It took effort, yet once again he drew back from the kiss. Held back and watched her face until she lifted lids now heavy to reveal eyes now dazed.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” The words sounded harsher than he’d intended. She hadn’t yet panicked, but recollection of that moment in the wood when she had remained a potent image in his mind. He didn’t, ever, want to see such a look in her eyes again—especially not when she was looking at him.
She moistened her lips, breathed, “Yes.”
Disguising his cynicism was beyond him. “Do you know what you’re inviting?”
“Ye-es.” Less certain, less sure. But then her voice firmed; her eyes flashed, briefly meeting his, and she pressed closer again. “Yes. Stop arguing.”
Her body shifted against his; the flagrant incitement was enough to achieve her purpose—to have him jettisoning all resistance, urging her flush against him, bending his head and recapturing her mouth, plunging them back into a heated engagement….
She met him—as boldly as she dared, still not completely sure, but unquestionably determined.
His mind was reeling. Not good.
Regardless of what she thought, she had no idea of what she was dealing with—of what, with him, she held the power to evoke. Provoke. Even he wasn’t sure he’d yet glimpsed the full picture, but what he’d seen so far was enough to shake him; he didn’t want to learn what being confronted by such raw sexual force might do to her.
Yet her lips were hot and swollen beneath his, her mouth yielded, her body wantonly tempting…he was a man, not a eunuch.
A stray thought slid over the surface of his dazed mind; he recognized it, remembered, caught it and clung.
Step by step.
That’s what they’d agreed to. Slow, slow, slow—that had to be his credo.
He firmed his hands on her silk-clad back, then swept them to her sides, then up—and felt her pause, felt her hesitate in her headlong rush to cinder his control and learn all.
He shifted his hands, with his thumbs lightly grazed the sides of her breasts, traced the full curves….
She’d stopped breathing. Totally focused on that simple evocative touch, on each slow, suggestive caress, she halted, waited, let him lead.
He continued to kiss her, continued to lightly caress.
It was the only way he was going to be able to control her, slow her, hold her back, by finding, each time—for clearly there would be other times, more times—the next point of her inexperience, and force her to follow as he educated her senses and her mind.
That was the only way he would—could—retain control. Of her, and himself.
Letting the kiss grow light, less distracting, he slid his hands forward so he cupped her breasts. They filled his palms; he cradled them, weighed them, alert to the tension that had risen within her, the racking of her nerves to the next level of sensual awareness.
Phoebe struggled to cope with the myriad sensations cascading through her, the instincts, the emotions, her nebulous fear. The latter added a sharp edge but didn’t dominate; the pleasurable sensations did.
His touch, hands hard, fingers strong yet gentle—prepared to be gentle—had mesmerized her, her senses, her wits, her mind. Her breasts seemed firmer, swollen, heavier; the heat of his palms sank through her silk bodice and warmed her.
She stood before him, anchored by his kiss, by the continuing supping of his lips and tongue, steadied by the steely columns of his thighs against which hers were propped. She felt safe, supported; she didn’t need to worry about standing erect but could simply concentrate…on her breasts.
On what he was making her feel.
His hands shifted again. She waited…then his thumbs cruised over the straining mounds, flirting about the tightened peaks, then settling to circle them, slowly, hypnotically.
Her flesh tightened, constricted until her nipples were furled buds, pinching and hot. Her senses reveled, wholly caught, nerves leaping. Anticipation rode them with a silver spur.
Sharp, promising excitement untold, pleasure unimagined.
And she wanted.
Her hands had fallen to grip his shoulders; she shifted one to cup his nape, to press in encouragement, to let him know…
He knew. His hands firmed; his fingers came into play, firming about her nipples, gently rolling them, gently tweaking.