Their mouths had fused again, neither willing to forgo that contact, the slick heated pleasure of their mating tongues.
Then his hands found her breasts, and her focus shifted. To his touch, the quality of it, to this, a culminating possession. He kneaded, flagrantly demanding, then his wicked fingers found her nipples and she gasped through their kiss.
He played briefly, expertly winding the tension building within her, until, driven by the excruciating delight, she arched beneath him, consumed by their fire and begging for release.
His hands left her breasts and ranged lower, spanning her ribs, her waist, as they swept down to her hips, then pressed around and beneath. One hard thigh pressed hers wide, anchoring them, leaving her open and vulnerable—desperate, urgent and aching for his touch.
When his hand cupped her she cried out; when his fingers parted her folds and found her slickness, she nearly sobbed.
Her lungs were so tight, she couldn’t breathe but through him. Fingers clenched in his hair, she held him to her, and with her lips and tongue urged him on.
Gervase needed no encouragement; he was already sunk deep in passion’s thrall, closer to overwhelmed than he’d ever been. He’d imagined this first encounter would be slow, a gentle initiation during which he led her along the path to intimacy, to sensual fulfillment.
Instead there was heat and searing flame, a passion beyond his experience, and a need so profound that if she hadn’t been so blatantly willing, controlling it would have brought him to his knees.
He had to have her, had to be inside her, had to make her his—that was all the direction his mind let alone his body seemed able to accommodate.
Hot, urgent, it had to be this way.
As he pressed a finger deep into her sheath, and felt her tremble—not with shock or even surprise but with unalloyed anticipation—he made a mental vow to make it up to her next time, that their next engagement would have all the gentleness, the tenderness, that this one did not. Would not.
She arched, breaking their kiss, losing what little breath she had in a gasp so evocative—so provocative, so sensually desperate—that it rocked him.
He withdrew his finger, then pressed another in alongside, stretching her…but she was in no mood to be denied, even in such a cause. She shifted against him, her body arching against his in wordless entreaty. She rode every day and was stronger than any female he’d previously had under him; he couldn’t easily control her, couldn’t stop her from sensually wrestling—given his state, his already strained and tenuous control, and her aim, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.
Muttering a curse, he found her lips with his and pressed her back into the cushions, subduing her—appeasing her—with a kiss so demanding she had all she could do to meet him, match him…while he withdrew his fingers from the scalding haven of her sheath, settled his hips between her thighs, and entered her.
He slid in a little way easily enough, but then the untried tightness of her sheath slowed him. He pressed on, steady and sure as she quieted beneath him, as her whole awareness focused on his invasion.
Giving thanks she was so tall that he co
uld easily kiss her while burying himself inside her, he used his lips and tongue to draw her back to the kiss, but this time she wouldn’t be distracted; her inner tension returned, her fingers tightening on his upper arms, nails sinking in as he forged deeper into her—and swept past her maidenhead, barely any barrier.
She rode astride and had for a decade, another blessing.
Madeline felt the slight give, the faint sting, but the momentary discomfort was immediately swamped by a wholly different sensation. He didn’t withdraw but thrust deeper still, seating himself fully, heavily, within her, and she was suddenly mentally, sensually gasping, trying to absorb, to take it in, to accustom her senses to his weight above her, pinning her to the daybed, to the hardness of his thighs pressing hers wide, his hair-dusted muscles rasping her smooth skin, but more than anything else to the hard, hot masculine reality buried deep within her.
It felt like hot steel encased in velvet; no wonder men so often referred to it as a weapon—a sword, a lance.
She inwardly shuddered, still caught in passion’s flames but for an instant able to know, to clearly sense—and feel—physical vulnerability, a sensation she’d rarely experienced, to understand why he’d termed this a conquest.
His lips were still on hers, his tongue stroking hers, but although joined fully with her, he’d stilled, as if he were waiting….
She realized she’d tensed; she wasn’t sure why. On the thought, her muscles eased, the tension flowing away. Revealing the fire still burning, poised, waiting, flames hungry and eager.
Swelling again, growing, demanding.
As if he knew, before she could even think to move, he did; he withdrew, then thrust deep again, forging even further than before.
And the flames flared, roared as he repeated the movement. She gasped and clung to the kiss, eager again, desperate again.
Burning again.
Again and again he withdrew and thrust in; she found his rhythm and matched him. Clutched as the flames built, then raced down her veins; heat poured from them as he rode her hard, then harder, and she absorbed each thrust, each deep penetration, welcomed the passion, embraced the fire, drew it and him into her.
Until her core ignited, until bright tension gripped her so fiercely she thought she might die.
She pulled away from the kiss, desperately arching beneath him, head back, reaching for she knew not what.