As he deepened the kiss and she surrendered, as she felt the rising heat melt her bones.
His arms tightened about her, crushing her breasts, already peaked and tight and aching, to the hard solid planes of his chest. One large palm swept down her back, pressing her to him, then sliding lower, over her hip, to grasp her bottom and angle her hips to his.
So he could move against her, so he could mold her against the rigid length of his erection, let her feel and anticipate having that hard length inside her. Thrusting into her, filling her, taking her….
Her mind reeled. She broke from the kiss on a gasp. “Upstairs.” The word was breathless, weightless. She hauled in a breath and tried again. “We should go up to my room.”
He stared down at her, gray eyes dark with passion—the passion she’d stirred, that had turned every muscle in his large body to hard-edged steel.
Then he blinked, focused—and she realized he’d been so caught up in having her, if she hadn’t spoken he would have had her there—on the rug before the fire or bent over the desk. A shiver of awareness and something more illicit slithered down her spine.
Before she could rethink, he managed a stiff nod. “Yes. Upstairs.” His voice was low and gravelly, already choked with desire. Another shiver threatened, this time one of sheer anticipation.
He had to force his arms to release her. The instant they did, before she could surrender to her baser self she turned and led the way from the room. He followed on her heels, close, close enough when they turned onto the stairs to rest a heavy, possessive hand on her back. Low on her back, on the curve of her bottom. She’d forgotten that—how, in the distant past, when they’d slipped away from balls and parties to be together, he’d always touched her, steered her, like that.
As if he couldn’t wait to touch her even more intimately.
As if he couldn’t wait to have her naked.
He often hadn’t.
But that had been then, when he was younger. Now, as she opened her bedchamber door and led him inside, she was very aware that he, the man at her heels, the male she would give herself to that night, was no callow youth.
Halting in the center of the room, she faced him. Saw him still by the door, watching her. Heard the click as, his gaze on her, he snibbed the lock.
Then he moved.
He walked toward her slowly, shadows and moonlight dappling his large frame.
When he halted before her, less than a foot away, he was all heat and power in the darkness, his very maleness sliding like a hand over her skin, leaving her nerves flickering. Waiting for his touch.
Moments ticked by as he looked into her face. Although she was tall, he was taller, broad and heavy where she was slender and slight, so much stronger she should have felt fear, yet she never had.
His strength was under his absolute control, and hers to command; she’d always known that.
So it wasn’t fear of that sort that sent a tingling lick up her spine.
He seemed to sense it, for he moved. Lifted both large, hard palms and framed her face.
Gently. As if to remind her his strength wasn’t to be feared.
But she felt something else in his touch, sensed it in his gaze. An intent she couldn’t name, that she hadn’t before encountered in him, that she had no experience of to draw on.
His lips curved subtly, as if he could read her sudden wondering in her eyes. He lowered his head—slowly—until his breath washed over her lips.
Making her hungry, making her want—until she tried to stretch up and press her lips to his and take what she needed—
And discovered she couldn’t.
That although his touch was gentle, it was enough to restrain her.
She sank back, would have frowned if desire hadn’t had her in thrall.
His lips curved a touch more and he bent his head—and gave her what she wanted. He took her lips in an achingly slow, devastatingly thorough kiss.
He drew back, lips supping idly at hers, then lifted his head far enough to meet her eyes. To look into them as he murmured, “Tonight, it’ll be my way.” His gaze lowered to her lips; he took them again in a heady, flagrantly explicit caress. “All my way.”
The words were deep, dark, his voice roughened by desire; she wasn’t surprised when he kissed her—even more explicitly, even more suggestively—on their heels.