Luckily, she hadn’t any intention of denying him, or herself. She let him take, then, emboldened, encouraged him to take more.
He did, but not as she’d expected. He lifted his head, breaking the kiss.
She caught the glint of his eyes beneath his heavy lids.
“This.” He murmured the word against her lips, his voice gravelly and deep. Then the arm about her tightened still more, a steely band locking her against him.
She tensed. He hesitated, but then bent his head and kissed her more deeply,
more persuasively, more urgently, until she responded, until she slid her hands up and wound them about his neck and kissed him back.
Deverell battled to keep his mind on her lips, her mouth, on the heated tangle of their tongues. Fought to keep his senses enmeshed in the increasingly sensual play, away from the sensation of her svelte body plastered the length of his.
Away from the warm pressure of her breasts against his chest, from the provocative weight of her hips and thighs caressing his.
She was pliant, willing, to that point at least, yet there remained within her a core of flighty, skittering resistance.
Of rearguard defiance—that was how the more primitive side of him chose to interpret it, that side of him few women had ever drawn forth but which she evoked so effortlessly. The side of him that wasn’t all that safe, that was in many ways dangerous.
That side of him he couldn’t, with her, forever hold back.
It was that aspect of him that deliberately stoked the kiss into a conflagration, into a building firestorm of need so that she gasped and clung, then melted.
So that she sank against him, so that it seemed her wish that he send one hand sliding down, palm spread, sculpting her hips, then swooping lower to cup her bottom and knead provocatively, her wish that he give in to temptation and flagrantly mold her to him.
Phoebe gasped, overwhelmed by sensation. By the depth and searing heat of their kiss, by the steady, unrelenting temptation of his lips and tongue, of his questing hand, of her own needs and wants flaring in response. Then his hand firmed; he pressed her to him—and everything within her stilled.
Her heart, her pulse, her wits, her mind.
Her fears.
He shifted against her; there was no mistaking the hard ridge of his erection pressing against her belly.
The last time she’d been this close to a man—
She blocked off the thought surprisingly easily; this was so unlike that other time. This time, desire warmed her veins; this time, passion and lust lapped about her—hers as well as his.
This time she was willing; this time she had some say, some influence.
She might not have control, but he did.
Nerve by nerve, tendon by tendon she let her fears slide away, let their grip on her unravel. Felt them fall away as his hand firmed again; he’d known she’d tensed, known she was close to pushing him away, and had waited.
He hadn’t backed away, but he hadn’t tried to press her on.
When the last vestige of her tension evaporated and she sank willingly against him again, Deverell mentally sighed with relief. They were, thank heaven, over that hurdle. If she’d panicked…
He would have stopped, but the cost would have been more than he wished to contemplate. He’d taken a risk leading her this far, but the angels had smiled and she was still with him.
But he knew his limits, and they’d reached them. He didn’t dare tempt himself more by dallying with her for much longer.
Gradually, moment by moment, he eased them back from the brink of the next step. She wasn’t any great help; her lips clung and tempted, demanded, then pouted when he insisted on lifting his head.
He looked down at her slumbrous eyes and inwardly gloated. Raising one hand, he brushed the pad of his thumb over her full, lower lip and watched passion swim through her lovely, dazed eyes.
He wanted her more than he’d imagined possible.
Dragging in a tight breath, he eased his arms from her; making sure she was steady on her feet, he stepped back, putting space and safe air between them.