Lifting his head, he looked into her hazed eyes. “You don’t have to fight me—you like being kissed by me.”
She blinked, struggled to find enough breath to say, “Yes.”
“And then?”
“And then…” Her gaze grew distant; after a moment, she licked her swollen lips. “We were struggling. I was trying to break free, but he was much stronger than me—he kept me pinned against the wall and started to pull up my skirts.”
“Like this?” With one hand, he grasped her skirts and drew them up, bunching them in his fist.
Eyes locked with his, she drew in an unsteady breath. “Yes.” The word shook, but it wasn’t fear but desire that made her voice quaver.
He lowered his head so that his breath washed over her lips. “And then?”
This time, when she tried to lick her lips, he swooped and captured her tongue, drew it into his mouth, then released it. “What happened next?”
Her breasts swelled as she drew in a breath. “He pushed one of his legs between mine—forced my legs apart.”
“Like this?”
He lifted her slightly, pressing one rock-hard thigh between hers, forcing her to ride the tensed muscle, ruthlessly stimulating her even through her rucked skirts.
She gasped, let her head fall back against the wall. “Yes—like that.” But then she shook her head, frowning. “No—not like that. With him it didn’t feel good.” He pressed and she gasped. “Nothing like—”
“Nothing like this, nothing like with me.”
“No…that was awful. This is…nice.”
That was what he’d wanted and hoped to hear, a reassurance that her past wouldn’t—couldn’t—come between them, not now, not later. He waited until she refocused on his eyes. “What then?”
She dragged in a huge breath. “Three maids came into the gallery, carrying warming pans for the guests’ beds. They were chattering—they were almost on us before they realized. They gasped and fell back. Then they froze. They didn’t know what to do. He’d twisted to look at them—I shoved, he staggered back and I broke free and fled.”
He paused, then said, “There’s no maids here.”
She focused on his eyes, saw him clearly. “No.” Her lips softened. “Nothing to stop you…from taking me.”
He looked into her eyes. “Only you.”
She studied his eyes, his face, then reached up with one hand, slid her palm over his nape, speared her fingers into his hair, and drew his lips to hers. “I don’t want you to stop.”
She breathed the words, then sealed his lips, and kissed him. Deeply.
He drew her skirts higher, trapped them at her waist, reached between her spread thighs and found her. Ready and swollen, wet and wanting.
It was the work of a minute to open the placket of his trousers, to free his aching staff and slowly, steadily, bury it deep in the hot haven she so ardently offered.
She sighed into his mouth, then arched as he lifted her higher against the wall, wordlessly urging him deeper.
He thrust in and she moaned; when he lifted her legs she wrapped them about his hips and clung. Gasping as he held her there, impaled, fully open, fully his.
It was a strange and wonderful loving, full of sighs and strangled moans, of intimate penetration accomplished beneath their clothes, and an even more evocative acceptance. Her body clasped his, again and again, holding him deep within her. There was no rush, no uncontrolled, out-of-control driving passion—just a simple wish for pleasure, a search to find it, give it, receive it in full measure. To wring every last scintilla of sensation from the moment, from their joining.
And at the last, when their senses were gorged and their nerves shredded and the frantic moment was upon them, when heat seared through their veins and for that glorious instant ripped them from the world, they still clung, wrapped together, savoring every last instant together.
The wave caught them, lifted them high, then flung them into ecstasy.
Once it faded, they fell back and collapsed across her bed, too exhausted to move, too sated to care.
Their labored breaths filled the air; he thought he could hear their hearts still thundering.