‘It’s only a fraction of what I want, but I haven’t seen you naked, and I need to. I warn you, Sophie, I want to make this last. I aim to undress you very, very slowly, and then take hours to drive you crazy. I was too eager last time.’
He was irresistible. Wordlessly she offered him the prim cuff of her gown where it closed at the wrist. First he kissed herpalm, very gently and softly, and even that innocent caress made her shiver and close her eyes against the sweetness of it. Then he undid one tiny grey button, pressing his lips to the blue vein that was revealed. It was the lightest touch, the merest brush of contact, but her skin was thin and sensitive there, where the pulse beat, and she whimpered. Another button, another tiny kiss. By the time he had undone every fastening on one sleeve and kissed his way with exquisite tenderness up to her elbow, her breath was coming fast and her breasts were heavy and aching for his touch. Heat was uncoiling deep within her, and she moved restlessly on the bed. But he would not be hurried.
He turned his attention to the other cuff, the other sleeve, and worked his way just as slowly, just as carefully up to her elbow. She heard herself moan softly – what was next?
‘Turn over,’ he said, his voice very deep and low, and she hurried to comply. He started at the nape of her neck, taking his sweet time with the tiny buttons, kissing each inch of her skin as it was bared to him and murmuring soft endearments, and by the time he had reached the edge of her chemise she had half a mind to beg him to rip it off her. In fact, she wasn’t sure she had so much as half a mind any more. She was a quivering mass of need. She rolled over and lifted herself eagerly so that he could pull her gown away and discard it, and then he turned his attention to her petticoats and her stays. By the time they’d been peeled from her with tantalising deliberation and she was left in nothing but her chemise and stockings, she was writhing shamelessly and arching her back to present herself to him. The abrasion of the fine fabric upon her sensitised nipples was close to unbearable. He pulled the flimsy garment over her head and she thought, Now! But he occupied himself in unfastening her hair, unravelling each plait and pulling out each pin with a maddening slowness, then combing his fingers through it where it lay across his pillow.
When he shifted down the bed she thought again, Now! But he was engaged in very slowly untying her garters and rolling down each stocking, kissing his way down each leg in turn, heading in entirely the wrong direction as far as she was concerned. He explored her with his lips, his tongue, but hardly at all with his fingers, and how desperately she wanted his hands on her, and firm touches that satisfied instead of tormenting.
And then at last she was naked and exposed to him, and he, fully clothed and booted, immaculate, sat back on his heels and looked at her with smouldering intensity. His dark eyes ran over her body as his lips had, and with much the same effect. His gaze was a caress, and she felt gloriously wanton under it. Her nipples were hard pebbles, and every hair on her body stood on end in delicious, near-painful anticipation; she was shivering with desire. ‘Do you want me to beg?’ she almost moaned.
He considered the matter seriously, his eyes dark with desire. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I want you to be far beyond begging. Beyond speech of any kind. I want you to forget your own name. I want the room to spin around you and the heavens reel.’
‘Fine words!’ she managed. And then he was working his way up her body again, and she could say no more. His big hands were on her now, holding her just as she needed to be held – how did he know? – and when he reached the junction of her thighs and commanded her to spread herself for him she was trembling, already dizzy, thrusting her hips up at him in mute appeal. When at last the tip of his tongue claimed her swollen nub, she cried out and surrendered to the waves of pleasure that overwhelmed her with shocking suddenness.
He was devouring her suddenly with hungry urgency, all restraint abandoned, and she did forget her name, she forgot everything except the feel of his tongue and his fingers on her, in her. When he moved to worship her breasts with the same fierce focus, she spasmed again, but he was merciless in drawingthe last quiver of arousal from her, and when she came back to herself it was dark outside. Hours had passed, or days.
‘Good God,’ she said weakly. Her own voice sounded foreign to her. He’d destroyed her – if he lays so much as a finger on me again, she thought, anywhere, or blows on my skin like he just did, I’ll come again, and then I’ll die of it. It’s too much. But I don’t care. Her body was so relaxed with the aftermath of glorious release that she felt she was melting into the bed. She hadn’t known a man could be so ruthless in his determination and so selfless in his disregard of his own physical satisfaction.
‘I’d like to please you,’ she whispered. ‘I really would. God knows you’ve earned it. And I want to. But I don’t think I can move. If I try to sit up, I’ll probably faint.’
‘Good,’ he said, and though the room was shadowy she could hear that he was smiling. He’d done all he promised and more, and he was touchingly pleased with himself. He pulled up the quilt, which had been pushed aside long since, and covered her tenderly with it, tucking it around her. ‘Why don’t you sleep a little? I’ll go and get you some food – you must be ravenous. I’ll take the key with me so that you can be sure you will be undisturbed.’
She thought of saying, Your self-control is barely human. But she was fast asleep before he had closed and locked the door behind him.
