About Last Night

“I am,” he said with a smile.

Did a considerate man make a considerate lover? It stood to reason, but she’d never tested the proposition. City was the first considerate man she’d ever wanted to sleep with.

He returned, pulled the T-shirt off over her head, and pushed her gently back onto the mattress. No hesitation. No playing around. He behaved like a guy who was used to getting what he wanted. It was heady, being what he wanted and letting him get her.

He looked her over for a while, scanning her head to toe as she lay back on his white comforter. Normally this would be her cue to go into sexpot mode—arch her back, get on her hands and knees and stick out her butt, anything to turn her small self into a more desirable being than nature had made her. But she didn’t. She could see City’s appreciation in his eyes, and it made all her nerve endings tingle. He didn’t want her in sexpot mode. He just wanted her.

“Second thoughts?” he asked.

“Nope.” She’d save those for later.

“Good.” With a half smile that showcased his dimple, he stripped out of his own shirt and shucked his jeans, losing whatever he wore underneath right along with them. Or maybe he hadn’t worn anything underneath at all.

Blimey. He had the most flawless body she’d ever seen, tall and rangy, roped with muscle. The body of a runner who rowed and played rugby—lean, but broad through the shoulders, with strong arms and lats. Hard all over. Tasty.

His movements were casual and unhurried, as if he were still washing dishes in the kitchen rather than getting ready to … well. But he was ready, she could see that. If he hadn’t closed the curtains, they could probably see that on the next block. She was definitely beginning to see bankers in a new light.

When he climbed onto the bed and straddled her, she ran her fingers lightly up his thighs and closed one hand around him for confirmation, making him groan low in his throat. Yep. Hard all over.

Lowering himself onto his elbows, he hovered over her, but he didn’t kiss her yet. Instead he stared down at her, cataloging her features. Breathing inside her personal space, brushing his raspy cheek against her soft one. He touched the tip of his nose to hers, his lips to her chin. And all the while she stroked him, slow and easy, enjoying the play of soft skin over steel, the way he hardened against her palm and his eyes lost focus when she squeezed.

It had been so long since she’d been close to another person. Her solitary life lacked any physical contact but the occasional handshake, the social air kiss. She wanted to press every inch of herself against him, to rub her skin against his and exult in the connection.

He smelled like his soap, spicy and exotic, bringing to mind peppercorns and trade voyages and the mysteries of the East. But beneath all that, he smelled like a man, like himself, and she buried her nose in the crook of his neck and inhaled, wanting to taste him on the back of her tongue. Wanting to memorize this indelible marker of who he was.

He nudged her cheek with the back of his fingers, urging her to lift her face. “Come here, darling,” he said, letting the endearment trip off his tongue the way only an Englishman could. “I want to kiss you.”

Unaccustomed to sweetness, she melted a little at that.

The kiss started out light, gentle, but his mouth got hungry fast, and soon his tongue was plunging between her teeth, keeping rhythm with each thrust against her hand that nudged her stomach and heightened the hollow ache at her center. They seemed to have skipped the getting-to-know-you caresses and the long talks over dinner. She didn’t mind. For all its novelty, his body felt familiar, their explorations lacking the standard first-time awkwardness. She simply absorbed him, every second of being close to him making her want him more. It had been so long, and he was so sexy, so beautiful and intense. And yet there was an effortlessness in the way he moved and the way he kissed that made him easy to be with.

City broke off the kiss and guided her hand off him, interlacing their fingers. “I’ll be hopeless if you carry on like that. Let’s make this last, shall we?”

She didn’t answer. His mouth began to travel down her body at a leisurely pace, and she tried to remember a time when another man, any other man, had taken her hand off his dick so he could kiss her neck and make her shivery. She drew a blank. Considerate, indeed.

He took his time to figure out what she liked as he explored the terrain of her torso. Throat, collarbones, sternum, ribs, and finally—finally—her breasts. He spent an eternity playing around with her bra, teasing her with his lips at the edge of the lace. His teeth. His tongue. Finally she yanked one satin cup down and practically shoved her nipple into his mouth, holding him in place with her fingers in his hair. She felt the vibration of his laughter through her whole body, but it was worth it, because he didn’t require a speck of help to work out what to do with that nipple in order to make her toes curl and her hips buck.

And then

her bra was gone and he kept moving southward, slowly and patiently, and she became increasingly convinced patience was not a virtue.

His free hand trailed behind, stroking with long, capable fingers where he had kissed and licked, fondling her breasts and teasing her wet nipples as his lips kissed a path along her rib cage. She squeezed his hand tight whenever he found a good spot, gasped and moaned, urging him on. Urging him downward. But it was City who ran the show, compelling her response as if her body were his to command.

Funny thing. It was.

Cath was accustomed to taking charge in the bedroom. She liked sex—hell, she loved it, always had—but she’d learned over the years that most men required a firm guiding hand and plenty of encouragement if she wanted to walk away satisfied.

City, though. Here was a man who didn’t need to take dictation in order to make her body hum. He was doing a fine job of figuring things out all by himself—such a fine job that she was breathless and achy, her pelvis rising off the bed again and again in a silent plea he completely ignored.

He made a study of the tattoo on her stomach, releasing her hand so that he could grip her hip as he traced the intricate markings with one finger. Then with his tongue. A tangled tracery of lines and swirls in every possible style, the tattoo was meant to be a labyrinth, which maybe explained why she got so hopelessly lost and disoriented under the light, warm, wet pressure of his mouth. His thumb held hard at her hipbone, fingers sinking into the flesh of her butt, until every flick of his tongue brought an answering throb between her legs, every stroke getting her wetter and closer to begging.

The tattoo continued around her back, and eventually so did he, flipping her over easily and pulling her up onto her hands and knees, his lips tracing her tailbone. Her arms trembled, but she didn’t want him to stop. She didn’t ever want him to stop. He knelt behind her and removed her panties, then ran his huge, warm hands over every inch of her body in long strokes, shoulder to hip, over her breasts, sternum, stomach, knees and thighs, curving his fingers around her waist, between her legs, around her ass. Everywhere. He was claiming her, marking her with his touch, but she didn’t feel possessed so much as she felt protected. Cherished. Wanted. The unaccustomed intimacy of it rendered her fragile, vulnerable as a robin’s egg. Somehow with him it was all right. He wouldn’t take advantage. City was one of the good guys.

When he spread her thighs and brought his hand between them, she dropped to her elbows, pressing her face into the comforter. She was feverish, overwhelmed, and he made it so much worse and so much better. He dragged the pad of one finger over her swollen flesh, exploring her folds, arousing her with light pressure and her own slick moisture. Half draped over her back, he breathed against her neck as he pushed two fingers inside her, deep and rough. With a strangled squeak, Cath arched into his hand, wanting more. Much more. “You like that?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“You want me, Mary Catherine?”