His kiss was hard and hot and slow, almost lazy, and Selena melted under the heat of it. Her body, of its own accord, pressed against Kyle shamelessly, seeking the intimate contact, quivering as the fabric of his shirt rasped against her unrestrained breasts, as his vital hardness caressed her belly. She found herself longing to feel his skin.
She was supposed to remove his clothes, Selena remembered vaguely. She drew back slightly, and with trembling fingers she loosened the buttons of his shirt one by one and parted the edges of the fine cambric. Then she slowly reached up to touch a taut cord in his neck. He flinched as if burned but didn’t move away.
Determined now, she trailed elegantly tapered fingers down Kyle’s chest. The muscles covering his ribs felt hard and sleek, the slight matting of hair, soft yet springy. She felt his muscles contract harshly with tension as she drew her fingers over the hard ridges of his stomach. Looking up, she met his heated gaze. And then her fingers boldly moved lower.
His sharp intake of breath was audible, and so was the sound of her heartbeat as she attended to the buttons in the front of his trousers.
“Selena,” Kyle breathed, the word a warning and a plea for mercy, neither of which she acknowledged.
He was full and hot, throbbing beneath her touch, and the silken feel of him roused a desire in her that was incredible for its acute intensity. Angel hadn’t mentioned that, Selena reflected. Nor had she mentioned what Kyle’s reaction would be—only that he would like it. So why was Kyle closing his eyes, as if he were in pain? Perhaps she wasn’t doing it right.
Trying to recall the brief lesson she had been given in the art of pleasing a man, Selena dipped a finger in the brandy and repeated what Kyle had done to her: touching him with the slightest of pressures, drawing the tip of her finger slowly along the full length of his heated shaft.
Kyle shuddered and made a grab for her ministering hand, holding it away.
“Don’t you like that?” She looked up at him, a question in her blue eyes.
“Of course,” he said in a strangled voice. “But I’m warning you, if you keep it up, you won’t be going home tonight.”
As a threat it lacked substance, since it was precisely what Selena had hoped for. Taking courage from his reply, she did what she never thought she would find the nerve to do: slowly she knelt before him.
“Lord,” Kyle rasped when he realized her intent.
Selena was more than a little shocked by her own brazenness, but she reminded herself that this was Kyle, her husband. Cheeks aflame, she leaned forward to taste his pulsing erection with her tongue.
“Lord,” Kyle said again in a breathless whisper, his hand coming up to ride her head. But then he became completely still as he submitted to the shy explorations of her mouth, afraid to breathe, afraid he would frighten her away. Her touch was unpracticed and tentative but all the more tantalizing because of it. And it was driving him over the edge.
Unable to bear the throbbing tension any longer, Kyle grasped Selena by the arm and drew her to her feet. His fingers tightened as he stared at her incredulously. She didn’t seem about to turn modest on him. Her flesh was soft and pliant beneath his fingers, her eyes warm and liquid with desire. Kyle shook his head. Every time he thought he knew how Selena would behave, she startled him afresh with some new action. But he was going to quit trying to figure her out. And he
was going to quit fighting her seductive advances. For days he had suppressed his intense desire for her, and he was going to accept what she seemed to be willingly offering.
Without a word he strode over to the table, pulling Selena behind him. When he had set down the glass, freeing his hands, he proceeded to undress her, first loosing the laces of her corset, then helping her out of the thin chemise. He discovered he had trouble breathing as he surveyed her then. It was erotic: the slim nude body garbed only in stockings and slippers. The sight added inches to his arousal.
When she bent to untie her garters, he stayed her with a touch of his hand. “No, leave it. I want you just the way you are.”
Selena caught the flare of undisguised lust in his eyes and abandoned the dictates of her well-bred conscience. “Shouldn’t you take off your clothes?” she asked.
Kyle’s glance slanted sideways, flickering over the table. He hesitated, struggling with his inclination to lay her there and bury himself quickly in her body. But she wasn’t a tavern wench or any of the countless doxies he knew who would have enjoyed such a lusty coupling. She was his wife, a lovely, totally feminine lady. Clamping down fiercely on his urges, he strode over to the bed and sat down on the edge to remove his boots. Then came his shirt and finally his trousers.
Selena, much to her shame, found herself watching Kyle’s every movement as he shed his clothing, drinking in the way the candle flame cast a golden luster over the smooth expanse of flesh and sinew. His coppery body was breathtaking, powerful and sleekly muscled. And his straining magnificence held a fascination for her that was almost hypnotic. She couldn’t look away.
He settled himself on the bed again and met her gaze across the room. His amber eyes reflected the light of the candle, glowing with the same warmth. “Come here,” he said softly.
She couldn’t have disobeyed if she tried. She went to him at once, quivering as he lightly grasped her hips to draw her between his powerful thighs. His hands were warm against her cool flesh, the gleam in his eyes hot and smoldering.
He had wonderful hands, Selena thought dazedly as he began to caress her. All bronzed sinews and rough calluses. They moved slowly over her slim waist and flat stomach, stimulating, arousing, making her breath come too rapidly. Then he cupped her breasts in his palms, running his thumbs lightly over the nipples, and she stopped breathing entirely. He tugged gently on the peaks till they were distended and hard and Selena was ready to plead with him for release.
Desperately, her hands came up, her fingers tangling in the soft thickness of his hair. “Kyle…please.” She wanted him to take her nipples into his mouth, as he had done before, but he wouldn’t oblige. Instead, he splayed his fingers and ran his hand down her body, sliding it intimately between her legs.
He caressed the heavy satin of her inner thighs with the subtle eroticism of an experienced lover, discovering all her tender, most responsive places, while his lips danced moist kisses over her breasts. In only a moment Selena was quivering and throbbing with aching need.
But then Kyle slid from the bed to his knees, letting his tongue swirl over the taut skin of her abdomen. When his lips moved lower, she gasped.
“Kyle…”
“Hush, I want to taste you.”
She knew she should have protested, but reason fled as he buried his tongue in the curls between her thighs. Letting her hands fall to his shoulders, she braced herself for his tender assault. In this room there were no barriers, no inhibitions. Just Kyle and herself, naked and wanting. He was her lover, rugged and untamed, and she was his woman, her body straining toward him with a woman’s longing.