Barefoot, she padded over the threshold, then paused, turned back, and shut the door. Clutching her robe around her, she walked-heart in her mouth-to the side of the bed. She stopped a foot from it. The bed was a mass of shadows; she couldn't see his face.
She licked her dry lips, then drew breath and lifted her chin. "I want to sleep with you." She meant more than just sleep, but surely he'd understand.
For one instant, he just stared at her, then his smile flashed. "Good." He lifted the covers beside him. "I want you to sleep with me, too."
A sigh of relief escaped her, chased by a shivery, anticipatory tingle. She shrugged the robe off her shoulders. It fell to puddle at her feet.
Noting his suddenly arrested state-the locking of muscles throughout his large body at the sight of her naked limbs-she shyly slid into his bed.
He let go of the sheets. And reached for her.
"You've just made my favorite dream come true."
She reached for him and drew him to her. "Do you think you can return the favor?"
He looked into her face. "I'll do my very best." He lowered his head. "You can count on it."
That first kiss sealed that promise; she felt it in her bones. Warmth unfurled between them, driving out her chill. She sank into it, offering her mouth and more. Although he claimed her lips, tangled her tongue, mesmerized her wits with slow, tantalizing surges, with one hand framing her face, the other trapped next to her shoulder, he remained beside her, his body a hot line alongside hers, but not touching.
She wanted to touch, to feel, to explore. She wanted to give herself to him and take all he would give in return. There was something very liberating in the thought, a free exchange that, ultimately, would balance, with body, mind, heart, and soul all freely offered on the scales. She turned and pressed, stretched upward against him, matching her body to his.
He gave a wicked chuckle, one not entirely steady. Closing his arms around her, he shifted onto his back, urging her across him. She followed his lead, quite content to sprawl atop him. Much easier to explore from there.
She took his urging as invitation. Wriggling until she straddled his hips, knees bent, calves gripping lightly along his flanks, she braced her arms, palms flat on his chest, and lifted up-so she could survey her prize.
His chest had always fascinated her-the sharp contrasts of smooth, lightly tanned skin and crisp black hair, the palpable weight of muscle and the heavier, harder curves of bone. Fingers splayed, she pressed, glorying in the resilience of muscle, the solid resistance of bone. Then she softened her touch and went searching, caressing lightly, then lovingly, across the broad muscles, down over his ribs, across the ridges of his abdomen. Only her position stopped her from reaching further, but she had all night.
"None of your chest was burned." Her sighing comment reeked with satisfaction.
"No real burns. Just the backs of my hands got scorched."
She examined his hands as he held them up. "Do they hurt?"
He skimmed his palms down her back. "Not enough to stop me from touching you."
She responded to the long, artful caress with a low, murmurous moan.
Of their own volition, her hands stroked upward again to cover his flat nipples. She let her fingers tease and draw, then circle, roll-until his nipples were as tight as hers.
That seemed fair. She smiled and leaned forward, remembering what else he liked to do to her. And how much she liked his doing it. Presumably the same actions worked in reverse. The way he stiffened even before her tongue touched convinced her that was true. She licked, laved, then nipped lightly. That last made him jerk. His hands gripped her hips, fingers sinking in, but he made no effort to stop her.
So she played, fingers firm on one bud while she tortured the other with lips, tongue, and teeth. Then she switched hand and head, trailing wet, openmouthed kisses across his chest on the way. She settled to her task and thought she heard a low moan. He was burning up beneath her, his skin fire-hot everywhere she touched.
A wicked thought occurred. She pressed her body lower, so that her breasts caressed his lower chest and the backs of her thighs moved against his hips, the hot, wet, aching flesh at the juncture of her thighs a bare inch above his flat stomach. Just out of reach of the ultimate prize.
Then she moved. Sliding her body from side to side, she caressed him.
He sucked in a breath; his body tensed beneath her. She sensed his struggle to lie still. His fingers flexed on her hips, tightening before he forced them to relax… she felt their touch drift upward, over her shoulders. She suckled one nipple lightly, then tightly. He arched beneath her. His fingers tangled in her hair, clutched-then he drew her away, turning her face to his.
He swooped-his lips closed on hers in a searing kiss so full of heated passion it stole her breath. The kiss went on and on. He started to turn, to roll her beneath him. She pulled away, hand on his shoulder pressing him back. She shook her head, then found her voice, a little hoarse, like his. "Not yet."
He was tempted to disobey-the tension in his body told her that-but after a fraught moment, he eased back to the bed. His eyes, dark in the night, watched her; his gaze held a heat all its own. His chest rose and fell beneath her hands. "All right. For now."
She smiled and made the gesture beatific, then ducked her head to lick first one aching nipple, then the other. Then she shuffled her legs, her hips, farther down his body, lifting slightly to accommodate the hard shaft of rampant flesh that thrust upward so aggressively from its thicket of black hair, then lowering again so she caressed it, too, sliding the slick, swollen flesh between her thighs down from its broad head all along its ridged length.
A heartfelt groan was her reward; his body bowed, head and shoulders pressing back in reaction. "Dammit! You're an innocent-I know you are."
"Hmm." Innocent she might be, but she had a few ideas.