The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh (The Cynster Sisters Duo 2)

Tighter, harder, faster, hotter—she gasped, squirmed, yet nothing seemed to ease her escalating need, to appease the hungry emptiness yawning within.

Then he shifted his hand and his thumb found the nubbin hidden amid her slick folds, and he artfully pressed in rhythm with his increasingly forceful penetrations, with the increasingly powerful suckling at her breast—

She fractured.

Cried out and clung as her world shattered and her senses fragmented and spun.

Overcome by the cataclysm of sensation, she swayed. All strength fled; a deep, unraveling lassitude swept her.

All awareness seemed distant, remote, detached, yet she still felt, still knew. Could still follow what was happening.

Her breathing in ragged disarray, her heartbeat echoing in her ears and pulsing in the honeyed flesh between her thighs, she felt—acutely felt—the retreat of his fingers from her body. Drawing his hand from beneath her skirts, he swept her unresisting—unable to resist—off the table and into his arms, and carried her to his room.

Juggling her in his arms, Ryder opened his bedroom door, angled her inside, then heeled the door shut. Tonight, Collier had left only the two lamps on the bedside tables burning;

although both were turned low, they spilled golden light over the golden bed.

A perfect shrine for beauty in aftermath.

Carrying Mary to the bed, he knelt on the mattress and laid her gently down, her head on the pillows, her sable curls a sharp contrast against the ivory. He took an instant to savor, to give thanks he’d been able to rush her on to her climax and so grasp the chance—the slim and possibly only chance—to reassert control. To regain the upper hand.

Passion beat powerfully, unrelentingly, in his veins, insistent and demanding, but this was a situation he—and that driving need within him—recognized. A familiar pause in proceedings, not a denial but a staving off, a temporary holding back that would ensure he would soon reap a deeper and even more complete satisfaction.

God, she’d been . . . the word that came to mind was potent. A drug that held the power to drive him crazed with desire, and make him ache with passion.

With a powerful drive, one he needed to rein in and manage; even after their first encounter—perhaps even more because of it—he felt an absolute need to remain in charge, of himself at least, if not her as well.

Knowing he would have only so long before she stirred, and sought to manage him and them, this, and all, he leaned over her and stripped her of gown, chemise, and stockings. Tossing the gold silk coverlet over her cooling body, accepting that if he didn’t shed his clothes himself, she would be eager to assist him—and God only knew where that would end—he shrugged out of his coat and waistcoat, unknotted his cravat and dispensed with shirt, shoes, stockings, and trousers in record time.

He felt the caress of her gaze as he turned to the bed. With an openly sensual appreciation, she examined and surveyed, her lips lightly curving, her gaze warming, the blue growing more intense as he neared.

He knew well enough how women saw him; impressive was an epithet frequently applied.

Somewhat to his relief, he detected nothing more than a certain smug, very feminine possessiveness in her face, with no hint of surprise, much less fear, clouding her violet-blue eyes.

Indeed, all he could discern was expectation, an anticipation that was more specific, more focused, than two nights before.

Her expression stated she knew what was to come and was looking forward to every second.

Already fully aroused, that expression, its implication, only made him more rigid.

Pausing beside the bed, he reached out and drew down the coverlet, and took one last instant to drink in the sight of her, rumpled and sated, limbs asprawl in sensual abandon in his bed.

Slowly, he let his gaze sweep from her small, delicate feet, over her shapely calves, dimpled knees, and sleek thighs, up over the already dampened thatch of dark curls at their apex, over the slight curve of her stomach, the indentation of her waist, gliding up over her firm, high breasts, her nipples puckering under his gaze, to her throat, her chin, to her lips, and finally to her eyes.

Mary had been waiting. She smiled, gentle yet intent, and slowly, gracefully, raised her arms and beckoned.

He blinked, but complied, letting himself down on the bed, propping on one elbow and stretching his long limbs and heavy bones alongside her.

He reached to set a hand on her stomach, but before he made contact she rolled toward him and sat up, the movement making him instinctively tip back—he realized and tried to reverse, to sit up again, but she’d already spread her hands on his chest.

Greedily.

She swiveled to hang over him, sinuously sliding her body along his until his hips lay half under hers, her stomach brushing his, her legs tangling lightly with his, his heavy erection grazing her hip; she closed her eyes for a second, breathed in as she savored, this time fully aware of the evocative feel of his naked body against hers, of his hair-dusted limbs lightly abrading her smooth, fine skin, of the ineluctable tactile contrast between his hard muscled frame covered by taut skin and her firm, silky sleekness.

He could easily have forced her back, yet as she opened her eyes, met his, then sent her hands skating, caressing and tracing, unabashedly reveling, he lay still and searched her face, trying to guess what she was about.

Thoroughly pleased with him, she smiled and obliged. “Before we reengage, I wanted to ask . . . can you—will you—go slow when I say?”