Unwise, but he realized too late—realized that while his control had been forged over the years, hers hadn’t. She was still his implusive ange; her reckless play had only tightened the tension gripping her to an unbearable degree.
He heard the truth in her shaky gasp as she pulled back from a kiss that had plunged into desperation. Read confirmation in the tremors racking her, in the frantic pressure of her nails on his skin.
She’d journeyed too close to the edge.
Her nightgown opened to below her waist; pushing the halves wide, he bent his head to the furled peak of one breast, simultaneously slid his palm down, over her taut belly to the fine thatch of curls at the apex of her thighs. Brushing through them, he found and circled her slick, swollen flesh, with one fingertip caressed until she sobbed.
Drawing her tightly furled nipple deep, he suckled powerfully, at the same time stroked lightly, then increasingly firmly.
She shattered.
With a choked cry, she fell from the peak she’d so intently yet unexpectedly, he suspected unintentionally, climbed.
Cupping her mons, he felt completion sweep her, draining away the almost painful tension, blunting desire’s spurs.
She sighed, and the last of passion’s fury left her, and she relaxed, boneless, in his arms.
He blew lightly, soothingly, over her breast, then lifted his head, reluctantly withdrew his hand, leaning back in the chair the better to support her. He ached, yet all he wanted at that moment was to study her face, faintly limned by the moonlight; he’d never seen it as it now was, peaceful and serene in aftermath.
Long-buried memory intruded; he pushed it aside, only to have the thought that some other man must have seen her like this fill the void.
It was his thought, yet a faint frown tangled her brows; slowly, she lifted her lids and looked at him.
Puzzled. For an instant, he thought he couldn’t have read her look aright, but then she put up a hand to push