Blood throbbed to his cock. He pulled her hair, baring her neck, and found her skin with his teeth.
Mine,he thought as he sucked at her skin,mine, goddamnit, mine for the whole bloody world to see.
But… no. That wasn’t right. This wasn’t what he’d meant to do.
He hesitated. He kept one hand in her hair the way she liked, but he let his other hand slide down. He touched her eyelashes—still wet, damn it, what a jackass he was—and then her cheek. He stroked her lips with his thumb, first the top and then the full lower one, kiss-flushed and damp.
“Don’t stop,” she breathed against his fingers. But she had softened too—her nails dragged up his back not like desperation, but like a slow and steady ascent.
“Never,” he said. “Never, Winnie.”
He unfastened the hooks at the side of her bodice and slipped the dress from her shoulders. He worked open the knot of her stays and tugged the undergarment free. Winnie in turn loosed the buttons of his waistcoat, pulling it from his body. She leaned into him, kissed the bare skin at his throat, let her tongue trace the hollow there.
He shuddered at the sensation of her mouth on him, the delicate stroke that he felt in his bollocks. She ran her hands up his thighs, teasing slowly inward, but he nudged her back.
“Wait a moment. I want to look at you.”
She paused, moistening her lips with one flick of her tongue. His belly tightened at the sight, at the memory of her mouth on his cock.
But he did not reach for her, as much as he wanted to. She stood before him, her eyes up, her lashes spiky with tears. He realized she was trembling.
The window faced away from the afternoon sun. The light passed delicately over her body—no glinting ridges or dark hidden shadows. Everything seemed softer, diffused in some way. In her thin chemise and stockinged feet, she was as vulnerable to him as if she’d been naked.
He wanted…
He didn’t know what he wanted. He wished she would put out her hand for him to take. He wanted to go down on his knees before her—he wanted his head between her thighs, he wanted her sobbing out his name, and at the same time, he wanted to humble himself before her. He wanted to beg.
Hell, he wantedherto beg, wanted her to need him a thousandth part as much as he needed her.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please, Spencer.”
It would have to do. He closed the gap between them, pulled her chemise up, and stroked all the way from her hips to the sides of her breasts.
She exhaled, quick and sharp, and then gripped his hair. She pressed herself up into him, coming onto her toes, and his body felt tight all over, his heart thudding against his ribs and his cock desperate for more. He caught her buttocks in his palms, a groan escaping between his teeth at the sensation, and pulled her up, closer, harder.
She lifted one leg and locked it around his hip. They touched—his mind blurred at the feel of her, so hot he could feel her bare wet sex on his erection straight through the thin fabric of his trousers.
“God,” he rasped, “oh God, I can’t—”
Her fingers were at his falls, unfastening the buttons, yanking his trousers down. Her hand closed over his length. His hips jerked convulsively, his cock sliding through the circle of her fingers.
He heard someone gasp, heard a rough low moan as their bodies slid together. Her leg around his hip opened her—he slipped easily against her folds. For a moment the head of his cock pressed against her entrance, and the sensation was nearly blinding in its pure electric pleasure. She was so hot—so wet—
“Wait,” he gasped.
“You,” she said. “That’s what I want. I want you, Spencer.”
He froze, his erection notched against her, his mind reeling. “Say it,” he ordered. “Say it again.”
“I want you. I want you inside me.”
Her words sent a searing shudder through him, and his cock slid into her, the barest half-inch, her body slick and soft and ready for him. She shivered too, pleasure passing from his body to hers, and he groaned and picked her up, lifting her above his sex.
“Not against the wall,” he said, and carried her to the bed.
He laid her down and stepped out of his trousers, peeling off his shirt before stretching out next to her on the bed. It was her bed this time—hersuite. Winnie’s. His wife’s.
He pushed her chemise slowly up her body, kissing her thighs, her mound, her belly. He slipped the delicate cotton over her head and this time he did not stop to admire her. He pulled her up against him, licking the curve of her breast, plucking at one nipple and pinching it as it tightened. He teased and sucked at her breasts until she was flat on her back, writhing, one leg splayed open to reveal her sex, pink and slick and swollen.
