
“Wait.” The gravelly order brooked no argument, but he was already hauling up her skirts, pushing them high to reach beneath. Locating her stockinged knee, he skated his hard palm over her garter and up her thigh, then boldly cupped her swollen flesh.
Reaction jolted her, the possessiveness in his touch sharp and keen.
She shivered when he pressed first one, then two fingers into her. Deep, then deeper.
On a gasp, fingers gripping his arm, clutching his skull, she arched, lifting, instinctively giving him greater access. Access he seized; his hand flexing beneath her, he pressed in and stroked, deeper, faster, ruthlessly playing on her senses.
Tension gripped her—similar yet not the same as the compulsive need of their previous time, but swelling, rising, built and driven by his intimate touch. By every deep stroke of his fingers.
Then he returned to her breasts, setting his mouth to the aching, swollen mounds, catching the tightly furled buds of her nipples between his lips, tugging, then taking them into his mouth and suckling.
Sensations cascaded, clashed and sparked, flushing beneath her skin, pulsing through her flesh. She closed her eyes, listened as her breathing grew harried and desperate. Felt the flames rage and coalesce, sinking deeper, searing and burning, then flaring ever hotter.