Her toes were pointed, and she moved restively. In an abashed voice, she said, “I don’t think you ought to be down there because you might—”
He looked up at her. “See?” He could see. He could see the froth of her golden curls, and beneath them a hint, an actual hint, of the pink flesh he craved. He wanted to taste her, to see if she melted on his tongue like vanilla ice on a hot day.
“You look like a cannibal.” Her heart thudded so hard she thought her chest would burst, but how could she help it? He wore his desire like a savage, with color painted high in his cheeks and muscles knotted across his broad chest.
“What a wonderful idea.” He slid his palms up her legs, spreading them as he went.
She whimpered and tried to close them. She didn’t understand him. What was he saying? The things she knew about mating did not include a man kissing her inner thigh and working his way up as if he wanted to…he desired to…be a cannibal. Pulling her bottom to the edge of the bed, he placed his mouth there, at the heart of her dampness.
“Stop!” She tried to push his head away. Then his tongue thrust inside her, and sensation sizzled along her nerve endings and straight to the center of her being. Flinging back her head, she gasped, and gasped again as his tongue lavished sensation inside her. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on each thrust as if only by concentration could she control this turmoil roiling inside her. Yet just when she thought she had achieved control, he withdrew. She still ached with need, but he was done. Thank heavens. Her heart fluttered, and she couldn’t believe she had allowed such a thing—or rather, that he had dared to do such a thing.
Was this the way it was between a man and a woman? This wrenching mad
ness that both enticed and demanded? This immodest intimacy, this glorious darkness?
Leaning back on her hands, she looked down at the intent expression on his face, one that pondered and planned—and realized he was not done. As he wrapped his arm around one of her legs and lifted it to allow him greater intimacy, she said, without a hope he would listen, “Harry, no.”
He didn’t listen. Instead he leaned into her and, using his teeth and lips and tongue, found her small, sensitive nub. Tenderly he eased his mouth around it and sucked on it, using his tongue to prod and stroke—and she lost control. She struggled to forbid him, and instead moaned aloud. No longer aware of modesty or propriety, she trembled and moaned. Yet she couldn’t let go; it was too odd, too discomforting. Everything was too new. At last he gave a growl. Using the edge of his teeth, he scraped her lightly. So lightly.
As the world shook beneath her, her body took control. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think, she could only accept the climax that overwhelmed her. Each spasm was mightier than the last, pulling her farther along the path of experience, until when Harry had stopped she was ready…for anything.
Dazed and enraptured, she looked at him as he stood between her legs, brown and muscled, magnificent in his nudity. She could scarcely speak, but she managed to say the words that popped into her mind. “I wish you would hurry.”
His eyes blazed as he gazed down on her, gasping, satisfied, and yet still needy, and still clad in her chemise. “Wrap your legs around me.”
She did.
He adjusted her so that their bodies matched. His penis pressed where his tongue had pressed before. He looked into her eyes. “Now. Watch while I make you mine.”
She expected great pain. Instead, he moved inside eased by the moisture of her body. She found discomfort, heat, and a return of that odd, distracting, wonderful fullness that led, she now knew, to a grand and glorious release. “Harry,” she breathed.
He observed her, as intent on her pleasure as on his own. Or was it possession that made him watch her so? She didn’t know. No matter. It was too late. She loved this, the sweat, the effort, the pain, the pleasure. She loved him.
Her arms shook as she leaned on them, as she tilted her hips to accept him more easily. He moved forward until…he had to pause. To struggle. A sharper pain that made her clutch the sheets in clawed fists. Then he broke through and went on, and when he had sheathed himself to the hilt, she managed to smile up at him and pant, “Very…good.”
His eyelids drooped, and he almost smiled back. Almost. But it appeared he couldn’t quite move his lips in that manner. It appeared he clung to the last shreds of his restraint. “Are you ready?”
Ready for what? She didn’t dare ask. She nodded.
Slowly he drew out, the long length of him slipping away. Then he pushed back inside her, filling her again. As he moved, the discomfort of his intrusion faded, to be replaced by another, more urgent discomfort. Her body was making demands.
“Can you feel it?” he whispered. “The pleasure’s coming again. But this time it will be more.”
“How much more?” Surely she’d experienced everything before. Surely…Her legs clutched him as he moved more quickly. Sensation built, filling her, stretching her capacity for control. She whimpered, and moaned, and finally, when she thought she couldn’t bear the buffeting of pleasure anymore, another climax swept her away. And as he promised, this time it was more. Reaching up, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She muffled her screams in his chest. Her body demanded from him …and his body responded. He bent over her, his gaze fixed to hers as he thrust into her, burning her with his heat and his urgency. Lowering her onto the bed, he poured himself into her, and his shout of triumph told her everything she needed to know.
Although he might not realize it, she had given him love, and in that love he had found respite.
When they came to rest, she found she had to try and tell him a little of how she felt. She couldn’t declare her love; he wouldn’t want that. But she could slide her hands into his hair, bring his mouth to hers, and kiss him deeply, and say, “That was the most glorious moment of my life, from the past or in the future.”
A slow smile quirked his lips. “From the past,yes, but if I were you, I wouldn’t be so confident about the future.”
Her eyes widened.
He untied the bow at the neck of her chemise. “After all, I haven’t yet seen your breasts.”
Seven
At dawn, as Jessie slid out of the bed, Harry woke. He watched through half-closed eyes as she landed with a thump, and staggered as if her legs weren’t functioning correctly. A satisfying notion for a man who had worked most of the midnight hours making sure she was dazed with love and overwhelmed with delight.