29
When Sophie awoke, Rafe was sitting beside her. He had drawn the curtains and lit a few candles, and the room was even cosier and more intimate in the soft light. He’d brought her a tray with lots of tempting little morsels of food, napkins, and a bottle of rich red wine with just one glass. They would have to share, he told her. She sat up, suddenly as ferociously hungry as he had predicted, and they set about the meal. She was still naked and did not think to cover herself, but found that she was eating in a deliberately provocative manner, sucking her fingers, shaking back the dark cloak of her hair to bare herself to him again. He was sitting beside her, propped against the pillows as she was, and after they had eaten their fill and were merely toying with the food he took the glass from her hand. He sipped, holding her with his eyes, and then dipped his finger in the dark liquid and very deliberately dribbled a trail across the upper slope of her breast, then lowered his head and licked it slowly from her, careful not to miss the smallest drop. Her nipples peaked, pleasantly sore still from his attentions but eager to be tongued and tweaked and nibbled again. She shuddered with returningdesire, and with the sudden knowledge – half enticing, half alarming – that he’d be quite prepared to do it all once more.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s my turn now. I’m going to do to you just exactly what you did to me – the only difference is there’s more of you, and so it will take longer.’
‘Do what you will with me,’ he said very low. ‘Fast or slow, I don’t mind.’ He swung round and sat up, setting his feet on the floor, and she slid from the bed and knelt between his legs so that she could take off his top boots. ‘Stay there a second,’ he said. ‘Let me look at you. You’re so beautiful.’
‘I can’t linger, my lord. I have a great deal to do. Does your valet generally perform this task for you?’ she asked, grasping the shining leather and tugging. He was a gentleman of fashion, not a dandy but a Corinthian, and he must surely have a valet to take care of his clothes.
‘I suppose he does, but I can assure you that it’s really not the same.’
‘I should hope not,’ she said, setting one boot aside and commencing on the other; they were tight, and not easy to remove, but at last she had the second one free, and moved to unfasten the buttons at the knees of his breeches. She slipped her fingers under the hem and caressed the skin still hidden there, and then she pulled down his stockings, as slowly as she could manage. It seemed she was more impatient than he by nature. His calves were firm and muscular, and she stroked them appreciatively, then bent to kiss his feet, her hair falling in dark curtains about her face.
‘Sophie…’ he groaned.
‘Shush! I’m wondering what to do next. Your coat, I think.’ She stood between his thighs – he was still sitting – and began to peel back his tight blue superfine coat from his broad shoulders. He helped her, shrugging out of it, and his plain waistcoat came off much more easily, after she had slowly undone each of itsbuttons. He had far fewer buttons than she did – it didn’t seem fair. But she was tantalising him quite satisfactorily, she thought: he’d plainly been entranced by the sight of her kneeling at his feet, breasts bouncing with the effort of dragging off his boots, and the removal of his coat and waistcoat had presented him with the same prospect, far closer. It was an effort for him not to seize her, she knew instinctively.
She could just pull his shirt over his head in one swift movement and have done with it – but no. Too fast, too easy. She moved to straddle him, her bare thighs and bottom resting on the soft buckskin leather of his breeches, and began inching up the fine lawn of his shirt, untucking it from his waistband and pulling it higher with painstaking slowness until just a glimpse of his sculpted abdomen was revealed. Really, who was tormenting whom here?
Gathering the fullness of the fabric in both hands, she raised it higher, and he lifted his arms obediently so that she could pull it right over his head and discard it. But she didn’t. When it was high enough to cover his face and trap his arms, she stopped. She held him there, her prisoner, and pressed her body close against his, glorying in his warmth, the intoxicating masculine scent of him, and the fact that the tables had turned and he was in her power now.
She slid her core against the hot leather that covered his groin, his hardness straining against her, and rubbed her breasts deliberately to and fro over the whorls of dark hair on his muscled chest. ‘Sophie,’ he said, his voice hoarse and muffled in the folds of material, ‘you are pleasuring yourself against me, and I cannot see it! Do you have any idea how unfair that is?’
‘Just a little pleasuring, and just a little unfair,’ she said breathlessly, her skin sensitised by his rough hair, the hard muscles and the smooth leather. ‘But now it is time to move on.’ She pushed him firmly back to lie flat upon the bed, but shedid not remove his shirt to release him. He could have pulled it over his head and freed himself quite easily – but that would be against the unspoken rules of the game they were playing, and so he did not.
Her hand was on the buttons that closed the fall of his breeches. She gripped one strong thigh between hers as she undid him, and shamelessly she ground herself against him while her fingers worked. They were both panting now, and she thought she might climax again long before she had done with him. She was both sorry and not sorry when it was time to dismount from him and pull down his breeches; when they were cast aside and he had sprung free in all his magnificent erectness, she could only be glad. She wanted to eat him – but again, that would be too easy.
She darted out her tongue and licked the glistening slit at the head of his member, just a fleeting taste, and he groaned, his body bucking under her, but she pulled away. She straddled his thighs and paused to consider. He was hard against her curls, so close to where he needed to be, just a few inches away, but not quite there. She could see and feel him twitching against her. Then she smiled to herself – of course her face was not visible to him – and twisted her locks into a great hank, which she then used to flick and tickle all across his chest, while her thighs gripped him and he thrust involuntarily up against her. Between tantalising flicks of her hair she found one hard, pebbled nipple and sucked on it. When she ventured to nip him a little with her teeth, he jolted so hard that he lifted his body and hers right off the bed.
‘Was that pleasure or pain?’ she whispered, and as her breath feathered his skin he shuddered.
‘I don’t know. Does it matter? Do it again!’
